Roman Theatre of Mérida Spain

Legendary

Built between 16 and 15 BC by order of the Roman consul Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa.

Photo by Kent Wang

For centuries, the only part of this theater anyone could see was a row of seven stone seats poking out of a hill. Locals called them Las Siete Sillas, the Seven Chairs, and told stories about Moorish kings sitting there to decide the fate of the city.

Everything else was buried under the earth. It stayed that way until archaeologists started digging in 1910.

The theater sits in Mérida, in western Spain. The Romans founded the city in 25 BC as Emerita Augusta, a place for retired soldiers, and made it the capital of a province called Lusitania.

A capital needed a theater. Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, the son-in-law of Emperor Augustus and one of the most powerful men in Rome, ordered one built.

Construction ran from 16 to 15 BC. An inscription carved into the theater itself records the date and Agrippa's name.

The builders set the seating against the slope of a hill to save on stone. About 6,000 people could fit into three tiers of seats, with the important citizens down front and everyone else higher up.

The stage backdrop is the part that stops people today. It rises about 17.5 meters, with two stories of marble columns and statues of gods and emperors standing between them.

That backdrop was added later, in a renovation around the end of the 1st century AD, probably under Emperor Trajan. Another remodel came around 330 to 340 AD, when a walkway was built around the outside.

Then Christianity spread, theaters fell out of favor, and this one was abandoned. Earth piled up over the seats until only the top row showed.

Digging began in 1910, and rebuilding started in 1962. In 1993 UNESCO made the theater part of the Archaeological Ensemble of Mérida, a World Heritage Site.

Since 1933, the theater has been used for what it was built for. Every summer, the Mérida International Classical Theatre Festival stages plays here under the stars.

Sit in the stone seats and look at the columned backdrop, then walk down and stand on the marble floor where the chorus once performed. Cross to the amphitheater next door, where gladiators fought in front of 15,000 people. If you visit in July or August, buy a ticket for an evening performance and watch a play the way the Romans did.