Odeon of Herodes Atticus

Built into the southwest slope of the Acropolis, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus shows Athens the Roman way: a steep semicircle of marble seats facing a stage building whose three-storey wall of arched openings still rises about 28 metres against the rock. Herodes Atticus, a rich Athenian orator and patron, completed it in AD 161 in memory of his Roman wife, Aspasia Annia Regilla, and gave it to the city. It was a concert hall for about 5,000 people, with 33 rows of seats, statues in niches, a mosaic-floored entrance portico and a roof of costly cedar from Lebanon — the largest of its time.

Its first life was short. In AD 267 the Heruli sacked Athens and left the Odeon in ruins. For centuries the tall stage front stood as a ruin; nineteenth-century photographs show it rising alone on the slope. In the 1950s the seating and orchestra were rebuilt in Pentelic marble, and the theatre was given back its purpose.

Since then the Odeon has been the main stage of the Athens Festival, and its summer evenings have a history of their own. Maria Callas sang here in 1957; Frank Sinatra gave benefit concerts for the city in 1962; Luciano Pavarotti performed in 1991 and 2004; Vangelis premiered Mythodea here in 1993. The setting is part of the performance: the lit Acropolis wall above, the arches glowing behind the stage, and the city below the hill.

Getting there

The Odeon is on the southern slope of the Acropolis in central Athens, about 1.5 km from the city centre. Athens International Airport (ATH) is about 20 km away.