Roman Theatre at Bosra

Bosra, in the Hauran plain of southern Syria, was the northern capital of the Nabataeans and then, after Trajan annexed their kingdom in 106 AD, the capital of the Roman province of Arabia, a trading city on the road from Damascus to the Red Sea. Its theatre is one of the largest and most completely preserved of the Roman world: a hemicycle about 102 metres across, with seats for something like 17,000 spectators, built in the second century AD. Scholars still argue over the exact reign, but the building itself leaves little to the imagination.

What makes it unforgettable is the stone. Everything, from the stepped seating to the columns of the stage front, is black basalt, the volcanic rock of the Hauran, so the whole bowl reads as a single dark, grainy mass against the sky. The stage wall still stands with its columns, a rarity among ancient theatres, and the seating rises in an unbroken sweep behind the orchestra. Standing on the stage, you get a sense of what a Roman audience actually saw, rather than the usual ruin of steps with a fallen wall in front.

The theatre owes its survival to a second life as a fortress. It was built outside the town walls, and in the Middle Ages, as Bosra guarded the southern approach to Damascus and the pilgrim road to Mecca and Medina, successive rulers wrapped it in fortifications; under the Ayyubids it was entirely enclosed within a citadel. From outside, you approach what looks like a castle and only inside discover the auditorium. Sand that filled the interior over the centuries also protected it, and it was cleared and restored between 1947 and 1970.

The theatre is the centrepiece of the Ancient City of Bosra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, where Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic buildings, among them the remains of a sixth-century cathedral, stand among the houses of the living town.

Getting there

Bosra lies in the Daraa Governorate in southern Syria, about 23 km from the city of As-Suwayda. The nearest airports by distance are Amman Civil (Marka) Airport (ADJ) in Jordan, about 76 km away, and Damascus International Airport (DAM), about 99 km away; within Syria the town is reached by road south from Damascus through the Hauran.