The Lower Theatre at Balboura

Amongst the standing remains of Greco-roman Balboura in northern Lycia are those of two theatres (Fig. 1). The smaller and better preserved clings to the steep south slope of the acropolis hill close to the line of the Hellenistic city's defence wall. The reports of early travellers provide little useful information about the monument, concerned as they are more with Balboura's rich epigraphic material than with her architecture. Spratt and Forbes, who visited the site in 1842 during their archaeological survey of the area, wrote a brief account, and nearly half a century later Petersen and Von Luschan published without comment a single photograph of the stage building's fine retaining wall showing its heavily bossed polygonal stones and its buttresses of squared blocks. No detailed picture was available, however, until the appearance in 1969 of the second volume of de Bernardi Ferrero's monumental survey of the ancient theatres in Asia Minor.The second theatre, located in a rocky bay in the hillside at the edge of the valley three hundred metres to the south, has attracted even less attention, and understandably so, for its remains consist of little more than the foundations for the stage building which lie half buried beneath earth and debris. De Bernardi Ferrero has published several photographs but no drawings. Her brief description concentrates on the system of arches supporting the pavement of the proscenium, an unusual feature for which she cites several parallels in the area.