Roman Theatre Volterra: An Augustan Roman Performance Building in Italy
Site at a Glance
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- Italy
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical
- Civilizations
- Roman
- Site type
- Entertainment
- Remains
- Theatre
On this page12 sections
History
Roman Theatre Volterra is a Roman theatre in Italy, built at the end of the 1st century BC during the Augustan period, the reign and political era of Augustus from 27 BC to AD 14. Funded by the prominent Volterran Caecina family, it brought Roman monumental architecture to an area immediately outside the Etruscan city walls.
Foundation in the Augustan period
The precise construction date remains debated. Proposed dates range from 35 to 25 BC, around 1 BC, the end of the 1st century BC, and the later Augustan period. Part of the disagreement concerns the chronology of the consulships held by the two Caecinae associated with the building.
A dedicatory inscription, now kept in the Guarnacci Etruscan Museum, names Gaius Caecina Largus and Aulus Caecina Severus as the theatre’s dedicators. Aulus Caecina Severus was consul in 2 to 1 BC. The theatre occupied previously undeveloped ground in the Vallebuona valley, on the northern slope of the hill and immediately beyond the Etruscan fortifications. Medieval sources called this suburban area the Forum.
Changing uses in the Roman period
During the 2nd century AD, the theatre appears to have been adapted for munera, public gladiatorial combats presented as spectacles in the Roman world. In the Claudian period, a colonnaded space behind the stage, known as the porticus post scaenam, was created through major infilling and terracing.
After the theatre’s monumental phase, a public bathing installation was established within or behind this rear portico between the late 3rd and early 4th centuries AD. The theatre then fell out of use. In the medieval period, the city walls incorporated the wall that closed the upper part of the auditorium.
Rediscovery and excavation
Interest in the buried remains began in the modern period. In 1817, the commune sought to excavate a site thought to contain an amphitheatre. Work associated with enlarging the hippodrome exposed a semicircular wall and vaulted structures in 1841, but local antiquarians continued to debate whether the building had been a theatre or an amphitheatre.
Earthmoving for a sports field brought substantial Roman remains to light in 1941. Systematic excavation was planned in 1950 and carried out from 1950 to 1953 under Enrico Fiumi, a Volterran historian, economist, honorary inspector of antiquities and fine arts, and director of the Guarnacci Etruscan Museum.
Patients from Volterra’s Psychiatric Hospital took part in the work with assistant nurses. The hospital treated the labour as ergotherapy, the use of purposeful work in psychiatric treatment. The initial group comprised six patients and two nurses, later joined by six more patients. The museum insured the workers and paid them modest wages. A plaque honouring the participating patients was installed in 1952, while the city added a plaque commemorating Fiumi in 1993.
Fiumi’s excavations revealed the semicircular course of the auditorium, set against the hillside with its lateral ends bounded by natural rock. This evidence strongly supported the identification of the building as a theatre. Earlier antiquarian references to a Volterran amphitheatre had in fact referred to this structure, while a separate true amphitheatre was reportedly identified only in 2015. The ancient remains now belong to an archaeological area and are occasionally used for summer theatrical performances. An international annual festival founded and directed by actor and director Simone Migliorini continues the site’s association with theatre.
Remains
The theatre occupies the Vallebuona valley on the hill’s northern slope, immediately outside the Etruscan walls and beyond Porta Fiorentina. It was partly cut into the natural slope, a method associated with Greek theatres, while the ends of the auditorium rest on natural bedrock. Access was arranged from the upper side. Earlier terraces had been built here around the 2nd century BC, after the area had previously contained works supporting the steep slope.
Auditorium and stage building
Cavea
The cavea, the auditorium containing the spectators’ seats, measures approximately 60 metres across. It had 24 steps and could hold about 3,500 people. Its upper section, the summa cavea, followed approximately the line later occupied by the medieval wall.
The seats were made from local Pignano tufa, a limestone used in the auditorium. Some bear inscriptions naming members of influential Roman families from Volterra, including the Caecinae, Persii, and Laelii. Parts of the radial stairways survive, constructed from stone quarried at Montecatini Val di Cecina.
Stage façade and orchestra
The scaenae frons, the monumental façade behind the stage, was 35.98 metres long, or 122 Roman feet, and rose more than 16 metres through two levels of columns. Its unusually elaborate Augustan design included a large curved central niche behind the principal doorway to rooms behind the stage. Corinthian columns more than five metres high stood on both levels.
Statues of the emperor Augustus and the empress Livia decorated the façade. Heads from three statues were recovered during excavation and are now in the Guarnacci Etruscan Museum. Structural pieces found in their original positions were used to reconstruct the surviving two-storey section in the late 1970s. In front of the façade, the orchestra, the area between the stage and the auditorium, was paved with coloured marble.
Velarium
A velarium, a large retractable awning for shading spectators, could be drawn over the auditorium. Ropes, poles, and corbels around the cavea supported the system. Several corbels survive in good condition, including the holes that held the poles.
Earlier remains and rear structures
Hellenistic substructures
Hellenistic-period substructures lie beneath the theatre. They are associated with hydraulic installations and probably relate to the cult of springs. Above the theatre, at the site of Piazza Pescheria, a temple stood that was renewed during the 2nd century BC.
Infilling in the upper auditorium produced a substantial assemblage of Etruscan materials dating from the Final Bronze Age to the Late Archaic period. These objects provide evidence for the material culture of Etruscan Volterra.
Rear portico and bathing installation
Behind the stage was the porticus post scaenam, a colonnaded rear space formed during the Claudian period through extensive filling and terracing. Between the late 3rd and early 4th centuries AD, a public bathing installation was created within or behind this area. These later structures belong to the period after the theatre’s monumental use.
