Roman Theatre of Tàrraco: A Roman Performance and Civic Complex
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.1
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- Spain
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical
- Civilizations
- Roman
- Site type
- Entertainment
- Remains
- Theatre
On this page9 sections
History
The Roman Theatre of Tàrraco in Spain was built by the Romans during the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, in the late first century BC. It formed part of the monumental redevelopment of the Colony Forum and the port-facing district of Tarraco, capital of Hispania Tarraconensis, a Roman province covering much of the Iberian Peninsula. The theatre was the first of the city’s three major public entertainment buildings, followed later by the circus and amphitheatre.
Foundation and civic use
The theatre was constructed over earlier buildings, probably including port warehouses and a street bordered by shops. Its construction belonged to a wider remodelling of the waterfront, during which the warehouses were moved towards the river mouth. The Forum and Theatre complex created an urban setting for political propaganda. Processions began at the Forum and ended at the theatre, where the population gathered for performances, dances, and spectacles connected with major religious ceremonies.
Public entertainment was also tied to municipal office. Duumvirs and aediles, Roman municipal officials, were expected to pay for spectacles from their own funds. Newly appointed duumvirs financed three days of performances, while aediles paid for four days. These events could be supplemented or replaced by gladiatorial combats at the amphitheatre and chariot races at the circus.
Expansion and later transformation
The building was enlarged and repeatedly remodelled between its construction and the end of the second century AD. These changes altered both its architecture and its decorative programme, increasing its monumentality. The theatre continued to function until the end of the second century AD, when it ceased to be used for theatrical performances and was adapted for other purposes.
In the third century, a fire in the adjoining monumental area was followed by the construction of new buildings made partly from materials salvaged from the theatre. When the city became concentrated in the upper town at the beginning of the fifth century, the theatre district became marginal. It was later converted into cultivated fields and orchards, remaining in that condition until Tarragona’s expanding urban fabric reached it in the nineteenth century.
Rediscovery and protection
The theatre was rediscovered at the end of the nineteenth century, when its seating structures could still be described as relatively well preserved. Excavations in 1919 revealed the scale of its architecture and decoration. Later oil- and wine-processing installations destroyed a substantial part of the surviving structures. In the 1970s, construction companies acquired the land, but archaeological excavations carried out in 1974 before a planned building project exposed major remains, including the orchestra, stage, stage façade, first five seating rows, two radial stairways, statues, capitals, cornices, and other architectural elements.
The civic campaign known as “Save the Roman Theatre” halted the private construction project and led to the expropriation of the site, a process that lasted more than 30 years. The theatre forms part of the Archaeological Ensemble of Tàrraco, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000. It is also protected as a Spanish archaeological site, designated in 1977, and as a Cultural Asset of National Interest in Catalonia, designated in 2014. Restoration and conservation have included cleaning and arranging the site, creating an interpretive lookout, and modifying the enclosure in a first phase completed in 2010, followed by further work on the theatre and surrounding structures.
Remains
The theatre stood in the lower part of Tarraco beside the Colony Forum and near the port. Its builders used a steep natural slope to support part of the auditorium, while vaulted structures and annular cryptoporticoes, which were vaulted passages or supporting structures, carried the remaining sections. The building combined three principal parts: the cavea, or tiered auditorium; the semicircular orchestra between the seating and stage; and the scaena, the stage complex.
Auditorium and circulation
The seating was partly cut into bedrock and partly supported by vaults. The surviving lower cavea includes approximately the first five rows around the orchestra, together with two of the three radial stairways. These stairs divided the seating into wedge-shaped sectors. Intermediate and upper passageways allowed movement around the auditorium and separated the seating vertically into the ima, media, and summa sections. This arrangement reflected Roman social hierarchy, with members of the equestrian order in the lower rows and the plebs in the highest section.
The auditorium extended beyond the surviving remains and apparently reached the Capuchin convent. Earlier photographs show that the upper façade and crowning structures stood in that area, making it possible to reconstruct the theatre’s original height and general state of preservation. A drainage network connected with a large central sewer running through the orchestra and carried rainwater away.
Stage and decorative façade
The stage complex included the proscaenium, or stage proper, and rooms needed for theatrical operations. The stage rested on a raised platform called the pulpitum, whose front was decorated with curved or recessed features known as exedrae and faced with marble slabs. Holes for the curtain’s vertical supports also survive. The aulaeum, unlike a modern curtain, was lowered at the beginning of a performance and raised during intervals and at the end, using a pulley system operated from the hyposcaenium, the space beneath the stage.
Behind the stage stood the monumental scaenae frons, the architectural façade of a Roman stage. It was originally as high as the auditorium, although only its foundations survive. Three doors, or valvae, provided entrances and exits for actors. The façade probably rose through three storeys with superimposed architectural orders and was richly decorated with columns, capitals, friezes, sculptures, and niches. These niches held numerous statues of deities and members of the imperial family, represented in civilian dress or armour. Excavations in and around the theatre recovered capitals, cornices, friezes, columns, statues, and other elements of this decoration.
Orchestra and western garden
Two passageways at the ends of the stage provided access to the orchestra. This area was reserved for high-ranking spectators, including senators, imperial legates, local magistrates, and senior priests, who sat on movable chairs called subsellia or sedilia. West of the theatre lay a large landscaped area intended for privileged spectators in the orchestra and first rows.
At the centre of this area stood a monumental fountain, or nymphaeum, set against a long blind wall faced with pilasters that retained the hillside. Water flowed from the fountain into a central pool almost four metres deep, with additional fountains at its ends. Two large moulded bases flanked the central fountain and probably supported monumental marble vessels.
Associated leisure buildings
Public baths were built farther west, near the present-day Carrer de Sant Miquel. Together with the theatre and landscaped area, they formed a large leisure complex associated with the port district. The surviving remains, architectural fragments, and sculptures therefore preserve evidence of both the theatre’s performance spaces and the wider monumental environment in which it operated.
