The Great Theater

The focal point of Ephesus is the great theatre, the largest in Asia Minor, with a seating capacity of 24,000.İt dates from the early Hellenistic period, with extensive additions and reconstructions in the imperial Roman era. The auditorium extends through an angle of 220 Degrees and has a diameter of 154 meters, with a vertical rise of 38 meters from its orchestra to the uppermost tier of seats, whose middle section is still surmounted by an arcade. Two diazomata divide the auditorium into three section, the first of which have twelve radial stairways and the third twenty four.  The diameter of the orchestra, which is slightly larger than a semicircle, is about 34 meters.

The actors in ancient Greek drama originally performed alongside the chorus in the orchestra; later in the Hellenistic period, they acted on a raised stage, the proscenium, which was erected in front of the Skene, the stage building. The core of the Hellenistic Skene in the Ephesus theater remains Within the monumental stage building erected in the Imperial Roman era. This grandiose structure originally had three stories, with colonnaded frontals alternating with statues and relief's set in niches; in front of it was the broad stage, raised high above the level of the orchestra on three rows of Doric columns, whose stumps remain in place.