The Theater at Stobi

The well-preserved marble theater that Balduin Saria uncovered in 1924 at Stobi was thought for many years to be the only theater in the city. Following Saria’s initial campaign, the remainder of the cavea, orchestra, and scene-building, but not the parodoi, were uncovered to the present ground level by Saržo Saržovski (c. 1965-1969). From 1970 to 1981, as a member of the joint Yugoslav and American excavation project directed by Djordje Mano-Zisi and James Wiseman, Elizabeth Gebhard opened a series of deep trenches to explore the history of activity in the building. Unexpectedly and near the end of the excavations, remains of an earlier scene-building were uncovered. They revealed a predecessor with a different plan and built at a lower elevation; much of it was destroyed or incorporated into the later building. The initial construction of the theater belongs to the end of the first or beginning of the second century AD; it was completed in the middle of the century. After what appears to have been a major earthquake, placed about 300 by associated deposits, the cavea and scene-building were repaired and remodeled, and the orchestra was enclosed as a permanent arena.