Ancient Marble Theater in Trypiti, Milos Island
The ancient marble theater appears to have been built on foundations of the Hellenistic period. Bearing a striking similarity to that of Ephesus in Asia Minor, the ancient theater was excavated by the Bavarian architect Carl Haller von Hallerstein, who first read of the theater's existence in an Egyptian newspaper in 1816. Von Hallerstein, architec
t, painter and archaeologist, sought and obtained the approval of Ludwig, Crown Prince and subsequently King of Bavaria, to come to the island to study the theater in 1817. Von Hallerstein also persuaded the Crown Prince to buy the land on which the monument stood in order to carry out his excavations unimpeded. He carried out an excavation of the theater, studied it, drew it, and wanted to continue his research, but local conditions did not permit continuation of his project and he left the island after a year, having accumulated a great deal of material from his scholarly research in the minutes of excavation of 55 pages and in his many letters to Ludwig. When the Vénus de Milo (Aphrodite of Milos) was discovered 4 years later in a field near the theater, Ludwig claimed -albeit unsuccessfully- the statue from France, on the grounds that it had been found on his property. Later, in 1836, Ludwig, now as King, came to Milos together with his son Othon (Otto) King of Greece, to whom he ceded the theater at that time. Roughly a century later, during WWI, when the French used Milos as a naval base, the French military governor of the island carried out a further cleaning up of the theater to make it accessible to the public and put it to use for various events such as displays by schoolchildren from the nearby Trypiti school, wrestling matches of the then (1930) Milos Sportsmen’s Union, and, more recently, theatrical performances, concerts, etc. Today the ancient marble theater of Milos retains only seven tiers of seats, with an audience capacity of about 700. A cavea directly above, stripped of its marble seats, seems capable to have accommodated ten times that number. Various architectural findings from the stage, of exceptional artistry and with Asia Minor influences strongly reminiscent of the theater of Ephesus, remained scattered over the excavated orchestra up until recently, when the latest efforts by the Archaeology Dept.
