Rome - Theater of Marcellus

(Local Name: Teatro di Marcello) The Romans had seen in Greece how theaters with a semicircular auditorium could be built against the slope of a hill, thus avoiding the necessity of a costly building operation to provide support for the tiers of seating, and the same technique could well have been applied in Rome, which had plenty of hills. The desire to display Roman power, artistic achievement and technological skill, however, led Pompey to erect a free-standing theatre in 55 B.C. and Augustus followed his example in the theater built for his nephew and son-in-law Marcellus, predestined to be the Emperor's successor had he not died before his time. The theater, originally planned by Caesar, was begun in 13 B.C