The Odeon of Herodes Atticus

By day, from above

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus was built in AD 161 by the senator Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife Aspasia Annia Regilla, and it held about 5,000 spectators against the south slope of the Acropolis. From the south-slope path inside the Acropolis fence you look down into the whole structure: the tiers, the orchestra, the three-storey stage wall with its arches. The path runs along the rim of the theatre, so the view is from above and brief, about ten minutes if you stop.

You cannot go down into the seating from the Acropolis ticket. The descent into the bowl only happens with a performance ticket, which is the sole way in at ground level. Almost everyone walking up from the south entrance passes it.

By night, from inside

For about four months a year the Odeon is a working venue with a few thousand seats, and a ticket to a performance is the only way onto the tiers. The programme is the Athens Epidaurus Festival's — classical drama, opera, orchestras, and a handful of international names each summer — and it is published on the festival's own site by date. Seats are stone; cushions are sold or hired at the gate and are worth having.

And the closure nobody warns you about

There is no general admission to the Odeon. You get inside by buying a ticket to a performance, and the venue works as a theatre for the Athens Epidaurus Festival every summer. The practical consequence is that when a production is being rigged, the monument is closed to daytime visitors looking in from the Acropolis path, and through July and August that is a substantial share of days.

Your Acropolis ticket remains valid for the rest of the site. You simply will not be able to look down into the theatre that day. Nothing on the ticket page warns of this in advance, so it catches most people out.

If seeing the bowl matters to you, come early in the summer or check the festival schedule before you climb. Because access depends on the festival schedule, an Athens guided tour such as the athens walking tours listed at Athens walking tours can help you plan a climb timed to catch the theatre open.

Built for a wife, in AD 161

Herodes Atticus was an Athenian magnate, a Roman consul and the richest private citizen in Greece, and he built the Odeon in memory of his wife Aspasia Annia Regilla. It held about five thousand people, had a cedar roof over the seating — an enormous span for a Roman building — and a three-storey stage wall faced in marble. The Herulians burned it in AD 267, about a century after it opened.

What survives, and what was rebuilt

Herodes Atticus built the theatre in AD 161 for his wife Regilla, and the Roman structure you see is largely his stage wall. It stands to most of its height, and the arcading in it is the face the theatre shows the city from below. The seating is not ancient.

The tiers you sit on are a mid-twentieth-century restoration in Pentelic marble, laid on the original foundations, done as part of the 1950s work that brought the Odeon back into use. The roof was never replaced. That single decision explains the whole character of the place: it is open-air, it performs only in the summer season, and a wet evening cancels a show in a way an indoor hall never would.

What it is like

The stage wall is behind the performers and the Acropolis is directly above and behind you, floodlit, for the whole evening, which no other venue in Athens can offer. The hall seats 5,000 and the acoustics are dry and very clear, so speech and solo instruments carry without strain. Practical points worth knowing before you book.

The stone stays cold after about ten at night even in July, so take a layer. The climb to the upper tiers is steep, and the mid-twentieth-century marble rows offer no concessions to modern knees, so a lower-tier seat is worth paying the difference for if stairs are a problem. Arrive early, since the approaches through the city streets crowd badly on festival nights.