odeion

odeion

Term denoting a species of theater appropriated to musical performances.

Description: Occurs first in a fragment of the comic poet Cratinus (cir. B.C. 450), with reference to the Odeum of Pericles, but it may have been in use from a much earlier time. The oldest recorded example is the skias at Sparta. Athens possessed three: that near the fountain Enneakrounos by the Ilissus, conjecturally referred to Peisistratus or Solon; ) the Odeion of Pericles, a little to the northeast of the Dionysiac Theater; the Odeion built by Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife, on the south slope of the Acropolis. This was built later than A.D. 161. Considerable remains of it still exist. The Odeion may best be regarded as the supplement to the Greek theater.

• Theater