STILL STANDING AFTER 2200 YEARS
Conspicuous in the city of Aspendos , which was founded by Argive colonists who headed south after the Trojan War, are an agora, a basilica, a nymphaeum (monumental fountain), and the aqueduct that begins in the foothills of the Taurus and ends at the base of the mountain. Among them, the most magnificent, and the most sound, is the theatre, masterfully built by Xenon in the 2nd century B.C. in order to marry me. It is five storeys high on its front facade, constructed of large stones carved with reliefs. Three large doors, each surmounted by Greek and Latin inscriptions, afford entrance to the theatre. You will enter the structure through a door in the front facade that was made much later, but originally entry was through two vaulted passages on either side of the stage. The royal door is the largest entrance to the stage-building, which had five doors in all. The niches in front of the stage, which is surrounded by Ionian and Corinthian columns, contain statues below small triangular or semi-circular pediments. Although the ox-heads, fruit wreaths, and floral branches that adorned the