In fact, the site was often considered the premiere theatre throughout its entire life. Regardless, the Theatre of Pompey continued to be the main location for plays, both due to its splendour and its size. įor forty years, the theatre was the only permanent theatre located in Rome, until Lucius Cornelius Balbus the Younger constructed the Theatre of Balbus in 13 BC in the Campus Martius. The show was also accompanied by gladiatorial matches featuring exotic animals. Clodius Aesopus, a renowned tragic actor, was brought out of retirement in order to act in the theatre's opening show. Two performances are associated with the dedication: Clytemnestra by Accius, and Equos Troianus either by Livius Andronicus or Gnaeus Naevius. However, Gellius preserves a letter by Cicero's freedman, Tiro that dates the dedication to 52 BC. Pliny reports its dedication in 55 BC, the year of Pompey's second consulship. The sources on the dedication are contradictory.
Pompey also had a temple to Venus Victrix built near the top of the theatre's seating Pompey then claimed that he had "not a theatre, but rather a temple of Venus to which I have added the steps of a theatre". Prior to its construction, permanent stone theatres had been forbidden, and so to side-step this issue, Pompey had the structure built in the Campus Martius, outside of the pomerium, or sacred boundary, that divided the city from the ager Romanus (the territory immediately outside the city). The theatre was inspired by Pompey's visit in 62 BC to a Greek theatre in Mytilene. Pompey paid for this theatre to gain political popularity during his second consulship. 1.3 From the Middle Ages to the present.
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