ABSTRACT
At Phaistos ten tiers, 25 metres long, rise against a back wall and look towards the hills. They overlook a flagged court crossed obliquely by a pathway raised 20 centimetres above the ground. Such is the most ancient theatre known; it dates from M.M.II. There is another at Knossos, N.E. of the palace. It shows considerable progress, for it has two sets of tiers at a right angle, eighteen tiers, 10 metres long, on one side and six, varying between 6 metres and 16"50, on the other. In the corner stands a kind of bastion, which is taken to be the royal box. As at Phaistos the arena is a cemented floor, with a pathway. Each of these two enclosures could hold between 400 and 500 spectators. These court theatres are perhaps the most original creation of Crete. 2 There was never anything like them in Pharaonic Egypt, and Athens itself had no theatre of stone until the days of its greatest splendour.
