TheOdeon of Athens orOdeon of Pericles in Athens was a 4,000 m² (43,000 sq ft)odeon, built at the southeastern foot of theAcropolis inAthens, next to the entrance to theTheatre of Dionysus.

It was first built in 435 BC byPericles for the musical contests that formed part of thePanathenaea,^[1] for audiences from the theatre to shelter in case of bad weather and forchorus rehearsals.^[2] Few remains of it now survive, but it seems to have been "adorned with stone pillars" (according toVitruvius andPlutarch) and square instead of the usual circular shape for an odeon. It was covered with timber made from captured Persian ships, culminating in a square pyramid-like roof resembling a tent.Pausanias wrote that the 1st century BC rebuild of it was "said to be a copy ofXerxes' tent", and that might well have applied to the original building.

Plutarch writes that the original building had many seats and many pillars. Modern excavation work has revealed its foundations as 62.40 by 68.60 m (204.7 by 225.1 ft), and it is now known that the roof was supported by 90 internal pillars, in nine rows of ten.^[3] From a few other passages, and from the scanty remains of such edifices, we may conclude further that it had an orchestra for the chorus and a stage for the musicians (of less depth than the stage of the theatre), behind which were rooms, which were probably used for keeping the dresses and vessels, and ornaments required for religious processions. It required no shifting scenery but its stage's back-wall seems to have been permanently decorated with paintings. For example, Vitruvius writes^[4] that, in the small theatre atTralleis (which was doubtless an odeon),Apaturius of Alabanda painted the scaena with a composition so fantastic that he was compelled to remove it, and to correct it according to the truth of natural objects.

The original Odeon of Athens was burned down duringSulla's siege of Athens in theFirst Mithridatic War in 87–86 BC, either by Sulla himself^[5] or by his opponentAristion for fear that Sulla would use its timbers to storm the Acropolis.^[6] It was later fully rebuilt byAriobarzanes II of Cappadocia, using C. and M. Stallius and Menalippus as his architects.^[7] The new building was referred to byPausanias in the 2nd century AD as "the most magnificent of all the structures of the Greeks".^[8] He also refers to a "figure ofDionysus worth seeing" in an odeon in Athens,^[9] though he does not specify which odeon.

• List of ancient Greek theatres

• Böckh.Corp. Inscr. Vol. I.
• Smith, William, ed. (1875)."Odeum".A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. London: John Murray – via uchicago.edu.
• (in Spanish)Diccionario enciclopédico popular ilustrado Salvat (1906–1914)

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Odeon of Athens".Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. London: John Murray.37°58′14″N23°43′43″E / 37.9706°N 23.7287°E /37.9706; 23.7287

• Buildings and structures completed in the 5th century BC
• 435 BC
• Ancient Greek buildings and structures in Athens
• Acropolis of Athens
• Ancient Greek theatres in Greece
• Concert halls in Athens
• Burned buildings and structures in Greece

• CS1: long volume value
• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with Spanish-language sources (es)
• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities
• Coordinates on Wikidata