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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Theatre
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The theater was anciently in the open air; semicircular; the seats in tiers above one another the stage on a level with the lowest seats. Besides the performance of dramas, public meetings were often in the theater, as being large enough almost to receive "the whole city" (); so at Ephesus the theater was the scene of the tumultuous meeting excited by Demetrius. The remains of this theater still attest its vast size and convenient position. (See EPHESUS; DIANA.) In "spectacle" is literally, "theatrical spectacle," a spectacle in which the world above and below is the theater, and angels and men the spectators. , "made a "gazing stock" (theatrizomenoi) by afflictions"; as criminals often were exhibited to amuse the populace in the amphitheater, and "set forth last" in the show to fight with wild beasts (Tertullian, de Pudicitia, 14): . In the theater Herod Agrippa I (-23; Josephus, Ant. 19:8, section 2) gave audience to the Tyrian envoys, and was struck dead by God.