The excavation of 2009, carried out in the theatre of the ancient city of Hadrianopolis, aimed at understanding the building techniques, construction period and the monument’s phases of use. The material revealed during the excavation (mostly artifacts and architectonic elements), show that the theatre is a construction of the first half of the 2nd Century AD. Therefore, it’s probably that the construction of the monument begun at the end of the reign of Hadrian.
The Roman historian Dio Cassius, reports the Emperor’s interest in the constructions of magnificent public buildings, however, not many of the theatres of the Roman world, could be attributed with certainty to Hadrian.
The building technique of stone blocks bonded with mortar, the grounding of theatre’s cavea on artificial soil layers, and its structural association with the scaena, indicate that the theatre belongs to the Roman building tradition.
The plan of the orchestra, the shape of the cavea, exceeding the standard semicircular form, as well as the size and the shape of scaena (narrow and slightly disjointed from the cavea), are similar to those of the ancient Hellenistic theatres found in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. The presence in the theatre of Hadrianopolis of various architectonic features, originating from Greek and Roman tradition, appears to follow the same examples as in the other theatres of the region.
In the subsequent later periods, the theatre underwent major changes, and it is likely that during the Byzantine period, this construction was used as an urban stronghold.