The Roman Theatre of Daraa

A Roman theatre in Daraa al-Balad, the old town of Daraa, about 150 metres west of the Omari Mosque. According to the Arabic Wikipedia entry it dates from the 2nd century and held about 2000 spectators. Excavation has uncovered only part of the building. It is nowhere near the scale of the theatre at Bosra, but it is one of the few traces of Adraa, the Roman town beneath modern Daraa, that can still be seen in the street. The quarter took the heaviest damage in the war, and whether the theatre can be visited today has not been verified.

What there is to see

The building described in the source has two entrances, one on the east and one on the west. On the west side 9 rows of seats are exposed and in good condition. To the north runs a road known locally as the Roman street; along the east side stand the wall remains of a Roman temple and fragments of later buildings. Roman baths of the same period were found nearby. This is less a single theatre than a small section cut through the centre of the ancient town.

What Adraa was

Adraa is the Roman name of Daraa. The town lay on the Roman road linking Bosra with the Mediterranean coast, and it was one of the towns supplied by the Gadara Aqueduct, which also fed cities of the Decapolis, a league of Roman cities in the region.

The underground city story

In the 19th century two researchers, Wetzstein in 1860 and Schumacher in 1896, described an underground city beneath Adraa connected to the aqueduct. Its people were said to draw water from the channel with jars lowered on ropes. There is no sign of it today, and modern commentary holds that both men misread features they came across while digging. It is a good story, not a place to look for.

Getting there

The theatre is in Daraa al-Balad, one street beyond the Omari Mosque. Daraa is about 117 kilometres from Damascus; the city page covers transport. No coordinates are given here: the only source placing the building is OpenStreetMap, and no independent second source was found. Asking the way around the mosque is the safest approach.

Its condition now

Daraa al-Balad was the most heavily damaged quarter of the city in the war, and as the city page notes, there is unexploded ordnance in ruined buildings. The governorate has been under the transitional government since December 2024. The present state of the theatre, whether the excavated area is open and whether there is any ticketing could not be verified. Ask locally before going, and keep out of rubble.