Note 172 — INTRODUCTION (continued 2)

It is easy to see why he should do so. When Hellenistic theaters were made over into Graeco-Roman structures, several rows of seats were often removed, resulting in a drop of several feet between the auditorium and the orchestra (see p. 116, below, and Fig. 24). So distinct a line of demarcation could scarcely be ignored in favor of any less clearly marked boundary. In fact, the orchestra in the narrowest sense (see next note) was sometimes not indicated at all in the Graeco-Roman theaters.