Ancient Theater of Thira

Ancient Thera occupies the summit of Mesa Vouno, the ridge that dominates Santorini’s southeastern coast above Kamari. Founded in the 8th century BC by Dorian colonists from Sparta under Theras, the city dispensed with a conventional acropolis, its steep position making the whole settlement its own citadel. Early defences were piecemeal, but the city prospered most under Ptolemaic rule from 288 to 145 BC, when it became a key naval base for Egypt’s Macedonian dynasty and acquired the terraced urban form still visible today. Later centuries brought Roman administration, Gothic raids, and eventual decline, though the site was reoccupied in the 7th to 8th centuries AD, when extensive Byzantine walls were built over the ancient ones and the church of Agios Stefanos rose on a ruined basilica. Abandonment followed the volcanic eruption of 726 AD, though coins from Emperor Theophilos suggest a lingering presence into the 9th century. Excavated by German archaeologists in the early 1900s, the ruins remain extensive but rather poor, with scattered houses and sanctuaries among the terraces.