The stadion of Labraunda

Abstract

The stadion of Labraunda is situated south-west of the sanctuary, above the Sacred Way down to Mylasa. As the terrain is not well suited for a stadion the ends had to be elongated by the addition of built-up ‘towers’; nevertheless the racecourse was rather short at 172 metres. It is situated on a slight slope, and in the middle of the northern side there are cuttings in the rock that may have been used for spectators; otherwise there are no provisions for such. There is a line of starting blocks at either end, more or less in their original place, although few of the blocks are exactly in situ and some of them are missing. They are large blocks and have one single continuous groove for the toes of the runner and square holes that separate the lanes. Evidently the number of lanes was 14, and each line was 1.38 m wide. There is nothing that can give an exact date of the establishment, but the outline of the wall structure as well as the historical evidence suggest the Hecatomnid period and the festival programme of Mausolus in the middle of the 4th century BC.