In every ancient polis, the theatre was a central civic institution, and Olbia Pontica cannot have proved an exception. We only know about the Olbian theatre from epigraphic evidence, and the period during which it existed is defined mainly by inscriptions because of the lack of archaeological evidence. The Olbian theatre receives a mention in four honorable decrees with the same context and in the same standard formula. All the records contain a description of someone’s benefaction and an order to proclaim a reward for their virtue during a festival of Dionysus ‘in the theatre’. They are dated from 330–320 to the second part of the third century BC.