On top of the mound, at the highest point of the site, sit the small but well-preserved remains of the Odeon and Bouleuterion of Roman Ilium — Troy IX, the last of the nine cities, which thrived as a Roman provincial town from the first century BC into late antiquity. The Odeon is a small roofed theatre with a semicircular cavea (seating) of about 60 metres diameter, used for concerts and recitations; the adjoining Bouleuterion was the meeting house of the local town council.
What makes this part of the site interesting is the perspective: standing at the back of the Odeon you look down across all the older Troys piled beneath you. The Romans, well aware they were building on the legendary site of Homer's city, made a point of preserving and commemorating older monuments. Julius Caesar visited and contributed funds to the rebuilding; the Emperor Augustus claimed direct descent from Aeneas of Troy and made the city tax-exempt. The Odeon survived the abandonment of the city around AD 500 and was finally uncovered in the early twentieth century.