Athenian Agora - The Stoa of Attalos

The Stoa of Attalos, restored to its former glory in the 1950s and now housing the Agora Museum, dominates the east side of the Agora. (left center) It was originally built by Attalos II, who ruled the Hellenistic kingdom of Pergamon (on the west coast of modern Turkey) from 159-138 BC.

Like his older brother Eumenes, who also dedicated a stoa to the city of Athens (the Stoa of Eumenes on the South Slope of the Acropolis), Attalos II had studied in Athens.

When Eumenes died, Attalos married his widow and became king. An inscription on the architrave of the Stoa of Attalos gives the name of its benefactor: ‘King Attalos, son of King Attalos and Queen Apollonis, built the stoa … to the demos of the Athenians.’ In front of the Stoa a ‘Donor’s monument’ was set up, consisting of a high stone base, reaching to the second storey, that would have carried a bronze quadriga (chariot with four horses).

The Stoa of Attalos is an impressive rectangular building, 116 m long and 20 m deep, with two storeys. Each of these storeys has two rows of 45 columns. On the bottom floor, the outer row is in the Doric order, and the inner one in the Ionic order. Upstairs (not accessible) there are Ionic columns along the balustrade and so-called Pergamene columns inside. The latter do not belong to the traditional Greek orders, but have stylized palm leaves and are based on Egyptian prototypes. Each storey also had 21 rooms against the back wall, which were rented out by the state as shops. The Stoa of Attalos may therefore be considered as the first ‘shopping mall’.

The fact that the Stoa was intended to be used by large numbers of people is reflected in its design. The bottom parts of the exterior columns, for instance, were smooth instead of fluted, as the coming and going crowds were liable to damage and chip the fragile channels. The interior columns were not fluted at all, because their position away from the light anyway precluded the play of sun and shadow. Aside from shopping, the Stoa was also used for promenades and for watching the Panathenaic procession, which followed the Panathenaic Street that runs just in front of it.

The Stoa of Attalos was destroyed in the Herulian invasion of 267 AD, except for portions of its back wall. The northeast corner shows an original section (to be seen from outside the Agora), with a row of beam holes from the Medieval houses that were once built up against it.
The Stoa was restored accurately in 1953-56 with private money from the United States. Marble from the ancient quarries on Mount Pentele was employed and limestone from Piraeus (and reinforced concrete for non-visible parts). In its present form it gives a good idea of what other Hellenistic stoas would have looked like.

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