STOA
(STOH-uh)
An
ancient Greek covered walk or colonnade
Common
clues: Ancient
Greek portico; Plato's covered walk; Classical meeting site;
Greek colonnade; Greek porch; Aristotle's walkway; Zeno's
platform
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
6 times a year
Video:
Hephaesteion,
Athens
Now
I must present myself at the stoa of the Basileus to answer the
indictment which Meletos has brought against me ~ Plato
quoting Socrates in his dialogue Thaetetus
In
ancient Greece stoas, or an extended roofed colonnades, would
surround agoras, or marketplaces, of every large city. Stoas
were often quite large usually having columns on one side and a
wall on the other.
The
Stoa of Attalos (also spelled Attalus) is one of the most
impressive buildings in the Athenian Agora. It was built by and
named after King Attalos II of Pergamon between 159 and 138 BCE.
Typical of the Hellenistic Age, the stoa was elaborate and
enormous compared to the earlier building in Athens. The stoa is
115 by 20 meters and comprised of Pentelic marble and limestone.
Surprisingly, the Doric order was used for the ground floor with
Ionic columns on the inside. The interior order of the upper
floor was the new Pergamene order common in that period. The stoa
was in frequent use until it was destroyed by the Herulians in
267AD. The ruins became part of a fortification wall, which made
it easily seen in modern times. In the 1940s, the Stoa of Attalos
was fully reconstructed and made into a museum.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Stoa of Attalos".
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