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The studies on the archaeology and topography of Athens, particularly regarding the Archaic and Classical periods, are numerous (e.g. Graindor 1928; ; Judeich 1931; Travlos 1971; Camp 2001; Greco et alii 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015) and provide significant data on individual monuments as well as the development of the city's urban layout. Research on the Hellenistic and Roman phases, on which more attention has been paid lately (e.g. Lagogianni-Georgakarakos – Papi 2018), is still limited and confined to a few contexts. For example, an organic study of one of the nerve centres of the Roman city, located along the northern slopes of the Acropolis, between the Peripatos and the north area of the river Eridanus, is still absent.
The area underwent a series of changes, starting as early as the Hellenistic period, with the construction of the Tower of the Winds, a series of shops and a stoa along the eastern side of the ancient market. But it is in the Imperial Age that the most significant architectural interventions are recorded. The most important architectural complex is the Roman Agora, which was built in an area designated for an open-air market already from the Classical period, the continuity of which is documented until the 5th century AD. Its monumentalisation took place in the Augustan period with the construction of a square closed on all four sides. This had a major impact on the urban planning and road system of Athens, through the expropriation of the oldest shops and the reorganisation of spaces. The Roman Agora, with its two monumental propyla, had a celebratory character and was conceived as a true Forum, which was deliberately linked, also for semantic reasons, to the Archaia Agora of Athens, by one of the city's main thoroughfares. In Trajan's age, the latter was further monumentalised with two stoai and a monumental arch in front of the western propylon of the Roman Agora. In the Hadrianic age, the Agora area reached its acme with the construction of the Library by Emperor Hadrian.
Building upon my recent study on the construction techniques and architectural phases of the Roman Agora complex (Mendolia forthcoming), carried out within the framework of the research of the Italian Archaeological School at Athens and with the support of the Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Athens, this contribution will attempt to outline the urbanistic developments and transformations of the Roman Agora quarter in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, through the examination of the settlement dynamics that determined the expansion and monumentalisation of the quarter itself.
