{"id":67443,"date":"2015-02-24T10:51:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T09:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sicile-sicilia.net\/?p=67443"},"modified":"2026-10-12T17:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T16:58:07","slug":"hellenistic-roman-quarter-and-upper-agora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sicile-sicilia.net\/en\/hellenistic-roman-quarter-and-upper-agora","title":{"rendered":"Hellenistic-Roman Quarter and Upper Agora"},"content":{"rendered":"

Near the Archaeological Museum of Agrigento<\/a> are several areas of remains, including the upper agora<\/strong> and the Ekklesiasterion<\/strong> on the one hand, and the vast Hellenistic quarter<\/strong> on the other.<\/p>\n

Hellenistic-Roman Quarter<\/h2>\n

This large residential sector represents the most significant documentation of the urban history of ancient Akragas. 
All the visible monumental remains date to the late Hellenistic and Roman period<\/strong>, but deep test trenches have revealed that the plan and the urban layout already date back to the 6th century BC, between the middle and the end of the century.<\/p>\n

\"Hellenistic<\/a>

Hellenistic-Roman Quarter<\/p><\/div>\n

The city in this sector had a regular urban grid, with four North\u2013South streets, each about 5 m wide, including the Cardo I<\/strong> which also leads to the hill of the temples. These streets abutted, to the north, on a large East\u2013West street (plateia<\/strong> of the Greek period, reused as a Roman decumanus) about 11 m wide, probably the decumanus maximus<\/strong>. Part of its Roman terracotta paving can be seen today.
The urbanisation is arranged in terraces, whose orthogonal streets delimit rectangular blocks (the insulae), about 35 m wide and 280 m long. Three of these blocks are currently visible, where twenty dwellings have been identified. They are divided longitudinally, and sometimes transversally, by a narrow passage that also served for the evacuation and drainage of water.<\/p>\n

The dwellings of Hellenistic tradition<\/strong> are varied, built of cut arkose blocks. During the Roman period, particularly between the 1st and the 4th century, the quarter underwent significant transformations without, however, its overall plan being modified. 
To the 1st century BC date Hellenistic-style houses with a peristyle, built over earlier dwellings. 
In the 2nd\u20133rd centuries AD, we witness a general restructuring, in which the dominant typology becomes that of the house with a central courtyard and portico.
Painted plasters adorned the walls of the houses. The floors depended on the periods, with simple opus signinum pavements at the end of the Republican period and in the Augustan period. In the first centuries of the Empire, fine mosaic carpets appear, with monochrome geometric motifs, then in the 2nd\u20133rd centuries, polychrome figurative mosaics appear, with zoomorphic and phytomorphic representations. 
Among these dwellings, let us mention the \u201cHouse of the Peristyle\u201d on Cardo I; the \u201cHouse of the Four Seasons\u201d with a room decorated with a geometric mosaic with medallions representing the four seasons; the \u201cHouse of the Gazelle\u201d on Cardo II; the \u201cHouse of the Aphrodites\u201d; the \u201cHouse of the Abstract Master\u201d which is the richest in the whole quarter, with an atrium with a central well paved in terracotta.<\/p>\n\n\n