East Building

Running southward from the east end of the Middle Stoa is the East Building. Its eastern half takes the form of a long hall with a marble chip floor and stone slabs designed to carry wooden furniture, presumably tables (Fig. 40). The furniture supports are perhaps best interpreted as holding bankers’ or money changers’ tables and suggest that the South Square served a primarily commercial function. The western half of the building consisted of four rooms and a stairway designed to take people down to the lower (ground) level of the South Square.

Figure 40. Detail of the floor of the East Building, showing the marble slabs with cuttings for the attachment of wooden furniture, 2nd century B.C.