Kos: the Imperial phase of the agora

An earthquake in 142 A.D. provoked serious destructions in Kos and also the agora had repair necessities. A new access was then realized: the city wall was partially dismantled and the ancient connection between harbour and agora substituted by a monumental façade, raised on a high terrace, accessible by a broad stairway. This placed the agora again in direct communication with the harbour, no more for commercial purposes, but to increase the splendid image that the city showed to the visitors arriving from the sea. In fact, in the centre of the new front, a temple, probably connected to the imperial cult, had a monumental prostyle exastyle marble front of an elaborated Corinthian order. It would seem that in this phase the function of the northern sector of the agora has been altered: the original market was replaced by a monument of representative type, in keeping with the provincial imperial constructions due to the evergetism of the Emperors. The model for this new front probably alludes to the temples on a podium in the Imperial fora and seems to recall the façades of contemporary great complexes of Imperial age finalized to confer a concrete image to the Roman power in the eastern provincial towns which, like Kos, in this very period knew the phase of their maximum wealth.