Agora and public buildings
Agrigento’s Valley of the Temples
Historical sources generally place the agora of the Greek Akragas and the forum of the Roman Agrigentum in the area between the Temple of Hercules and the hillock of San Nicola to the North. Cicero in the Verrines (In Verrem) says that the Temple of Hercules was not far from the forum and Livy tells us that the Roman army reached the forum immediately after entering the city through the Emporion Gate (Aurea Gate or Gate IV).
Thanks to the excavations carried out since the 1950s, archaeologists were able to better locate the lower agora with shops, stoa, the Gymnasium and a sacred area- and an upper agora (Poggetto San Nicola) with an ekklesiasterion (meeting place for the ekklesia or assembly of free men), the so-called Oratory of Phalaris and the bouleuterion (meeting place for the boule).