STOA

The Greek term for a colonnade, such as those built outside or inside temples, around dwelling-houses, gymnasia, and market-places. They were also set up separately as ornaments of the streets and open places. The simplest form is that of a roofed colonnade, with a wall on one side, which was often decorated with paintings. Thus in the market-place at Athens the stoa poecile (the Painted Colonnade) was decorated with Polygnotus' representations of the destruction of Troy, the fight of the Athenians with the Amazons, and the battles of Marathon and (Enoe. The stoa basileios, also in the market-place, in which the archon basileus sat as judge, was probably divided longitudinally into three parts by two rows of column, and was the pattern for the Roman basilica (q.v.).-Zeno of Citium taught in the stoa poecile, and his adherents accordingly obtained the name of Stoics. Among the Romans similar colonnades attached to other buildings, or built out in the open, were called porticus. They were named from the neighbouring edifices (e.g. porticus Concordioe, close to the temple of Concord); from their builders (e.g. porticus Pompeia); also from the pictures set up in them (e.g. porticus Argonautarum); and from the business chiefly carried on in them, as porticus Argentaria, the hall of the money-changers. These halls were the chief places for public intercourse among the Greeks and Romans.