The starting point of this new study by Markus Wolf is the agora of Solunt in Sicily, which has been investigated through an architecturalsurvey of the whole site and of all its preserved architectural components in order to offer new reconstruction proposals of the buildings. So the agora located on an elongated terrace on the slope of the hill was framed by a two storey U shaped winged stoa which was used for a variety of both administrative and sacral purposes. A roofed public cistern was annexed to the north and further up on the slope on the terrace of the theatre there was the “Odeon”, a bouleuterion, and an open air sacred enclosure, the so called rectangular building. The treatment of the slopes and the organization of the different levels for various purposes can be considered the most peculiar characteristic of the agora of Solunt. The reorganization of the public city center took place around the middle of the 2nd century BC. Following the 1997 publication of the theatre of Solunt by Armin Wiegand which appeared in the 12th volume of the Sonderschriften, the discussion of the other buildings completes our knowledge of the appearance of the public space of the city. A comprehensive comparative section presents a discussion of this agora and its buildings within the wider picture of the architecture of stoas and bouleuteria as well as of public spaces in southern Italy and Sicily. While the research of the German Archaeological Institute in Magna Graecia had mainly been concentrated on the archaic and classical period, now for the first time the research in this region focuses on the public architecture of the late Hellenistic age. The framing of the agora with public buildings and more specifically with stoas is attested in the most ancient, archaic example of Megara Hyblaea and is then subsequently established in all the Hellenistic agorai, as it is evident in the Sicilian examples of Halaesa, Iaitas, Segesta, Morgantina and Kamarina, where the stoas, as it is the case in Solunt, define and regularly circumscribe the borders of the square.Furthermore, the work makes a comparison with similar complexes in the Greek motherland as well in Asia Minor, in order to obtain a comprehensive picture and a new perspective on the public architecture of the Hellenistic age. Moving from the analysis of the monuments, this study offers an important base for further investigations on the Hellenistic era also from the point of view of other disciplines, such as classical archaeology or ancient history. weiterlesen