Image Details

Corbis

All kinds of valuable goods—olive oil, wheat, salted fish, precious gems, ivory, slaves and exotic animals—changed hands at Leptis Magna’s Standing Market (shown here, compare with photo of basilica), built in the last decade B.C.E. A pair of circular market halls set in octagonal porticoes stood at the center of an open rectangular space, which was enclosed by a portico added around 35 C.E. The prosperous merchants of Leptis Magna displayed their wares on stone benches set among the columns of the porticoes.