The Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios (fig. 3), constructed around 430 B.C.E., received a small annex connected to the back of the building (fig. 5) sometime during the early part of the first century C.E.   Part of the hill behind the stoa had to be excavated to allow space for the annex, which consisted of two small rooms.  The new addition is approximately 17 meters by 15 meters with a partition dividing it into two rooms.  A monumental statue base was found in the south room and one is hypothesized for the north room as well.

The poor building materials of the annex have led most scholars to think the building was funded by the citizens of Athens, and served as a home for the imperial cult in the Agora.  This site would not have been unusual for a cult center.  It was common for Greek cities to use existing buildings to house shrines to the imperial family.   In fact, the site of an imperial cult center should be located in or near the Agora, as almost all the altars dedicated to Augustus were found in that area.

Thompson believed the shrine was for Augustus himself, because the stoa was a venerable civic focus and because of the remnants of a long base for three statues in the south room.  It would seem possible that Augustus, Gaius, and Lucius may have appeared in such a statue group as they did at Corinth in the Julian Basilica.  Some reconstructions of the dedication (Agora I 4268) support this.  Camp also notes that Augustus bore the epithet "Eleutherios," which Hadrian later adopted as well.  The evidence is not conclusive, however.  If the Athenians built it, Schmalz’ suggestion that half the annex was an imperial shrine to Augustus, Gaius, and Lucius, while the other was for "a strictly Athenian group of figures," may prove correct.
 

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