The large stoa that borders the Panathenaic Way on its southern side is commonly known as the Double Stoa (fig 3). The stoa stretched more than 70 meters from the northwest corner of the Agora towards the Dipylon Gate and was over 15 meters deep. On the opposite side of the structure, another open colonnade faced a smaller Market Road extending from the Sacred Gate to the Double Stoa’s propylon at the edge of the Agora. The colonnade on the northern side was the grander of the two and had a larger colonnade built with good quality limestone, while the southern side was constructed of poros columns on poros steps. In fact, the southern colonnade, constructed from inferior parts, had a wider intercolumnar spacing (requiring fewer columns), and was built nearly one half meter below the level of the floor on the other side. Many of the materials used in the construction of the building came from the Hellenistic Arsenal destroyed by Sulla in 86 B.C.E.
Later construction on the stoa makes the chronology of the building somewhat confusing, but an early Roman date has been assumed. It may have been in use longer than any other structure in the Agora, still in use at the time of the Slavic invasion of the 580’s C.E. Its covered propylon on the east side served as the only outlet for the Market Road that terminated behind it and was useful in hiding the northwest corner of the Royal Stoa from street traffic. The Market Road itself was probably an Augustan era creation, built to alleviate traffic on the Panathenaic Way. The stoa was surely one of the ones Pausanias mentions upon entering the city from the Dipylon Gate.
There also was a northern Doric colonnade perhaps among those mentioned by Pausanias, facing the Double Stoa across the Panathenaic Way (fig. 3), but only its southeastern side survives. These stoas helped to convert the approach to the Agora into an elaborate colonnade and whether or not they played a part of "some modest form of building competition along the northern approaches of the Agora," they were effective additions enhancing the entry into the city and provided permanent shop spaces and protection from the elements during the Panathenaic festival procession."There are porticoes from the gate to the Cerameicus, and in front of them bronze statues of both men and women, those who had title to fame."