This public space emerged in the Late Hellenistic-early Roman Imperial period, and was paved in the second quarter of the 1st c. CE. During the 1st c. CE it gradually became enclosed by various public, political and religious buildings. The restored Antonine Nymphaeum, built during the second half of the 2nd c. CE, eventually came to dominate the northern end of this square, and is one of the archaeological site’s major crowd pullers.