In ancient times, the word agora meant two types of places: the political centre of a city, where the buildings belonging to the public sphere were located and where important matters of city policy were discussed, or the centre of trade and services. The Agora of Smyrna, the remains of which can be visited in Izmir, belonged to the first of these categories.

The Agora in Smyrna was founded in the 4th century BCE, but most of the preserved structures date back to later times, to the Roman period, when it was rebuilt after the earthquake of 178 CE. Its reconstruction was financially supported by Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself.

The agora was built on a rectangular plan and surrounded by stoas, i.e. elongated columned halls. In the centre, there was a large courtyard.

From an architectural point of view, the northern stoa is a rectangular basilica measuring 165 meters by 28 meters. Its cross vaults, which have survived to this day, are one of the most beautiful examples of Roman architecture.

The western stoa was a two-story structure that served, in the ancient times, as a place for walking, sheltered from the sun and rain. In the late Roman period, its lower storey was rebuilt to serve as cisterns (water reservoirs).

Ancient Smyrna was built on a plan consistent with the assumptions of the so-called Hippodamus system, likely created, or at least ppopularised, by Hippodamus of Miletus in the 5th century BCE. This system assumed that the streets of the city would intersect at right angles, and in the center there would be an agora and an acropolis.

This is how Smyrna looked like in ancient times, and its agora was crossed from east to west by one of the main city avenues. A magnificent gate has survived to this day, where this avenue reached the agora from the west. In the central part of the northern arch of the gate, there is a relief depicting the face of Faustina the Younger - the wife of Marcus Aurelius. For this reason, this gate is called the Faustina Gate.

In Ottoman times, the Agora was used as a cemetery. Thanks to this, as a place of prayer (so-called namazgah) it was protected from treasure hunters and smugglers of antiquities. The project of restoring its glory and making it available to visitors began in 1932 and continues to this day, currently carried out by the Archaeological Museum in Izmir.