The oval forum marks the spot where two roads meet, one the Cardo (the “Roman orientation”), the other the road along the hippodrome (the last part of which makes an angle, to be parallel to the front of the Zeus Temple, a “Hellenistic orientation”), coming from the Hadrian Gate. They meet under an angle, and somehow the oval forum manages to mask the fact that the angle is far from right. During digs in 1931 it was discovered the place rests on 6-8 meters high supports, which make it level. The whole seems to date from the first century AD, which fits in with the use of Ionian columns (later Corinthian columns were the column of choice).