To the south and north of the Via Sacra are two service buildings of the sanctuary, known as Buildings H and K. Both were constructed in the 4th century BC and are characterized by a central courtyard plan.
Building H, almost square in shape (26.30 × 26 m), features a porticoed courtyard onto which fourteen square rooms (approximately 4.74 × 4.75 m) open, arranged symmetrically. The off-center placement of the doorways suggests that these rooms were designed to accommodate couches (klinai), on which men traditionally reclined during banquets. Based on the dimensions, it is possible to calculate the presence of seven couches in each room, for a total of as many as 98 places throughout the entire building. On the basis of these features, the structure has been interpreted as an hestiatorion
... read more >To the south and north of the Via Sacra are two service buildings of the sanctuary, known as Buildings H and K. Both were constructed in the 4th century BC and are characterized by a central courtyard plan.
Building H, almost square in shape (26.30 × 26 m), features a porticoed courtyard onto which fourteen square rooms (approximately 4.74 × 4.75 m) open, arranged symmetrically. The off-center placement of the doorways suggests that these rooms were designed to accommodate couches (klinai), on which men traditionally reclined during banquets. Based on the dimensions, it is possible to calculate the presence of seven couches in each room, for a total of as many as 98 places throughout the entire building. On the basis of these features, the structure has been interpreted as an hestiatorion, that is, a banqueting hall where communal meals—an integral part of the ceremonies in honor of the goddess—took place.
Building K, by contrast, consists of three wings surrounded on the south and east by an external portico, decorated with columns coated in white stucco. At the center lies a courtyard, also probably colonnaded, around which are arranged rooms that are mostly square in plan. This building was likely a katagogeion, intended to lodge and host official delegations and distinguished guests. Its construction may be connected with the choice, between the late 5th and early 4th centuries BC, of the Lacinian promontory as the meeting place of the Italiote League, which convened regularly at this site.
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