The colonnaded walks of the portico enclosed the Temples of Juno Regina (north) and Jupiter Stator (south), as well as a library.

After celebrating his triumph for his 146 BC victory at Scarpheia during the Achaean War, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus constructed a portico around M. Aemilius Lepidus's Temple of Juno Regina, near the Circus Flaminius in the southern Campus Martius and erected a new Temple of Jupiter Stator beside it.

Cassius Dio stated that this was done in 33 BC from the spoils of the war in Dalmatia out of confusion with the adjacent Portico of Octavius (Porticus Octavia), which was similarly refurbished and rededicated by Augustus and his stepbrother L. Marcius Philippus.

It was adorned with foreign marble and contained many famous works of art, enumerated in Pliny's Natural History.

The church of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria was built on its ruins c. 770,[citation needed] the name commemorating the portico's medieval and early modern role as a fish market.