Temple of Olympian Zeus

The Olympieion was begun around 520 BC by Hippias and Hipparchos, sons of the tyrant Peisistratos, abandoned when the family fell, restarted under a Hellenistic king, and finally completed in AD 131 by the emperor Hadrian, who filled it with a giant gold and ivory statue of Zeus and another of himself. That gives the building a construction history of roughly 638 years. It was the largest temple in Greece, 104 columns of Corinthian order standing over seventeen metres high; fifteen remain upright today and a sixteenth lies where a storm dropped it in 1852, its drums scattered like coins so you can see exactly how such a column was assembled. Beside the site stands Hadrian's Arch, inscribed on one face as the city of Theseus and on the other as the city of Hadrian.

History

An earlier temple to Zeus on the site was built by the tyrant Peisistratus around 550 BC, and after his death his sons Hippias and Hipparchos began a colossal new one around 520 BC; the work stopped when Hippias was expelled in 510 BC, with only the platform and parts of the columns done. In 174 BC the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes revived the project under the Roman architect Decimus Cossutius, with 104 columns 17 m high, but in 86 BC Sulla sacked Athens and carried some of the unfinished columns to Rome for the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline; the temple was finally completed under Hadrian in the 2nd century AD, some 638 years after it was begun, and was pillaged in a Germanic invasion in 267 AD and probably never repaired (Wikipedia, Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens).

What to look for

• The fifteen standing columns - the surviving core of the largest temple in Greece.
• The fallen column - drums lying in a row since an 1852 storm.
• Hadrian's Arch - the marble gateway at the site's edge, with its two inscriptions.
• The Acropolis view - the temple framed against the rock behind it.

When to go

Morning or late afternoon; the site is open and treeless, and midsummer midday is punishing. Winter light on the columns is excellent and the site is almost empty.

What to expect

The enclosure is essentially a large field with a group of columns, seen in half an hour. There is little shade, few explanatory signs, and the marble takes some imagination to rebuild. It is included in the combined Acropolis ticket, which makes it worth the detour.

Nearby

The Acropolis and the Plaka lie north; the National Garden begins across the road.

Key facts