CHAPTER VI

SOUTHEAST ATHENS

THE most notable building of Southeast Athens (Figs. 87 and 88) is the Olympieum, the largest temple in Greece

and one of the largest in the ancient world; only a few temples in Magna Graecia and Asia Minor are larger. Pausanias's description is prolix and ill-articulated: "Before coming to the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus (Hadrian, the king of the Romans, dedicated both the temple and the statue, which is worth seeing, since it surpasses in size all other statues alike except the colossi of Rhodes and of Rome, and is made of ivory and gold, and, considering its size, is of good workmanship) there are two statues of

Hadrian in Thasian and two in Egyptian marble; and before the columns are bronze images which the Athenians call 'Colonies.' The entire inclosure is about four stades in circuit and full of statues; for from each city is dedicated an image of King Hadrian, and the Athenians outdid them all by dedicating the colossus, worth seeing, behind the temple. In the inclosure are some ancient works, a bronze Zeus, a temple of Cronus and Rhea, and a precinct of Earth surnamed Olympian. The ground here is cleft for about a cubit, and they say that after the flood, which occurred in the time of Deucalion, the water ran off here, and every year they cast into the chasm wheaten bread kneaded with honey. Upon a column is set up a statue of Isocrates. Here, too, are Persians of Phrygian marble supporting a bronze tripod, both men and tripod worth seeing. They say that Deucalion built the ancient sanctuary of Olympian Zeus, and they point out, as proof of the fact that Deucalion lived at Athens, a grave not far distant from the present temple." Here follows the enumeration of Hadrian's other buildings in Athens, which have been discussed in another connection (pp. 144, 148).

Excavation in the central area of the Olympieum revealed a primitive cross-wall, which may belong to the sanctuary ascribed by tradition to Deucalion. Other walls which were found have been thought to be a part of the great temple begun by Peisistratus about 530 B.C.; this is the work at which, according to Aristotle, Peisistratus kept the people busy for years, after the manner of the builders of the pyramids of Egypt and the works of the tyrants of Corinth and Samos, so as to prevent their murmuring over his rule. The cella of this temple was of a slightly different orientation from that of the later buildings; it is estimated to have been 116 by 50 feet in dimensions. It was doubtless Doric

in style; several unfluted drums of the columns have been found, one of them 7.5 feet in diameter. The architects were Antistates, Callaeschrus, Antimachides, and Pormus (or Porinus); this we learn from Vitruvius (7, praef. 15).

The end of the tyranny stopped work on the temple, and for nearly seven centuries it stood unfinished. No mention of it, further than the name, is found in literature of the classic period. About 174 B.C. the task was resumed by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, king of Syria, who employed the Roman architect Cossutius to design a temple on a larger scale and of the Corinthian order. Judging from their style, - though not all critics are agreed in the matter, the extant remains seem to be the work of Cossutius; but again the temple was left unfinished, though well advanced, as the praise of Vitruvius shows. Livy speaks of it (41, 20, 8) as unum in terris inchoatum pro magnitudine dei, but Lucian makes Zeus ask impatiently (Icaromen. 24) "if the Athenians mean to finish his Olympieum;" and other writers speak of it as half-done. Sulla carried off some of the columns, perhaps from the inside of the cella, to rebuild the Capitoline temple of Jupiter at Rome. A proposal to complete the building was brought forward in the time of Augustus, but abandoned.

The temple was finally finished by the emperor Hadrian and dedicated in 130 or 131 A.D. The sophist Polemo delivered the dedicatory address in the emperor's presence, and a serpent from India was consecrated in the sanctuary. How much of the structure Hadrian built cannot now be determined; probably at least the interior colonnades, the roof and the decorations, perhaps the entire cella, and certainly the enormous statue of the god.

On its upper step the temple (Fig. 88) measured 354 by 135 feet, and its height was upwards of 90 feet. The two

lower of its three steps were of poros, but the upper step and, so far as we know, the remainder of the temple was of Pentelic marble. At present only sixteen columns remain, one of these lying prostrate (Fig. 89) as the result of a hurricane in 1852. "There it still lies with its vast drums.

of solid Pentelic marble shuffled under one another like so many cards spread to choose a partner; a sight well fitted to excite astonishment in these days of lath and plaster."1 An American minister,2 who had an estimate made some years ago of the probable expense of reërecting the column, found that this task alone would cost about $3000, an estimate which affords a slight basis for reckoning the total cost of the temple. A seventeenth column was burned by

1 Dyer, Ancient Athens, p. 276.

2 Mr. Tuckerman; see his The Greeks of To-day, ed. 3, p. 81.