The Temple of Zeus at Olympia

The god at the centre

The Temple of Zeus was the great temple of Olympia, the sanctuary, or holy ground, of the god Zeus. The east end of the temple carried a pediment, the triangle of sculpture under the roof.

That pediment shows a chariot race about to begin. Zeus stands at the centre, above the temple entrance. On one side are the hero Pelops and Hippodameia. On the other are Oinomaos and Sterope. Horses and attendants wait behind them.

Pelops will race Oinomaos to win Hippodameia. This contest is part of the ancient stories told to explain the Olympic Games. So the scene ties the building to Olympia’s founding story. The temple does not show the moment of victory. It holds both sides in the pause before the race, under the god to whom the sanctuary belongs.

What Libon built

The temple was built around 476 to 457 BC in the Doric style, one of the Greek styles of columns. The ancient writer Pausanias names Libon of Elis as its architect. He says that local stone was used, and that the roof tiles were cut from Pentelic marble, from Mount Pentelikon. A row of columns ran around the building, with six across each end and 13 along each side.

It was not Olympia’s first holy building. It rose inside the Altis, the sacred grove of Zeus, near older places of worship and the walled tomb of Pelops. Its size gave the sanctuary of the Classical age a new centre. But not everything done for Zeus happened inside it. Sacrifice took place at a separate altar of ash, and athletes swore their oath in the Council Chamber.

So the temple had a clear purpose. It housed the god’s statue and carried a set of myths in sculpture. It was one part of a larger sanctuary, not a home for everything done at Olympia.

Three sets of sculpture

The east pediment showed Pelops and Oinomaos before their race. The west pediment showed the fight at the wedding of Pirithous. There the Centaurs attacked the Lapiths, two peoples of myth, and the god Apollo stood at the centre. This fight is called the Centauromachy.

Between these two broad triangles were the metopes, carved square panels above the doors. They showed the Labours of Heracles, the series of tasks the hero carried out.

Each place gave its story a different form. The east held a contest about to begin. The west pressed a violent struggle around a calm god at the centre. The metopes split the Labours into separate scenes, each fitted into its own panel.

The metopes were carved in Parian marble, from the island of Paros. Together with the figures from the pediments, they are now a main part of the collection of the Archaeological Museum of Olympia.

What Pheidias added inside

The huge seated statue of Zeus was made after the temple, around 430 BC. The sculptor Pheidias made it of gold and ivory. The figure stood more than 12 metres high. His workshop stood outside the Altis, opposite the temple. A church was later built over its remains.

Pausanias describes the lost statue in detail. Zeus wore a garland of olive. He held a gold and ivory figure of Victory in his right hand and a sceptre topped by an eagle in his left. Figures covered the throne, the footstool, the screens and the base, so more stories surrounded the seated god.

The statue needed care. A rim around the dark floor in front of it held olive oil. Pausanias says the oil protected the ivory from the damp of the Altis. So the wonder was also an object that had to be looked after, and its survival depended on work done again and again inside the temple.

What remains together and apart

The statue of Zeus is gone. The temple survives as fallen stone and standing foundations, and its sculpture is kept in the site museum. Across the sanctuary, the remains of the workshop of Pheidias mark where the lost figure was made.

This split changes how visitors meet the building, but it does not erase the sculpture’s plan. The ground plan fixes the temple inside the Altis. The museum keeps the pediments and metopes near the place they were carved for. Pausanias supplies the seated figure that neither the site nor the museum can show.

The temple was more than the old room of a lost wonder. Its building brought three sets of myth together: Pelops before the race, the Lapiths under attack and Heracles moving from one labour to the next. The missing statue stood inside that structure, and did not replace it.