Temple record / Athens, Greece
Temple of Olympian Zeus
A colossal project completed across centuries, useful for separating an Archaic foundation history from its later Hellenistic and Roman Corinthian form.
- Date
- begun 515 BCE; completed 131–132 CE
- Order
- Corinthian
- Principal material
- Marble
01
One site, several campaigns
Construction began under the Peisistratid tyranny, stopped, resumed under Antiochus IV in the second century BCE and was finally completed under Hadrian in 131–132 CE. A single date would conceal that long sequence.
02
Corinthian scale
The completed marble temple used an immense dipteral Corinthian colonnade. Surviving columns preserve the recognisable acanthus-leaf capitals and unusually tall shafts.
03
What remains
Only part of the colonnade stands today. Reconstructions should be identified as such and checked against measured archaeology rather than treated as photographs of a complete ancient building.
Sources