The Temple of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian's Arch

The Olympieion, the temple of Olympian Zeus, stands in a wide archaeological area between the Acropolis hill, the National Garden and the now-buried Ilissos river. It was Athens' largest temple and one of the largest in the Greek world, but also the one with the longest and most troubled history.

Six hundred years of building

Work began around 520 BC at the wish of the sons of the tyrant Peisistratus, who wanted a temple to rival the gigantic ones of Samos and Ephesus. With the fall of the tyranny and the birth of democracy the project was abandoned: Aristotle would cite it as an example of the grand works tyrants used to keep the people busy. In 174 BC the Hellenistic king Antiochus IV of Syria resumed work, entrusting it to the Roman architect Cossutius, who chose the Corinthian order; but when the king died the temple was again left unfinished, and the Roman general Sulla, after sacking Athens in 86 BC, took some columns to Rome for the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Only Emperor Hadrian, a great admirer of Greece, completed the work and inaugurated it in AD 131-132, placing in it a colossal gold-and-ivory statue of Zeus and a statue of himself.

The temple had 104 Corinthian columns about 17 metres high, set in two rows along the long sides and three on the short sides. Fifteen still stand today; a sixteenth, felled by a storm in 1852, lies on the ground broken into its drums, showing how they were built. The temple was probably damaged in the 3rd-century invasions and then used for centuries as a marble quarry.

Hadrian's Arch

Next to the archaeological area, on the broad Amalias Avenue, rises Hadrian's Arch, built of Pentelic marble around AD 131. Its two faces carry two famous inscriptions. The one facing the Acropolis reads: "This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus"; the one facing the temple of Zeus: "This is the city of Hadrian and not of Theseus". The arch thus marked the boundary between the old city and the new district created by the emperor. The facade can be seen from outside without a ticket.

What's nearby

The archaeological area also contains remains of Roman baths, houses, a stretch of the Themistoclean walls and small sanctuaries. A few minutes' walk away are the Panathenaic Stadium, the Zappeion and the National Garden; to the west Plaka begins.

Practical information

See also the Roman Agora and Hadrian's Library, Zeus and what to see in Athens.

Olympieion on the map

Nearby