Temple of Olympian Zeus Audio Guide

Temple of Olympian Zeus: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Temple of Olympian Zeus

   Welcome to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, also called the Olympieion, a colossal temple in the very center of Athens, now in ruins. You are standing in the middle of a modern capital, with traffic humming around you, and yet marble columns rise above the trees as if the city had been built around them. In a way, it was. The temple lies about 500 meters south-east of the Acropolis, roughly between the Acropolis and the hill of Ardittos. It is about 700 meters south of Syntagma Square. It was dedicated to Zeus in his role as Olympian Zeus, a name that comes from his position as head of the Olympian gods. Over the next few stops we will follow the long, stop-and-start story of this building. It took more than seven centuries to complete. We will look at the scale of the temple, the emperor who finally finished it, and the strange afterlife of its columns. Take a slow look up at the stone first, because it was meant to make humans feel small.

2. 02

   Seven Centuries in the Making

   Few buildings have taken as long as this one. The story begins in the 6th century BCE, when the site already held an ancient outdoor sanctuary of Zeus. The tyrant Peisistratus is credited with an earlier temple here, built around 550 BC. After his death that building was demolished. Around 520 BC his sons, Hippias and Hipparchos, began a far grander temple on the same spot. The work then stalled through a long series of regime changes. It picked up again in 174 BCE, in the Hellenistic age, and still the temple was not done. In 86 BCE the Roman general Sulla took a few of the columns away to reuse in the Temple of Jupiter in Rome. Early in the 1st century CE, Augustus is said to have dabbled with rebuilding the temple, but it was not finished. The finish came with the emperor Hadrian, a devoted lover of Greek culture. He visited Athens in 124 and 125 AD and launched a massive building program that included completing this temple. Accounts give its completion as 131 or 132 AD. Either way, the project that began under tyrants was closed out by an emperor, a span of roughly 700 years.

3. 03

   Built on a Superhuman Scale

   Now let's talk size. This was meant to be the largest temple in ancient Greece, and it succeeded. The temple measured about 100 meters by 50 meters, with columns about 17 meters high. Picture a building as tall as a five-story apartment block, repeated in a forest of stone. In its prime under Hadrian, the temple was octostyle and dipteral. That means eight columns across the narrow ends and 20 down each long side, arranged in two surrounding colonnades. In total, 104 columns enclosed the central cella, the inner room of the temple. The columns are Corinthian in style, topped with the leafy carved capitals you can still pick out against the sky. Hadrian also surrounded the temple with a walled, marble-paved precinct, which made it a central focus of the ancient city. He filled the sanctuary with statues of himself, gifts from the cities under his rule. As the Official Athens Guide puts it, size did matter when it came to paying tribute to Zeus. Look at the base of a column and then trace it upward, and you get a feel for the ambition.

4. 04

   Hadrian's Arch and the Two Cities

   Just beside the sanctuary stands the Arch of Hadrian, one of the most charming bits of ancient graffiti, carved in marble. It marked a ceremonial passage from the original Athens to a new Roman suburb called Hadrianopolis. The arch is Corinthian in style, and each of its two facades carries a Greek inscription just above the main opening. On the side facing the Acropolis, the inscription reads: "This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus." On the opposite side it reads: "This is the city of Hadrian, and not of Theseus." It is a neat piece of urban branding, drawing a line between the old city and the emperor's new quarter. The temple's later life is just as striking. Fifteen columns still stand, and the temple gradually collapsed over time. The last column to fall came down in a storm in 1852, and it lies where you can see it today. Old paintings, sketches and photographs show the standing columns with an odd structure built on top of them, a detail travelers never forgot. The site was excavated between 1889 and 1896, and today it is a tranquil archaeological park with one of the area's most inspiring views of the Acropolis.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Before you move on, try one small exercise. Stand where you can see both the standing columns and the single fallen one, and imagine the full forest of 104 columns around you. It is a good way to feel the scale that Hadrian finally completed. Then turn toward the Acropolis and notice how the view frames the temple-topped hill beyond the trees. Two of the most famous ancient sites in Athens sit within sight of each other, built by very different eras and rulers. And keep an eye out as you walk toward the Arch of Hadrian. Read its two inscriptions in your mind, one for the old Athens of Theseus and one for the city of Hadrian. Which side of that line are you standing on right now? The answer says a lot about how layered this city really is.