Temple of Zeus Olympios

The colossal temple of Zeus Olympios is one of the city's most ancient religious buildings. A Part Of it still stands in the wide temenos of the Olympieion Area, southeast of the Acropolis at the heart of the neapolis, the 'new city'. The temenos is accessible through a hexastyle propylon in the northeastern sector. The temple was probably built at the 6th Century BC or earlier, it was renovated a few decades later by the Pisistratids who gave the renovated Structure an oriental-leaning appearance. The temple was re-designed in the Corinthian style with a dipteral plan and dimensions even more imposing under Antiochos IV of Syria, who entrusted the work to the Roman Architect Marcus Cossutius (175 - 164 BC). Hadrian's Architect elaborated even more on this design to build the largest Corinthian temple in the ancient world (110 x 44 meters). The temple's construction was only completed in the 2nd Century AD; it was one of the last examples of Architectural gigantism in the Classical Age and was clearly inspired by eastern Hellenistic models. Only about 15 Columns on the south and east side remained. Hadrian associated the Imperial cult with that of Zeus, who was venerated with a statue of gold and ivory in the temple.