Temple of Olympian Zeus

Long build

The temple took about 638 years to finish

Construction began in the 6th century BC under the Athenian tyrants, who envisioned building the greatest temple in the ancient world. It was not completed until the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD, some 638 years after the project had begun.

638years from the start of the project to its completion

Stopped

Work stopped in 510 BC and the platform stood for 336 years

The work was abandoned when the tyranny was overthrown and Hippias was expelled in 510 BC. Only the platform and some elements of the columns had been completed, and the temple remained in that state for 336 years. The Greeks apparently thought it was hubris to build on such a scale.

Antiochus

Antiochus IV changed the plan to 104 marble columns

In 174 BC the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes revived the project and put the Roman architect Decimus Cossutius in charge. The design changed to a total of 104 columns, each 17 m high, in Pentelic marble. It was the first time the Corinthian order had been used on the exterior of a major temple.

104columns in the revised design

Hadrian

Hadrian dedicated the finished temple in 132

When Hadrian visited Athens in 124 or 125 AD, a massive building programme began that included completing the temple. He formally dedicated it in 132. A colossal statue of Hadrian was raised behind the building, and a colossal chryselephantine statue of Zeus occupied the cella.

The ruin

A sack in 267 AD, then quarrying, left fifteen columns standing

The temple was badly damaged in the sack of Athens by the Heruli in 267 AD and was quarried for centuries. When Cyriacus of Ancona visited in 1436, only 21 of the original 104 columns still stood. Fifteen stand today, and a sixteenth lies where it fell in a storm in 1852.