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| Artist's impression of The Statue of Zeus |
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| Artist's impression of The Statue of Zeus |
This, the most famous of all ancient statues, was one of two masterpieces by the Greek sculptor Phidias (the other being the statue of Athena in the Parthenon) and was placed in the huge Temple of Zeus at Olympia in western Greece. The statue, almost 12 m (40 feet) high and plated with gold and ivory, represented the god sitting on an elaborate cedarwood throne ornamented with ebony, ivory, gold, and precious stones. On his outstretched right hand was a statue of Nike (Victory), and in the god's left hand was a sceptre on which an eagle was perched. It is said that the statue made a profound impression on all who saw it, and people generally agreed that Phidias had succeeded in creating the image of Homer's Zeus. The statue, which took eight years to construct, was noted for the divine majesty and goodness it expressed. The discovery in the 1950s of the remains of Phidias' workshop at Olympia confirmed the statue's date of about 430 BC. The temple was destroyed in AD 426, and the statue, of which no accurate copies survive, may have been destroyed then or in a fire at Constantinople (now Istanbul) about 50 years later.
The Temple of Zeus was the largest and most important building at Olympia and one of the largest Doric temples in Greece. Built about 460 BC by the architect Libon of Elis, the temple was made of a coarse local shell conglomerate, the exposed surfaces being covered with a coat of fine white stucco. The temple had 6 columns across the front and 13 on the sides. There was a pronaos (porch) and an opisthodomos (rear porch), and the naos (cella; part enclosed by the walls) was divided into three aisles by two rows of slender columns arranged in two stories. The roof tiles were of marble.
The temple was richly decorated with sculpture, much of which has survived and is to be seen in the Olympia Museum. In the front gable the chariot race between Pelops and Oenomaus was represented, and both parties were shown preparing for the race. In the back gable was the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs at the wedding of Perithous. These sculptures are masterpieces of the early Classical style, but the name of the artist is not known. Pausanias' attribution of them to Paeonius and Alcamenes is generally rejected because these sculptors are known to have worked in the later 5th century. The frieze that ran above the front and back porches had sculptured metopes with the 12 labours of Heracles, 6 at each end. At the peak of the gable was a gilded figure of Victory and at each corner a gilded caldron, but these have not survived.
The great altar of Olympian Zeus was not in front of the temple, as might have been expected, but to one side and nearer the Temple of Hera. It was elliptical in shape and consisted of an elevated base approached by steps. From the base rose a large mound made of the ashes of the thighs of animal victims sacrificed to Zeus. The whole height of the altar was 22 feet (6.7 metres).
