The Temple of Olympian Zeus

638 years

Work began in the sixth century BC under the Peisistratid tyrants, on a scale meant to rival the great Ionian temples. It stopped when the tyranny fell and stood as a foundation for four hundred years. Antiochus IV of Syria restarted it in the second century BC with a Roman architect and switched the order to Corinthian; that stopped too.

It was finally completed and dedicated by the emperor Hadrian in AD 131 — about 638 years after the first stone. Hadrian put a colossal chryselephantine Zeus inside and a statue of himself beside it.

Fifteen columns of 104

The temple had 104 columns, each about seventeen metres high and two metres thick. Fifteen still stand. A sixteenth lies on the ground in its drums, exactly where it fell in a storm in 1852.

It was never re-erected, and it is the best thing on the site, because it lets you see how these columns were built as stacked cylinders rather than carved whole. The building took the better part of seven centuries to reach this state. Peisistratos began it about 550 BC, the falling tyranny stopped it in 510 BC, Antiochus IV restarted it in 174 BC, and Hadrian finished the job about AD 131.

Admission is €20 (€10 reduced), and the whole enclosure is flat, so the fallen drum is easy to reach and photograph from every side.

Why so little survives

Not war but quarrying. After the temple fell out of use, its marble was the largest convenient supply of dressed stone in Athens, and it went into churches, houses and lime kilns for a thousand years. The site was robbed so thoroughly that the ancient ground level is visible only because excavation went down to it.

One piece of plunder is recorded in detail: the Ottoman governor who built the Tzistarakis mosque on Monastiraki square in 1759 was said to have pulled down one of these columns to burn it for lime. That scandal helped end the practice, which is part of why fifteen columns survive at all. Give the remaining sixteen positions a slow walk and read the drift of the building from what is missing.

Hadrian's Arch, on the pavement

Just outside the fence, at the edge of Vasilissis Amalias Avenue, stands the arch Hadrian's Athenians built to mark the boundary between the old city and his new quarter. Its two inscriptions face opposite ways — one naming Theseus and one naming Hadrian as founder — which is the whole political argument of Roman Athens in two lines. It costs nothing and needs no ticket; you can stand under it at midnight.

The hours

Daily from 08:00. Closing is 20:00 from 1 April to 31 August, stepping down through the autumn to 18:00 by late October, then 15:00 from 1 November to 31 March. Last admission twenty minutes before.

That winter 15:00 is three hours earlier than the Acropolis, which is how visitors arrive at four o'clock in January to a locked gate. Note the Olympieion, like the Roman Agora, Kerameikos and Aristotle's Lyceum, runs on that short winter clock, so put it early in a cold-month itinerary. Tickets cost €20 (€10 reduced) and the Hellenic Heritage ones are non-refundable, though you can change the time twice per ticket up to two hours before the slot if plans slip.

In an official heatwave the site can close through the hottest hours, announced a day or less ahead. With closing times that shift so sharply between seasons, the Temple of Olympian Zeus is exactly the kind of site where guided Athens tours help you fit it in at the right hour.

Getting there

The entrance is on Vasilissis Olgas Avenue. Akropoli station on Line 2 is about five minutes away and Syntagma on Lines 2 and 3 about ten. Those two metro lines opened on 28 January 2000, and digging them turned up enough antiquities that Syntagma keeps a free display in its concourse, a classical sculpture foundry and a Byzantine cemetery set into the station wall, worth a look on the way through.

It is eight minutes on foot from the Acropolis Museum along the same avenue, which is the sensible way to reach it. A single metro ticket costs €1.20 and covers 90 minutes of travel, so the ride from Syntagma costs you almost nothing. Allow a few spare minutes for crossing the heavy traffic on Vasilissis Olgas at the crossing points.

How long, and what there is

Half an hour is enough. The enclosure is flat open ground with almost no shade, a shop, toilets and step-free access, and there is no museum and no interpretation to speak of, so bring your own background reading. During official heatwaves the culture ministry has repeatedly closed open-air sites like this one through the hottest hours, roughly midday to 17:00, with notice given a day or less in advance, so check before you set out in high summer.

In July the middle of the day here is genuinely unpleasant even when the gates stay open, since there is nothing between you and the sun. Late afternoon light on the Corinthian capitals is what the site is for, and it pairs neatly with a walk up Philopappos Hill afterwards.