Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/308

290 ATHENAE. citing astonishment by the design of the building. and which would have been most admirable if it had been finished. (p. 140, ed. Fuhr.) Aristotle (Polit. v. 11) mentions it as one of the colossal undertakings of despotic governments, placing it in the same category as the pyramids of Egypt; and Livy (xli. 20) speaks of it as "Jovis Olympii templum Athnis, unum in terris inchoatum pro magnitudine dei," where "unum" is used because it was a greater work than any other temple of the god. (Comp. Strab. ix. p. 396; Plut. Sol. 32; Lucian, Icaro-Menip. 24.) About B.C. 174 Antiochus Epiphanes commenced the completion of the temple. He employed a Roman architect of the name of Cossutius to proceed with it. Cossutius chose the Corinthian order, which was adhered to in the subsequent prosecution of the work. (Vitruv. l. c.; Athen. v. p. 194, a.; Veil, Pat. i, 10.) Upon the death of Antiochus in B.C. 164 the work was interrupted; and about 80 years afterwards some of its columns were transported to Rome by Sulla for the use of the Capitoline temple at Rome. (Plin. xxxvi. 5. s. 6.) The work was not resumed till the reign of Augustus, when a society of princes, allies or dependents of the Roman empire, undertook to complete the building at their joint expense. (Suet. Aug. 60.) But the honour of its final completion was reserved for Hadrian, who dedicated the temple, and set up the statue of the God within the cella, (Paus. i. 18. § 6, seq.; Spartian. Hadr. 13; Dion Cass. lxix. 16.)

Pausanias says that the whole exterior inclosure was about four stadia in circumference, and that it was full of statues of Hadrian, dedicated by the Grecian cities. Of these statues many of the pedestals have been found, with inscriptions upon them. ATHENAE. (Böckj, Inscr. No. 321–346.) From the existing remains of the temple, we can ascertain its size and general form. According to the measurements of Mr. Penrose, it was 354 feet (more exactly 354·225) in length, and 171 feet (171·16) in breadth. "It consisted of a cella, surrounded by a peristyle, which had 10 columns in front, and 20 on the sides. The peristyle, being double in the sides, and having a triple range at either end, besides three columns between antae at each end of the cella, consisted altogether of 120 columns." (Leake.) Of these columns 16 are now standing, with their architraves, 13 at the south-eastern angle, and the remaining three, which are of the interior row of the southern side, not far from the south-western angle. These are the largest columns of marble now standing in Europe, being six and a half feet in diameter, and above sixty feet high.

A recent traveller remarks, that the desolation of the spot on which they stand adds much to the effect of their tall majestic forms, and that scarcely any ruin is more calculated to excite stronger emotions of combined admiration and awe. It is difficult to conceive where the enormous masses have disappeared of which this temple was built. Its destruction probably commenced at an early period, and supplied from time to time building materials to the inhabitants of Athena during the middle ages.

Under the court of the temple there are some very large and deep vaults, which Forchhammer considers to be a portion of a large cistern, alluded to by Pausanias as the chasm into which the waters flowed after the flood of Deucalion. From this cistern there is a conduit running in the direction of the fountain of Callirrhoë, which he supposes to have been partly supplied with water by this means (Leake, p. 513; Mure, vol. ii. p. 79; Forchhammer, p. 367.)

RUINS OF THE OLYMPIEIUM.