THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPIUS AT ATHENS.
According to Vitruvius, Pisistratus, who flourished about B. C. 555, employed the four Grecian architects, Antistates, Antimachides, Calleschros, and Porinus, to erect this famous temple in the place of one built in the time of Deucalion, which the storms of a thousand years had destroyed. They proceeded so far with it that Pisistratus was enabled to dedicate it, but after his death the work ceased; and the completion of the temple, so magnificent and grand in its design that it impressed the beholder with wonder and awe, became the work of after ages. Perseus, king of Macedonia, and Antiochus Epiphanes, nearly four hundred years after Pisistratus, finished the grand nave, and placed the columns of the portico, Cossutius, a Roman, being the architect. It was considered, and with good reason, one of the four celebrated marble temples of Greece: the other three were that of Diana, at Ephesus; Apollo, at Miletus; and Ceres, at Eleusis. The Corinthian order prevailed in its design. In the siege that Sylla laid to Athens, this temple was greatly injured, but the allied kings afterwards restored it at their common expense, intending to dedicate it to the genius of Augustus. Livy says that among so many temples, this was the only one worthy of a god. Pausanias says the Emperor Adrian enclosed it with a wall, as was usual with the Grecian temples, of half a mile in circumference, which the cities of Greece adorned with statues erected to that monarch. The Athenians distinguished themselves by the elevation of a colossal statue behind the temple. This enclosure was also ornamented with a peristyle, one hundred rods in length, supported by superb marble Corinthian columns, and to this façade were three grand vestibules which led to the temple. Adrian dedicated it a second time. In the temple was placed a splendid statue of Jupiter Olympius, of gold and ivory; and the courtiers added four statues of the Emperor. This wonderful structure, which is said to have cost five millions of scudi, is now in ruins. Sixteen Corinthian columns are still standing, six feet four inches and some six feet six inches, in diameter. The length of the temple, according to Stuart, upon the upper step, was three hundred and fifty-four feet, and its breadth one hundred and seventy-one feet; the entire length of the walls of the peribolous is six hundred and eighty-eight feet, and the width four hundred and sixty-three feet.