OLYMPIA has been described by an ancient writer as the fairest spot in Greece. In so describing it, he must have had in view not only the natural scenery but also the beautiful buildings and statuary with which it was so richly adorned as the time-honoured seat of the Olympian games. The scenery is pleasing without being grand, presenting in this respect a striking contrast to the stern majesty of Delphi. It may be described as a peaceful and fertile plain, traversed by the river Alpheus, whose waters Heracles is said to have diverted from their course to cleanse the Augean stables. On either side, and also at its western end, the plain is shut in by hills, while far away to the east the mountains of Arcadia, where the Alpheus has its rise, can be dimly seen. In the immediate foreground, standing by itself, as if detached from the low range behind, there is a small conical hill, about 400 feet high, covered with pines and brushwood, and bearing a name (Cronius) which calls to mind the primeval deity who was dethroned by his son Zeus, the presiding god of Olympia. Close to this hill, on the south, lies the Altis or sacred enclosure, originally a consecrated grove, which, in course of time, was overspread with altars and temples and other public buildings.
Thirty years ago there was scarcely any trace of this ancient glory to be seen. But within the last generation a great work of excavation and discovery has been carried on by German archæologists, at an expense of £40,000, generously defrayed by the German Government, on the understanding that all objects of interest brought to light should be allowed to remain in Greece. One can form some idea of the labour involved in the undertaking from the fact that the average depth of the débris, composed of the clay washed down from the Cronius hill and the alluvial deposits of the river Cladeus (which joins the Alpheus close to the Altis on the west), was fully sixteen feet.
Although associated, more than any other spot in Greece, with the worship of the “father of gods and men,” Olympia seems originally to have been devoted to the honour of his consort Hera, or possibly of both. The oldest architectural remains within the enclosure are those of a temple of Hera, to which Pausanias assigned an earlier date than we can give to any other sacred ruin in Greece, namely, about 1096 B.C. Its great antiquity is proved by the resemblance which it bears in some respects to the architecture of Mycenæ, and also by the fact that the existing columns (of which thirty-four out of the original forty have been more or less preserved) were evidently preceded by columns of wood, one of which, made of oak, was still standing when Pausanias visited the place in the second century A.D. Wood seems to have been the material in which the Doric architecture was originally executed; and in this instance it was only as the wood of each column decayed that it was replaced with stone, the natural result being that the columns differ greatly from one another in thickness and style and the nature of their stone. Some of them must have been substituted for the wooden ones as early as the seventh century B.C., for their capitals are among the oldest specimens of Doric architecture that are anywhere to be found. Pausanias tells us that this temple contained rude images of both Zeus and Hera; and not far from the spot a head has been discovered, twice as large as life, which is supposed with great probability to belong to the latter. It is believed to date from the seventh or sixth century B.C., and is made of the same soft stone as the base still remaining, which could not have lasted so long unless it had been under cover. The eyes are large, the head is crowned, and the face wears a look of complacency, without much dignity or refinement. Hera seems to have had much the same prominence in Olympia as she had in Argolis, where the family of Pelops was also in the ascendant.
It was only gradually that Zeus obtained general recognition as the chief deity in the court of Olympus, becoming the centre of the Pan-Hellenic religion reflected in Homer, which was as powerful a bond of union among the ancient Greeks as Christianity has
At the foot of the hill, the columns of the north, south, and west sides of the Heræon still in situ are clearly shown, and also the cella wall on the west and south. The remains of the Philippeion, a circular building erected by Philip II. of Macedon (circ. 336 B.C.), are in the foreground, to the west of the Heræon. The base of one of the Ionic columns is in its place, and the marble steps which supported the colonnade are connected by a slab of marble with the circular sub-structure of the central mass of the building.