Footnote 125:[ (return) ] HARRISON and Verrall, Mythology and Monuments, p. 541.
Footnote 126:[ (return) ] STRABO, p. 404.
The Olympieum mentioned by Strabo and Thucydides cannot therefore be the famous structure begun by Pisistratus and dedicated by Hadrian: we must look for another on the northwest side of the Acropolis. Here, it must be admitted we could wish for fuller evidence. Pausanias (I. 18. 8) informs us that "they say Deucalion built the old sanctuary of Zeus Olympius." Unfortunately he does not say where it was located.
Mr. Penrose in an interesting paper read before the British School at Athens in the spring of 1891, setting forth the results of his latest investigations at the Olympieum, said that in the course of his investigations there appeared foundations which he could ascribe to no other building than this most ancient temple. But Dr. Dörpfeld, after a careful examination of these remains, declares that they could by no possibility belong to the sanctuary of the legendary Deucalion. [127]
Footnote 127:[ (return) ] It has been held that Pausanias mentions the tomb of Deucalion, which was near the existing Olympieum, as a proof that Deucalion's temple was also here. Pausanias however merely says in this passage that this tomb was pointed out in his day only as a proof that Deucalion sojourned at Athens.
The abandonment of work on the great temple of the Olympian Zeus from the time of the Pisistratids to that of Antiochus Epiphanes, would have left the Athenians without a temple of Zeus for 400 years, unless there existed elsewhere a foundation in his honor. It is on its face improbable that the citizens would have allowed so long a time to pass unless they already possessed some shrine to which they attached the worship and festivals of the chief of the gods.
The spade has taught us that the literary record of old sanctuaries is far from being complete. The new cutting for the Piræus railroad has brought to light inscriptions referring to a hitherto unknown precinct in the Ceramicus.
Mommsen declares [128] that the Olympia were celebrated at the Olympieum which was begun by Pisistratus; and he adds that the festival was probably established by him. Of the more ancient celebration in honor of Zeus, the Diasia, he can only say surely that it was held outside the city. Certainly we should expect the older festival to have its seat at the older sanctuary.
The εξω της πολεως [129], which is Mommsen's authority in the passage referred to above, has apparently the same meaning as the τα εξω (της πολεως) already quoted from Thucydides; i.e., outside of the ancient city--the Acropolis and Pelasgicum. The list of dual sanctuaries, the earlier by the entrance to the Acropolis, the later to the southeast, is quite a long one. We find two precincts of Apollo, of Zeus, of Ge, and, as we shall see later, of Dionysus.