a gold shield with an inscription recording its dedication by the Lacedæmonians after their victory over the Athenians, B.C. 457. The height of the temple is 66 feet 5 inches. Pausanias makes it 68 Olympian feet, equal to 70 feet 8 inches

English measure; but he probably included the base on which the Victory stood. On the eastern front of the peristyle were twentyone gilt shields dedicated by the Roman conqueror Mummius.

The marks of these shields may still be seen on some of the metopes and architrave stones; their diameter was 3 feet 3 inches. The roof of the temple, the sima of the cornice, and the sculptured metopes within the peristyle, were of Pentelic marble. The tiles in this costly material were adjusted to each other with fine joints, as is the case with the Parthenon. In the lions' heads which served as the gurgoyles of the cornice there is a strange inequality of style and execution. While some are modelled and sculptured with the skill which might have been expected in a temple of the Periclean age, others are carved in the rudest manner.

Professor Adler* gives a restoration of this temple, and praises its proportions. He observes that, while its design still shows the austere and massive character of the old Doric, this severity is tempered by a sense of beauty which we do not find in the Sicilian examples of Doric architecture at Selinus and Agrigentum. Professor Adler thinks that in general plan and in detail the Olympieion resembles the older Parthenon, which was destroyed in the Persian invasion. Its first architect, Libon, may thus have lived towards the close of the sixth century B.C., and it may have been finished in the fifth century. The plan of the interior was similar to that of the Parthenon, but with a difference in the relative proportions. Within the colonnade or peristyle was the cella, or temple proper, with a vestibule supported by two smaller columns at either end. The one at the east end was called the pronaos, the other the opisthodomos, or chamber at the back. The cella itself was divided into three aisles by two rows of columns, the position of which is marked on the pavement. The small diameter of these inner columns proves the existence of the hyperoon, or upper story, mentioned by Pausanias. The entrance to the pronaos from the east was through a pair of folding doors, between the two columns in antis. The intercolumniation on either side must have been closed by a grille in metal. Inside the cella the middle aisle has been separated from the side aisles by a low wall which still remains between three of the columns on the north side. The three intercolumniations nearest the west end had evidently been screened off by a grille. These walls may be the barriers which Pausanias describes as fencing off access to the throne of the chryselephantine statue of Zeus, which must have been placed at the west end of the cella, where there are some small remains of the base on which it rested.

Ausgrab. ii., pl. xxxv.

The pavement of the middle aisle was of marble, the greater part of which has been torn up and carried away by former plunderers of the temple; but the lower pavement or stereobat, on which this rested, is for the most part preserved. There is a curious rent, running longitudinally through it, which may have given rise to the story that Zeus signified his approval of the work of Pheidias by striking the pavement with a thunderbolt, of which the mark was still recorded in the time of Pausani as by a bronze vase on the spot. In the side aisles the pavement is of stucco, and is on a higher level than that of the nave. In the pronaos, under a pavement of pieces of marble of different colours of the Byzantine period, the French found a fine mosaic, representing a Triton, the remains of which still exist in situ. It is probably the earliest extant specimen of Greek mosaic, and is not composed of tessellæ, but of small river pebbles. None of the architectural marbles gave any hint how the interior of the temple was lit. The narrowness of the side aisles and the small size of the pronaos and opisthodomos, as compared with the area of the central aisle in this temple, form a striking contrast to the distribution of the in the interior of the Parthenon. Professor Adler thinks that the narrow aisles are characteristic of a more archaic style of temple building.

*

space

The Heraion is a Doric temple with six columns in the fronts and sixteen at the sides. The interior is arranged in three aisles with a pronaos and opisthodomos. The columns of the peristyle vary in diameter and character. Some of the capitals are of a very archaic type, and some of the shafts are monolithic, while in others very large drums have been used. In the interior slender Ionic columns have been substituted for the original Doric. The material is the same coarse poros which is used in the temple of Zeus. The position of the bronze doors and metallic gratings inside can be clearly made out, and on the walls are marks where bronze plates have been attached. Of the many precious works of art and timehonoured relics which Pausanias saw in this temple, nothing now remains except two sculptures, one of which is of peculiar interest, because there is every reason to believe that it is the identical work which Pausanias describes as being by Praxiteles.

The Philippeion is a circular edifice on three steps surrounded by eighteen Ionic columns. Its roof, Pausanias tells us, was surmounted by a bronze poppy-head. It contained

* Expédition Scientifique, i., pl. LXIV.

VOL. CXLIX. NO. CCCV.

statues of Philip of Macedon and other members of his family in gold and ivory. Nearly all the architectural members of this building have been found in situ, so that a complete restoration would be possible. This small edifice has a special interest, because its date may be fixed to B.C. 338. It is, moreover, the earliest example in Greek architecture of a circular edifice, surrounded by columns, if we except the Choragic monument of Lysikrates at Athens, which is of the same date. The little peripteral temple at Tivoli and the temple of Vesta at Rome are later imitations of this class of buildings. Another Doric temple mentioned by Pausanias, the Metroon, was found on excavation to be on a smaller scale than might be inferred from his notice of it, being about one-third less than the temple of Zeus. The remains of its architecture found in situ were very scanty, but, as many of the drums, capitals, &c., were built into a Byzantine wall, a complete restoration will be possible. In the time of Pausanias, though it bore the name Metroon, all traces of the worship of the Mother of the Gods, to whom it must originally have been dedicated, seem to have disappeared, and he found in it only statues of Roman emperors. It must have been repaired and beautified in some period of Byzantine decadence, as the delicate forms of the architecture are covered with plaster. The arrangement of the columns in the peristyle, eleven in the sides and six in the fronts, is unusual.

West of the Philippeion and outside the precinct of the Altis, was a large area enclosed by a wall or peribolos, in the centre of which was a square open court, each side of which is more than 41 yards long. On four sides this has been surrounded by deep porticos, which, on three sides, open into large rooms abutting on the peribolos wall. In the south-west angle is a small vestibule with stone benches ranged round the walls. In the north-west angle has been another similar vestibule. When the peribolos was cleared out, remains of sculpture and inscriptions were found lying in two strata, separated from each other by a layer of sand. Among these remains was the base of a statue of the Athenian rhetor, Flavius Philostratos. This seems to be the peribolos which Pausanias describes as on the left of the entrance to the great Gymnasion, and as having palæstræ for the athletes to exercise in. The remains of a great gateway, with Corinthian columns, found near the north-east angle of the peribolos, mark the entrance to this larger Gymnasion, of which the walls can be traced on the north of the peribolos.

East of the Heraion, at the foot of Kronion, is an interest

ing monument of the Roman period, the exhedra of Herodes Atticus. This is a brick structure, in the centre of which is a semicircular apse, recessed into the side of the hill. Below this apse is a terrace, bounded on either side by two walls, built at right angles, which in the plan form wings to the apse. A small circular Corinthian temple stood in either wing. In the middle of the terrace was a great basin lined with marble, which received a stream of water issuing from two lions' heads. An aqueduct which passed from the east through the vale of Miraka, and part of which is still in working order, supplied this water, which afterwards descended through many channels into the Altis. Olympia owed this abundant supply of water to the provident munificence of Herodes, by which Greece so largely benefited. On a marble bull which stood in front of the basin, we may still read the inscription which records that Herodes dedicated the aqueduct to Zeus in the name of Regilla, the beloved wife for whose loss he mourned so deeply, and in memory of whom he erected the sumptuous monument, the site of which may still be seen on the Appian Way.

In the interior of the apse, between the Corinthian pilasters, were statues, fifteen of which were found in situ. Though the heads of most of these have perished, we learn from the inscriptions on their bases that most of them were the portraits of the family of Herodes, whom the Eleians thus honoured in gratitude to their benefactor. The statues of the contemporary imperial family, of which remains were found, were probably placed in the two small temples in the wings. These were dedicated by Herodes himself. Professor Adler has made a restoration of this exhedra, and remarks that its design shows, in spite of many shortcomings in the details, considerable invention, and that its effect is picturesque, reminding us of similar works of the Renaissance period.

The Byzantine church to the west of the temple of Zeus, which the French partially excavated in 1829, is in form like a basilica, and consists of a narthex on the west, opening by three doorways into a nave with two side aisles. The east end of the nave is cut off by a marble screen which separates it from the sanctuary. The east end terminates in an apse, round the interior of which is a brick bench. The foundations of the altar and priest's chair are also marked. West of the narthex are two small chambers; on the south side was a porch. The date of this church, according to Professor Adler, is probably about the first half of the fifth century A.D. The apse he considers a later addition. Built into the walls are Ionic double columns and Corinthian pilaster capitals. These latter were taken pro