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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4265#0078
CHAPTER II.
OF THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPIUS, CALLED ALSO THE COLUMNS OF HADRIAN.
v
Concerning this antiquity, I have already twice on different occasions offered some remarks ; once
in the fifth chapter of the first volume ; where it appeared necessary to refute an opinion advanced by
Wheler and Spon, who, conceiving the Temple of Jupiter Olympius stood northward of the Acropolis,
have mistaken the ruin of a building, which they found in that situation, for the remains of that once
most magnificent temple.
Some remarks on it again occur in the first chapter of the second volume, intended to correct
a mistake I had made in the aforementioned fifth chapter ; where, in common with other commentators
on Vitruvius, I had supposed the octastyle hypagthral Temple of Jupiter Olympius, mentioned in the
obscure passage there quoted from him*, refers to the Olympium at Athens: thus Barbaro, Perrault,
and even Galiani, with others, have translated this passage ; nor indeed do I remember to have seen it
anv where understood in the sense I have ventured to assign it, by supposing the octastyle hypaethros
of Jupiter Olympius he there instances, to relate, not to any temple in Athens, but to the celebrated
Temple of Jupiter at Olympia in the territory of Elis; a temple, which, from the dimensions Pausa-
nias has given of it, appears evidently to have had no more than eight columns in frontb, and to have
been precisely of the same aspect with the Parthenon in the Acropolis of Athens. As I have not yet
perhaps produced sufficient authorities in support of this opinion, I may remark that the Parthenon at
Athens, and the Olympic Temple in Elis, are described, the first by Wheler, and the second by
Pausanias, with a more ample enumeration of particulars than is usual with those writers. Wheler's
account has been already given in the first chapter of the second volume ; and since, as I have been
told, that there is not an English translation of Pausanias, I shall give an abstract of that author's
description of the Olympic Temple; that the reader may the better compare the relations, and judge
of the similarity which I suppose subsisted in the aspects of these two temples. Pausanias c, begins by
informing us, that, " The expence of erecting the temple and statue of Jupiter was defrayed by the
spoils which were taken at the time the Eleans destroyed Pisa, and the neighbouring places confede-
rated in their revolt. That Phidias was the artist who made the statue, the inscription at the feet of
Jupiter testifies in these words:—PHIDIAS, THE SON OF CIIARMIDES, AN ATHENIAN,
MADE ME d. The temple is of Doric architecture ; on the outside it is a peristyle, or encompassed
about with columns; it is built of the stone of the country; the height to the pediment is 68 feet,
a Hypaethros vero tlecastylos in proniio et postico: reliqua b The Temple of Jupiter at Olympia was hexastyle. See
omnia eadem habet qua; dipteros; sed interiore parte columnas in note f, p. 32, volume the second; as well as note b, p. 30, on the
altitudine duplices, remotas a parietibus, ad circuitionem, ut por- much controverted passage of Vitruvius regarding hyprcthral
ticus peristyliorum. Medium autem sub divo est sine tecto: temples. [ed.]
aditusque valvarum ex utraque parte in proniio et postico. Hujus e Paus. Eliac. Prior. L. X.
autem exemplar Romss non est; sed Athenis octastylos, et in d It has been supposed that Phidias, in the conscious pride of
templo Jovis Olympii. Vit. L. III. c. 1. the successful result of his labours,in the unrivalled personification
" The hvpsethros is decastylc in the pronaos and in the posti- of the Olympian Jupiter, inscribed his production with the
cum, (there bein" ten columns in each front) ; in all other parti- first aorist of the past tense, ErioiHSE, in place of the im-
culars it is the same as the dipteros (or temples surrounded with perfect EnoiEl, as usually adopted by the generality of Grecian
two ranges of columns); but within the cells there are two orders artists; a practice (as appears by subsequent works of art)
of columns, one above the other, at a distance from the wall, which was followed by artists with more presumption than talent,
forming a passage round the temple, as in the portico of peri- Visconti, however, in speaking of the wood hntu, inscribed on the
styles; but the middle is exposed to the air, having no roof: the Torso of Apollonius, considered that the Greeks employed in-
cntrance is by doors in each front. Of this species of temple differently the tenses of the verb on these occasions. See Visconti.
there is no example at Rome ; but there is at Athens an octa- Mus. Pio Clem. Vol. II. PL X. r_BD>-]
style, and in the Temple of Jupiter Olympius."
VOL. in. U
OF THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPIUS, CALLED ALSO THE COLUMNS OF HADRIAN.
v
Concerning this antiquity, I have already twice on different occasions offered some remarks ; once
in the fifth chapter of the first volume ; where it appeared necessary to refute an opinion advanced by
Wheler and Spon, who, conceiving the Temple of Jupiter Olympius stood northward of the Acropolis,
have mistaken the ruin of a building, which they found in that situation, for the remains of that once
most magnificent temple.
Some remarks on it again occur in the first chapter of the second volume, intended to correct
a mistake I had made in the aforementioned fifth chapter ; where, in common with other commentators
on Vitruvius, I had supposed the octastyle hypagthral Temple of Jupiter Olympius, mentioned in the
obscure passage there quoted from him*, refers to the Olympium at Athens: thus Barbaro, Perrault,
and even Galiani, with others, have translated this passage ; nor indeed do I remember to have seen it
anv where understood in the sense I have ventured to assign it, by supposing the octastyle hypaethros
of Jupiter Olympius he there instances, to relate, not to any temple in Athens, but to the celebrated
Temple of Jupiter at Olympia in the territory of Elis; a temple, which, from the dimensions Pausa-
nias has given of it, appears evidently to have had no more than eight columns in frontb, and to have
been precisely of the same aspect with the Parthenon in the Acropolis of Athens. As I have not yet
perhaps produced sufficient authorities in support of this opinion, I may remark that the Parthenon at
Athens, and the Olympic Temple in Elis, are described, the first by Wheler, and the second by
Pausanias, with a more ample enumeration of particulars than is usual with those writers. Wheler's
account has been already given in the first chapter of the second volume ; and since, as I have been
told, that there is not an English translation of Pausanias, I shall give an abstract of that author's
description of the Olympic Temple; that the reader may the better compare the relations, and judge
of the similarity which I suppose subsisted in the aspects of these two temples. Pausanias c, begins by
informing us, that, " The expence of erecting the temple and statue of Jupiter was defrayed by the
spoils which were taken at the time the Eleans destroyed Pisa, and the neighbouring places confede-
rated in their revolt. That Phidias was the artist who made the statue, the inscription at the feet of
Jupiter testifies in these words:—PHIDIAS, THE SON OF CIIARMIDES, AN ATHENIAN,
MADE ME d. The temple is of Doric architecture ; on the outside it is a peristyle, or encompassed
about with columns; it is built of the stone of the country; the height to the pediment is 68 feet,
a Hypaethros vero tlecastylos in proniio et postico: reliqua b The Temple of Jupiter at Olympia was hexastyle. See
omnia eadem habet qua; dipteros; sed interiore parte columnas in note f, p. 32, volume the second; as well as note b, p. 30, on the
altitudine duplices, remotas a parietibus, ad circuitionem, ut por- much controverted passage of Vitruvius regarding hyprcthral
ticus peristyliorum. Medium autem sub divo est sine tecto: temples. [ed.]
aditusque valvarum ex utraque parte in proniio et postico. Hujus e Paus. Eliac. Prior. L. X.
autem exemplar Romss non est; sed Athenis octastylos, et in d It has been supposed that Phidias, in the conscious pride of
templo Jovis Olympii. Vit. L. III. c. 1. the successful result of his labours,in the unrivalled personification
" The hvpsethros is decastylc in the pronaos and in the posti- of the Olympian Jupiter, inscribed his production with the
cum, (there bein" ten columns in each front) ; in all other parti- first aorist of the past tense, ErioiHSE, in place of the im-
culars it is the same as the dipteros (or temples surrounded with perfect EnoiEl, as usually adopted by the generality of Grecian
two ranges of columns); but within the cells there are two orders artists; a practice (as appears by subsequent works of art)
of columns, one above the other, at a distance from the wall, which was followed by artists with more presumption than talent,
forming a passage round the temple, as in the portico of peri- Visconti, however, in speaking of the wood hntu, inscribed on the
styles; but the middle is exposed to the air, having no roof: the Torso of Apollonius, considered that the Greeks employed in-
cntrance is by doors in each front. Of this species of temple differently the tenses of the verb on these occasions. See Visconti.
there is no example at Rome ; but there is at Athens an octa- Mus. Pio Clem. Vol. II. PL X. r_BD>-]
style, and in the Temple of Jupiter Olympius."
VOL. in. U