The Statue of Zeus at Olympia

The Olympics were first started in 776 BC and held at a shrine to Zeus located on the Western coast of Greece in a region called Peloponnesus. The games, held every four years, helped to unify the Greek city-states. A sacred truce was declared during the games and wars were stopped. Safe passage was given to all travelling to the site, called Olympia, for the season of the games.

The site consisted of a stadium (for the games) and a sacred grove, or Alis, where temples were located. The shrine to Zeus was simple in the early yeras, but as time went by and the games increased in importance, it became obvious that a new, larger temple, one worthy of the King og the gods, was needed. Between 470 and 460 BC, construction on a new temple was started.

The designer was Libon of Elis and his masterpiece, The Temple of Zeus, was completed in 456 BC. This temple followed a design used on many large Grecian temples.

Though the temple was considered one of the best examples of the Doric desigh because of its style and the quality of the workmanship, it was desides the temple alone was too simple to be worthy of the King of the gods. To remedy this, a statue was commissioned for the interior – a magnificent statue of Zeus that would become one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The sculptor chosen for this great task was a man named Phidias. He had already rendered a forty-foot high statue of the goddess Athena for the Parthenon in the Athens and had also done much of the sculpture on the exterior of that temple. After his work in Athens was done, Phidias travelled to Olympia to start on what was considered his best work, the statue of Zeus. On arriving he set up a workshop to the west of the temple.