The Temple of Zeus was built ca. 470—457 BC, during the Early Classical period, designed by the architect Libon from the nearby town of Elis (Figure 15.9). Measuring 64m x 28m, the temple was in its time the largest on mainland Greece. The purely Doric design has the standard ground plan, colonnade (six columns on the ends, thirteen on the long sides), and Doric triglyph and metope frieze. Building materials included a local limestone conglomerate, covered with stucco, with the sculpture and certain architectural details of Parian marble.
Impressive though the architecture is, the building is badly ruined. The special reputation of this temple in modern times rests on its well-preserved sculptural decoration: the pedimental sculpture; and twelve sculpted metopes, placed just inside the colonnade, six each above the entrances to the pronaos and the opisthodomos. In contrast, the sculpture that earned the temple great fame in antiquity no longer exists: the colossal gold-and-ivory cult statue of Zeus.
The two pedimental sculpture groups rank among the most fascinating monuments of ancient Greek art because of the great emotional and intellectual resonance of the stories they illustrate. Each side conveys a message important to the Greeks after their triumph over the Persians: con-
Figure 15.7 Fallen Warrior, west pediment, Temple of Aphaia, Aegina. Glyptothek, Munich
Figure 15.8 Fallen Warrior, east pediment, Temple of Aphaia, Aegina. Glyptothek, Munich
Fidence in the victory of justice (west pediment), but anxiety about unknown menaces lurking in the future (east pediment).
The east pediment, over the entrance to the temple, displayed a scene from the mythical history of Olympia. The scene appears quiet, but behind lies a dark story that invests the figures with tragic grandeur. Knowing the story is in fact crucial for an appreciation of this pediment. Oinomaos, king of Olympia, is about to race the latest suitor for the hand of his daughter, Hippodameia. With his magic horses and weapons, he is confident he will win again and kill the suitor. Pelops, the challenger, believes he will win, for he has bribed the king’s charioteer to substitute wax linchpins in place of the metal pins. The charioteer is himself in love with Hippodameia — a further complication. In the pediment, we see the two contestants before the race begins. They stand on either side of Zeus, in front of whom they have offered sacrifices and sworn the oath of fair play. Oinomaos’s wife, Sterope, and his daughter, Hippodomeia, accompany the king and Pelops; beyond, the chariots and attendants await the race. In the corners of the pediment the viewer receives a foreshadowing of the tragedy that lies ahead. An old man seated on the right, shown with sagging chest and balding head, looks on with anxiety, his right hand clenched alongside his face. In the far corners, reclining male figures personifying the two rivers of Olympia, the Alpheos and the Kladeos, watch with detached interest.
The old man, sometimes identified as a seer, is right to feel horror. During the chariot race the wax linchpins melt, the chariot collapses, and Oinomaos dies. When the betraying charioteer makes a pass at Hippodameia, Pelops hurls him into the sea. Before the man drowns, he pronounces a curse on Pelops and his descendants: the curse that runs through the house of Atreus and animates a vast cycle of Greek tragedy.
The west pediment, in contrast, shows its subject at the high point of the action (Figure 15.10). In another mythological scene, this one taking place in Thessaly (northern Greece), the centaurs, creatures who are half man, half horse, have been invited to the wedding feast of Perithoos, the king of the Lapiths, early human inhabitants of Thessaly. The centaurs drink too much, then
Figure 15.10 Apollo, Lapiths, and Centaurs. West pediment (detail), Temple of Zeus, Olympia. Archaeological Museum, Olympia
Attack the Lapith women. Outraged, the Lapith men fight back, led by Perithoos and his friend, Theseus. The pediment shows the brawl in full tilt, with centaurs, Lapiths, and Lapith women biting, pulling, struggling against each other. Whereas the contorted faces of the centaurs clearly express the passion and effort of the fight, the faces of the Lapiths remain unnaturally calm. But the Lapiths and centaurs represented a larger issue. Like the gods and the giants of the Siphnian Treasury, the Lapiths and centaurs were favorite allegorical figures, stand-ins for the struggle of the forces of order against chaos and barbarism.
Swift resolution seems likely. Apollo stands in the center of the pediment and stretches out his right arm, ordering a halt to the fighting. Reason, law, and civilization, Apollo’s causes, will triumph. Such is the reassuring message of this west pediment.
In the metopes, the other set of architectural sculpture that decorates the exterior of the temple, attention is shifted to the hero Herakles. The twelve metopes show Herakles performing the twelve labors demanded by King Eurystheus of Argos. Restricted by the metope shape and by the subject matter, the sculptor has skillfully varied the composition and emotional expression. There is no repetition here. Herakles is first young, later mature, with a beard. Some scenes show the action in progress, some show Herakles resting, the labor completed. Athena sometimes appears, an encourager or a comforter, but in some plaques she is absent.
The cult statue depicted Zeus seated on his throne, the whole made of gold and ivory (= chryselephantine) over a wooden framework, a statue so big that the god’s head reached the top of the roof. It is easy to imagine ancient pilgrims overwhelmed by this looming presence in the semi-darkness of the cella. The statue was the work of the Athenian sculptor Pheidias in the 430s, well after the temple was completed; indeed, his workshop at Olympia has been discovered. By this time Pheidias had finished the chryselephantine cult statue of Athena Parthenos for the great temple on the Athenian Acropolis (see Chapter 16). But he had left Athens under a cloud, disgraced by charges that he had embezzled some of the gold destined for the statue of the goddess. The statue of Zeus, named during the Hellenistic period as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, ended its days in Constantinople, another prize brought by Constantine to give luster to his new capital. It was destroyed in AD 476 when the building in which it was housed, the Lauseion, caught fire.
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