One of the paradoxes of the Panhellenic site of Olympia is that its earliest temple was erected not for Zeus, the primary deity of the sanctuary, but for Hera. During the late seventh century, a Heraion was built in the Altis, or sacred enclosure, which then contained no other major structures. Originally, only the foundations were of stone, while the walls were mud brick, and the rest of the structure, including the colonnade, was wood. The temple was refurbished in such a way that the columns were gradually replaced in stone, and each one was slightly different in style, thickness, and the type of stone used. The mismatched columns were probably the result of contributions by many donors, each of whom supplied one column and wanted it to be recognizably different from the rest.
Some scholars, disturbed by the anomaly of a Heraion as the only temple in a sanctuary of Zeus, have suggested that the temple was from the beginning dedicated jointly to Zeus and Hera, or that it was originally a temple of Zeus, and was rededicated to Hera only after Zeus’ Classical temple was built in the fifth century. The question is still open, but we should keep in mind that a temple was never a requirement for a sanctuary, and was often absent from sanctuaries of Zeus in particular (as at Dodona, another Panhellenic Zeus sanctuary). The focus of Zeus’ cult was not a cult statue, but the great ash altar where he received sacrifices. Furthermore, Hera was, as we have seen, one of the earliest temple deities, and one who was consistently provided with temples in the early Archaic period. Hera’s cult in the Altis may have been introduced by Pheidon, the seventh-century king of Argos who established a military presence in Elis and reorganized the Olympic games. If this is the case, the Hera temple originally served as an offshoot of the Argive Heraion, and a reminder of the political and military supremacy of Argos in the early Archaic period.13
Pausanias (5.16.1-20.5) provides a detailed description of the temple’s amazing contents. The cult image of Hera was seated, and behind it stood a statue of Zeus wearing a helmet. The positioning of Zeus’ statue suggests that he was not the primary deity of this temple, but that his role as Hera’s spouse was important to the cult (this is borne out by other aspects of the cult described below). Both statues are described as “simple” works, and thus probably belonged to the Archaic period. Nearby were images of many other deities in ivory and gold, some by famous sculptors and others by unknown artists: the Horai (Seasons) and Themis their mother, Athena, Demeter and Kore, Apollo and Artemis, Hermes, and so on. A richly decorated cedar-wood chest was dedicated by the family of Kypselos, the seventh-century tyrant of Korinth; this famous chest was covered with labeled episodes from heroic myths. There was also a small bed, recalling the “couch of Hera” in the Heraion at Argos; a disc on which was inscribed the ritual formula for the Olympic truce forbidding men in arms to enter the sanctuary, and the ivory and gold table used to hold the wreaths for Olympic victors.
Hera’s cult at Olympia was administered by a college of sixteen women chosen from the most venerable and respected matrons of the district. These women organized the Heraia, or games held to honor Hera, concurrently with the quadrennial Olympic games. While women were generally excluded from the Olympic games both as competitors and as spectators, the Heraia involved a footrace for girls of three different age categories. They ran in the same stadium as the men and boys, though the track was one-sixth shorter. The winners received a portion of the meat from the cow sacrificed to Hera and a crown of olive. The sixteen women of Elis also wove a robe for Hera, which was presumably dedicated in the temple and may have adorned the cult image. They arranged choruses for Physkoa, a Dionysiac heroine, and for Hippodameia, the heroine who figures in one of the founding myths of Olympia.14 It was to win the hand of Hippodameia that Pelops raced against her father, the king of Elis, thus inaugurating the chariot races at Olympia. The sixteen women traced their origin to Hippodameia, who first formed the college in order to give thanks to Hera for her marriage to Pelops. An alternative story said that the women were brought together as arbiters to settle disputes between the Eleans and the Pisatans, who fought over the control of the sanctuary in the seventh and sixth centuries. If the story is accurate, this is one of the rare cases in which women’s religious authority translated into a limited form of political authority.
World History
