REMAINS WITHIN THE ALTIS Within the Altis are three main groups of buildings:—(A) chief centres of religious worship; (B) votive buildings; (C) buildings connected with the administration or with the reception of visitors. A. Chief Centres of Religious Worship.—I. There are traces of an altar near the Heraeum older than the great altar of Zeus, and probably the original centre of worship. The great altar of Zeus was of elliptic form; imposed on this basis, in two tiers, and also, lozenge-shaped, was the famous "ash-altar" at which the Iamidae, the hereditary family of seers, practised rites of divination by fire in virtue of which Olympia is saluted by Pindar as "mistress of truth." 2. The Pelopium, to the west of the Altar of Zeus, was a small walled precinct in which sacrifices were offered to the hero Pelops. In the middle was a low tumulus of elliptic form. A Doric gate way with three doors gave access on the south-west side.
The three temples of the Altis were those of Zeus, Hera and the Mother of the gods. All were Doric and completely surrounded by a colonnade.
3. The Temple of Zeus, south of the Pelopium, stood on a high substructure with three steps. It was probably built about 470 B.C. The colonnades at the east and west ends were of six columns, the north and south sides of thirteen. The cella had a prodomos on the east and an opisthodomos on the west. It was itself divided longitudinally by a double row of columns. The central, and widest, partition was in three sections; the western containing the throne and image of the Olympian Zeus; the middle section, a table and stelae, where, probably, the wreaths were presented to the victors; the eastern was open to the public. On the east pedi ment was represented in twenty-one colossal figures the moment before the contest between Oenomaus and Pelops ; on the western the fight of the Lapithae and Centaurs. The statement of Pau sanias that the two pediments were made by Paeonius and Alcamenes is now generally supposed to be an error. On the metopes of the prodomos and opisthodomos were depicted the Twelve Labours of Heracles.
opisthodomos was of wood ; and for long, probably, all the columns of this temple had been wooden, gradually replaced as they de cayed in progressively later styles. Only the lower part of the cella wall was of stone, the rest of unbaked brick; the entab lature was of wood covered with terra-cotta. The cella—divided, like that of Zeus, by a double row of columns—had four small screens, projecting at right angles from its north and south walls. In the third niche thus formed, from the east, on the north side, was found the Hermes of Praxiteles still preserved in the local museum. (See GREEK ARCHAEOLOGY.) 5. The Temple of the Great Mother of the Gods (Metroum) was smaller than the Heraeum. It stood to the east of it and had a different orientation. It was on three steps, and had six columns east and west by eleven north and south. The cella had prodomos and opisthodomos. It was probably built in the 4th century, and underwent a Roman restoration.
B. Votive Edifices.—These were erected, either by states or by individuals.
I. Twelve Treasure-houses on the north side of the Altis, im mediately under the Cronion, have the same general character of a Doric temple in antis, facing south. Of several the fragments are sufficient for reconstruction. The 2nd and 3rd from the west had been dismantled early for a roadway winding upward towards the Cronion, which is itself older than A.D. 1 5 7. This explains the fact that, though we can trace twelve, Pausanias names only ten. Each treasure-house was erected by a Greek state, either as a thank-offering for Olympian victories gained by its citizens, or as a general mark of homage to Olympian Zeus, and to contain the dedicated gifts in which the wealth of the sanctuary consisted. Temple inventories discovered at Delos and at Lindus in Rhodes illustrate how such possessions accumulated at a shrine of Panhel lenic celebrity. The treasure-houses were founded by the follow ing states, in order from the west : Sicyon; 2, 3, unknown ; 4, Syracuse (referred by Pausanias to Carthage) ; 5, Epidamnus; 6, Byzantium; 7, Sybaris ; 8, Cyrene ; 9, Selinus ; 1 o, Metapontum; II, Megara; 12, Gela. While the majority are the Greek colonies, from to Sicily, from the Euxine to the Adriatic, Greece proper is represented only by Megara and Sicyon. The dates of the foundations cannot be fixed. The Megarian treasury had pedi mental figures of gods fighting with giants; others supplemented stonework with painted terra-cotta.