e eastern side of the precinct are to be seen the remains of a portico
once famous for its echoes, where sat the judges who distributed the
prizes. There is also a most graceful arch remaining to mark the
entrance to the ancient stadium, of which nothing else now remains.

Of the later structures on the site, the "house of Nero" is the most
interesting and extensive. The Olympic games were still celebrated, even
after the Roman domination, and Nero himself entered the lists in his
own reign. He caused a palace to be erected for him on that
occasion--and of course he won a victory, for any other outcome would
have been most impolite, not to say dangerous. Nero was more fortunately
lodged than were the other ancient contestants, it appears, for there
were no hostelries in old Olympia in which the visiting multitudes could
be housed, and the athletes and spectators who came from all over the
land were accustomed to bring their own tents and pitch them roundabout,
many of them on the farther side of the Alpheios.

THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS AT OLYMPIA AS IT WAS[54]

BY PAUSANIAS

Many various wonders may one see, or hear of, in Greece; but the
Eleusinian mysteries and Olympian games seem to exhibit more than
anything else the Divine purpose. And the sacred grove of Zeus they have
from old time called Altis, slightly changing the Greek word for grove;
it is, indeed, called Altis also by Pindar, in the ode he composed for a
victor at Olympia. And the temple and statue of Zeus were built out of
the spoils of Pisa, which the people of Elis razed to the ground, after
quelling the revolt of Pisa, and some of the neighboring towns that
revolted with Pisa. And that the statue of Zeus was the work of Phidias
is shown by the inscription written at the base of it: "Phidias the
Athenian, the son of Charmides, made me."

The temple is a Doric building, and outside it is a colonnade. And the
temple is built of stone of the district. Its height up to the gable is
sixty-eight feet, and its length 2,300 feet. And its architect was
Libon, a native of Ellis.

And the tiles on the roof are not of baked earth; but Pentelican marble,
to imitate tiles. They say such roofs are the invention of a man of
Naxos called Byzes, who made statues at Naxos with the inscription:
"Euergus of Naxos made me, the son of Byzes, and descended from Leto,
the first who made tiles of stone."

This Byzes was a contemporary of Alyattes the Lydian, and Astyages