According to Vitruvius, Pisistratus, who flourished about B. C. 555,
employed the four Grecian architects, Antistates, Antimachides,
Calleschros, and Porinus, to erect this famous temple in the place of
one built in the time of Deucalion, which the storms of a thousand years
had destroyed. They proceeded so far with it that Pisistratus was
enabled to dedicate it, but after his death the work ceased; and the
completion of the temple, so magnificent and grand in its design that
it impressed the beholder with wonder and awe, became the work of after
ages. Perseus, king of Macedonia, and Antiochus Epiphanes, nearly four
hundred years after Pisistratus, finished the grand nave, and placed the
columns of the portico, Cossutius, a Roman, being the architect. It was
considered, and with good reason, one of the four celebrated marble
temples of Greece: the other three were that of Diana, at Ephesus;
Apollo, at Miletus; and Ceres, at Eleusis. The Corinthian order
prevailed in its design. In the siege that Sylla laid to Athens, this
temple was greatly injured, but the allied kings afterwards restored it
at their common expense, intending to dedicate it to the genius of
Augustus. Livy says that among so many temples, this was the only one
worthy of a god. Pausanias says the Emperor Adrian enclosed it with a
wall, as was usual with the Grecian temples, of half a mile in
circumference, which the cities of Greece adorned with statues erected
to that monarch. The Athenians distinguished themselves by the elevation
of a colossal statue behind the temple. This enclosure was also
ornamented with a peristyle, one hundred rods in length, supported by
superb marble Corinthian columns, and to this façade were three grand
vestibules which led to the temple. Adrian dedicated it a second time.
In the temple was placed a splendid statue of Jupiter Olympius, of gold
and ivory; and the courtiers added four statues of the Emperor. This
wonderful structure, which is said to have cost five millions of
_scudi_, is now in ruins. Sixteen Corinthian columns are still standing,
six feet four inches and some six feet six inches, in diameter. The
length of the temple, according to Stuart, upon the upper step, was
three hundred and fifty-four feet, and its breadth one hundred and
seventy-one feet; the entire length of the walls of the peribolous is
six hundred and eighty-eight feet, and the width four hundred and
sixty-three feet.