The next move of the Eleans was to provide a temple worthy of Olympian Zeus, and the money for this work was provided from the plunder gained in Triphylia and Pisatis. The new temple was begun about the year 468 B.C., and perhaps its buildings suggested to Pindar the opening lines of his 6th Olympian Ode in which he compares the prelude of his song to the façade of a stately fane. The temple must have been completed about the time of the defeat of the Athenians and Argives by Sparta at Tanagra in 457; for the Spartans commemorated their victory by a golden shield which was placed on the summit of the temple. It would be out of place here to attempt any description of the temple: we may notice, however, that while the architect Libon was an Elean, the great chryselephantine statue of Zeus afterwards erected in it was the masterpiece of Pheidias, and Pausanias ascribes some of the sculptural decorations to the Athenian sculptors Paeonius and Alcamenes, though modern authorities generally discredit the statement. And just as Pheidias in his Zeus tried to represent the highest ideal of Greek manhood, so in the lesser works, the mythological scenes of the pediments and metopes, the chariot-race of Pelops and Oenomaus, the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs, the labours of Heracles, we have in reality various renderings of the theme which inspires all the art of this period, the triumph of the Greek over the barbarian, of trained skill over undisciplined force. Thus the temple of Zeus was truly a national memorial of the Persian wars. The new temple was built on the site of the ancient grove, and its building had no doubt interfered with anything in the nature of fence or hedge which may have bounded the sacred grove. Perhaps we may assign to this period the idea of marking out the Altis in the rough quadrilateral shape which has been revealed by later ruins. This plan seems to be implied in the building of the first colonnade at the eastern end of and at right angles, to the treasury terrace. This colonnade was built about the middle of the fifth century, and was obviously intended for the convenience of spectators at the festival, commanding, as it did, a full view of the ancient altar and of the east end of the newly built temple of Zeus. Its building necessitated a change in the athletic arrangements.