This temple was in many respects one of the most celebrated in Greece, especially on account of the great image of Zeus, which Phidias himself wrought for it in gold and ivory, and of which Pausanias has left us a very wonderful description (V. II, _sqq._). It was carried away to Constantinople, and of course its precious material precluded all chance of its surviving through centuries of ignorance and bigotry. The temple itself, to judge from its appearance, was somewhat older than the days of Phidias, for it is of that thickset and massive type which we only find in the earlier Doric temples, and which rather reminds us of Pæstum than of Athenian remains. It was built by a local architect, Libon, and of a very coarse limestone from the neighborhood, which was covered with stucco, and painted chiefly white, to judge from the fragments which remain. But it seems as if the Eleans had done all they could to add splendor to the building, whenever their funds permitted. The tiles of the roof were not of burnt clay, but of Pentelican marble, the well-known and beautiful invention of the Naxian Byzes. Moreover, Phidias and a number of his fellow-workers or subordinates at Athens, as well as other artists, had been invited to Olympia, to adorn the temple, and to them we owe the pediments, probably also the metopes, and many of the statues, with which all the sacred enclosure around the edifice was literally thronged. Subsequent generations added to this splendor: a gilded figure of Victory, with a gold shield, was set upon the apex of the gable; gilded pitchers at the extremities; gilded shields were fastened all along the architraves by Mummius, from the spoils of Corinth, and the great statue of Zeus within still remained, the wonder and the awe of the ancient world. But with the fall of paganism and the formal extinction of the Olympic games (394 A. D.) the glories of the temple fell into decay. The great statue in the shrine was carried away to Byzantium; many of the votive bronzes and marbles which stood about the sacred grove were transported to Italy; and at last a terrible earthquake, apparently in the fifth century, levelled the whole temple almost with the ground. The action of this extraordinary earthquake is still plainly to be traced in the now uncovered ruins. It upheaved the temple from the centre, throwing the pillars of all the four sides outward, where most of them lie with their drums separated, but still complete in all parts, and only requiring mechanical power to set them up again. Some preliminary shakes had caused pieces of the pediment sculptures to fall out of their place, for they were found at the foot of the temple steps; but the main shock threw the remainder to a great distance, and I saw the work of Alkamenes being unearthed more than twenty-five yards from its proper site.