The temple of Jupiter was built with the spoils, taken from certain states which had revolted; it was of the Doric order; sixty-eight feet high, two hundred and thirty long, and ninety-five broad. This edifice was built by an able architect, named Libon; and it was adorned by two sculptors of equal skill, who enriched the pediments of the principal front with elaborate and elegant ornaments. The statue of the god, the work of Phidias, was of gold and ivory, fifty cubits high. On the one pediment, Œnomaus and Peleus were disputing the prize of the race in the presence of Jupiter; on the other was the battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithæ. On the summit of each pediment was a Victory, of gilt brass; and at each angle a large vase of the same metal. This statue was the finest the world ever saw. “Indeed,” says Mr. Dodwell; and he is borne out by the authorities of all those ancient writers who have written of it, “it appears to have united all the beauty of form, and all the splendour of effect, that are produced by the highest excellence of the statuary and the painter.” The altar in this temple[42] was composed of ashes from the thighs of the victims, which were carried up and consumed on the top with wood of the white poplar-tree. The ashes, also, of the Prytanæum, in which a perpetual fire was kept on a hearth, were removed annually, on a fixed day, and spread on it, being first mingled with water from the Alpheus. The people of Elis sacrificed daily, and private persons as often as they chose. Olympia[43] preserved, much longer than Delphi, and with less diminution, the sacred property, of which it was a similar repository. Some images were removed by Tiberius Nero. His successor, Caius Caligula, who honoured Jupiter with the familiar appellation of brother, commanded that his image should be transported to Rome; but the architects declared it was impossible, without destroying the work. The god, in the time of Pausanias, retained his original splendour. The native offerings of crowns and chariots, and of charioteers, and horses, and oxen, in brass, the precious images of gold, ivory, or amber, and the curiosities consecrated in the temples, the treasuries, and other edifices, could not be viewed without astonishment. The number of statues within the grove, was itself an amazing spectacle. Many were the works of Myron, Lysippus, and the prime artists of Greece. Here kings and emperors were assembled; and Jupiter towered in brass from twelve to thirty feet high! Let the reader peruse the detail given by Pausanias, and imagine, if he can, the entertainment which Olympia must then have afforded to the antiquary, the connoisseur, and historian.