The statue of Zeus

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was made by the Greek sculptor of the Classical period, Phidias, circa 432 BCE on the site where it was erected in the temple of Zeus, Olympia, Greece.

The seated statue, some 12 meters (39 feet) tall, occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple built to house it. “It seems that if Zeus were to stand up,” the geographer Strabo noted early in the first century BCE, “he would unroof the temple.” Zeus was a chryselephantine sculpture, made of ivory and gold-plated bronze. No copy, in marble or bronze, has survived, though there are recognizable but approximate versions on coins of nearby Elis and Roman coins and engraved gems.  A very detailed description of the sculpture and its throne was recorded by the traveller Pausanias, in the second century CE. The sculpture, was wreathed with shoots of olive and seated on a magnificent throne of cedarwood, inlaid with ivory, gold, ebony, and precious stones. In Zeus’ right hand there was a small statue of crowned Nike, goddess of victory, also chryselephantine, and in his left hand, a sceptre inlaid with gold, on which an eagle perched. Plutarch, in his Life of the Roman general Aemilius Paulus, records that the victor over Macedon, when he beheld the statue, “was moved to his soul, as if he had seen the god in person,” while the Greek orator Dio Chrysostom declared that a single glimpse of the statue would make a man forget all his earthly troubles.

The date of the statue, in the third quarter of the fifth century BCE, long a subject of debate, was confirmed archaeologically by the rediscovery and excavation of Phidias’ workshop.

According to a legend, when Phidias was asked what inspired him — whether he climbed Mount Olympus to see Zeus, or whether Zeus came down from Olympus so that Pheidias could see him — the artist answered that he portrayed Zeus according to Book One, verses 528 – 530 of Homer´s Iliad:

The sculptor also was reputed to have immortalized his eromenos, Pantarkes, by carving “Pantarkes kalos” into the god’s little finger, and placing a relief of the boy crowning himself at the feet of the statue.