Heraion
About
Built around 590 BCE, the Heraion is the oldest standing temple at Olympia and one of the earliest Doric temples in Greece. Its original wooden columns were replaced one by one with stone over centuries, so no two columns fully match. The temple held the discus used to light the Olympic flame and hosted the footrace of the Heraean Games for women. It still stood in active cult use when Trajan died in August 117 CE.
What happened here
The building itself is a house for the god, and most people never go inside. Everything public happens on the steps and at the altar in front: an animal led up, examined, killed cleanly, its organs read, the meat divided and eaten. The priest covers his head and a flute player keeps up a noise so no ill-omened word is heard. Worshippers leave what they can afford — a terracotta figure, a coin, a model of the body part they want healed — and the accumulated clutter is periodically cleared and buried on site. On festival days the doors are opened and the cult statue is dressed, garlanded, and sometimes carried out through the streets. The temple also holds money, which is why towns keep their treasury in one.
In ancient writing
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.16.1, 5.20.9
The oldest temple in the sanctuary, with one oak column still standing in the rear chamber in his day — the last of the originals, replaced in stone as each decayed.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →