The Ancients - Olympia: The Golden Age

Episode Date: May 16, 2021

For hundreds of years in antiquity, the sanctuary at Olympia was one of the most important religious sites in the Greek World, home to stunning art and architecture commissioned by tyrants and city-states situated across the length and breadth of the Mediterranean. And it was during the 5th and 4th centuries BC, that this sanctuary arguably entered its golden age.   In this third and final episode of our mini-series on ancient Olympia, Professor Judy Barringer from the University of Edinburgh talks in detail about some of the most striking art and architecture that survives from Classical Olympia. From the pediments of the Temple of Zeus to the Winged Nike of Paionios. Judy is the author of Olympia: A Cultural History.

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And in today's podcast, we are continuing the story of Olympia. We are wrapping up our mini-series on this ancient site. We're continuing our conversation with Professor Judy Barringer from the University of Edinburgh. Now, in the first part, we looked at Olympia's early religious history. We looked at the bronze of Edinburgh. Now in the first part we looked at Olympia's early religious history. We looked at the bronze figurines, we looked at its links to prominent Greek city-states in Sicily and South Italy in the Archaic period and now we're continuing the story. We're going to the 5th century BC and also the 4th century BC, shall we say a golden age in Olympia's history and we're going to be focusing in on two particular

monumental structures the temple of Zeus at Olympia which housed within it one of the seven wonders of the ancient world the statue of Zeus but we're also then going to be looking at the only round structure within the altars an incredible building which you can still see the remains of to this day at the site. And this was the Philippeion of King Philip II of Macedon. So without further ado, here's Judy. Judy, it is great to have you on the show and it's lovely to see you again. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation. you again. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation. Not at all. And Olympia, Judy, this is an incredible site. And during the archaic period, Olympia, it witnesses this incredible growth. And by the time we get to the fifth century, I mean, Judy, the amount of

archaeology that survives this treasure trove of a century, can we really say that this is a golden age of ancient Olympia? Well, I think they certainly thought so, because in around 472 BC, a lot of changes were made at the site, which included the beginning of the construction of this Temple of Zeus, among many other things. They also lengthened the duration of the games from three days to five days. So they apparently had enough people to come. And they began to spend tremendous amounts of money on the site in various ways. And this is connected, it seems, these changes are connected with Ailis' Synoikism, where it's coming together as a leader in the region. Ailis is the polis nearby to the north, which controlled Olympia for much of its

history. It won a territorial dispute, a battle with another city nearer to Olympia called Pisa, not the Pisa in Italy, but Pisa just near Olympia. And that occurred just around 472 as well. So Aelis gets hold of Olympia and manages to hold onto it for most of the rest of its history. This also seems to be a trigger for activity at the site. And as I said, Aelis creates a Synoikism. It unites the region around it into a central kind of governing body. And thereafter, we see the construction of the Temple of Zeus.

We see a number of prominent and important military victory monuments that are put up just in the first quarter and second quarter of the 5th century BC, some before the Temple of Zeus, some during and after the Temple of Zeus. We see an explosion in the number of athletic victory statues, also made of bronze. And then towards the end of the 5th century BC, somewhere between around 420 and 400, a third temple is created at the site, which Pausanias referred to as a metron, a temple to Metair. We actually don't know who it was dedicated to originally. It's exactly like the Horion in this respect.

But that too was created. So we begin to see lots and lots more activity at Olympia in the 5th century BC. And of course, we know about pinders and bacchylides, victory odes that were created in the 5th century BC for athletic victors at Olympia. So this was really a heyday, I would say, for the site. So many areas which we could explore from that, Julie, but let's focus first of all then on that building which you mentioned, the Temple of Zeus. And I know this is quite a difficult question, but what do we know about its initial construction? Well, we know its materials, that's for certain. We know that it was built of the local limestone, which is not great material,

but that the sculptural decoration, which is in wonderful condition, was made of Parian marble, marble that was imported from the island of Paros in the middle of the Aegean Sea. So all the money really went into this sculpture. Pausanias recounts that the building was constructed by an architect whose name is Libon of Aelis, of whom we hear nothing else at all in antiquity. And when the construction began, the initial date of construction seems to be just after 472, maybe around 470 BC, but that's a guesstimate. The construction date at the end point, when was it finished, is usually said to be around 456 BC, when the Spartans, according to Pausanias, erected a shield on the apex of the temple. So we know

that there had to be an apex to put a shield on. And they put the shield up there as a military trophy of their victory at the Battle of Tanagra, which we know took place just around 456 BC. And so we know, okay, the building must have been finished just around this time. That's what we know about the construction of the building, kind of the basics. The building was built in the Doric architectural order with six columns on the short ends, 13 on the long ends, and had two pediments, of course, like all such gable buildings, two pediments filled with sculpture over life-size marble sculpture. And it also had 12 sculpted metopes flanking at either end of the central core structure of the

building. Inside that initial ring of columns is the centre of the building and at either of the short ends there were six metopes. Just before we go on, my A-level teacher from many, many years ago will be delighted that we're focusing on the Temple of Zeus and in such detail on its art and architecture, because I remember us covering this for A-level classical civilisation many years ago, I must admit. But let's dive into the detail of these incredible sculptures. Let's focus on the pediments, first of all, before the metopes, because the detail of these pediments and the scenes that they show are absolutely extraordinary. Well, the quality of preservation is really extraordinary, that's for sure. They're displayed today in the Archaeological Museum at Olympia, where one can see them at eye level, which of course was not the case when they were actually

on the building, where they were 12 metres up. And so not so easy to see small details. These marble sculptures were, of course, I should say, painted, right? So we have almost no traces of paint left on the pedimental sculptures. We have some on the metopes. And these pedimental sculptures were devoted to two themes. On the west, the back of the temple, was the scene of the centuramachy, the fight between the centaurs and the Lapith Greeks, a scene that takes place at a wedding where the centaurs are invited as guests to this wedding and they drink their wine uncut, that is, they drink it neat, not cut with water, as was the practice in ancient Greece. And so they immediately became drunk and they began to attack the Lapith women who were there at the wedding and a melee broke out and the centaurs, of course,

are defeated by the Lapith men and fought off by the Lapith women. That's on the west side. And that's a myth that would be recognizable to any Greek. On the east side of the building, however, we have an extraordinary myth that's closely tied to the site. The identification of this myth would have been impossible without Pausanias' description of it because it is so rarely depicted in Greek art. So this myth on the east side, the front side of the building, shows preparations for the chariot race between the Elean hero, the hero of Aelis, Pelops, and the hero of Pisa, that town that Aelus had recently conquered, and the hero of Pisa is called Oinomaeus. So what this myth is going to describe is this military

conflict, but in mythological terms. So Oinomaeus, the ruler of Pisa, has a daughter, and he holds a chariot race contest to win the hand of his daughter. And the suitors come to vie for his daughter's hand, and they have to race against the father. And 13 suitors had come and failed, which cost them their lives, because every time a suitor began to pull ahead of Oinomaeus, he would plant a spear in their backs. And so 13 had come and tried, they failed. Then Pelops, the hero of Aelis, comes and he tries and he wins. And how does he win? Well, there are two mythological traditions concerning this. One says that he cheated by bribing the charioteer to insert wax linchpins in place of metal linchpins in the wheel of the chariot of Oinomaus,

so that when Oinomaus began the race, the friction on the wheels would cause the linchpins, the wax linchpins, to melt and the chariot would fall apart. But the second tradition, or I should say the first tradition, is one that does not involve cheating. But in fact, Pelops, according to this tradition, was given winged horses by the god Poseidon, his erstwhile lover. So with these winged horses and this kind of anointment by the god, he wins this race against Oinomaeus. And he not only wins the race, he wins the girl, he wins the kingdom. This of course is a mythological expression of Aelis' taking over Olympia from Pisa.

This myth was said to be, according to many traditions, the founding event of the Olympic Games. So that's the scene that's depicted on the east pediment. These scenes are depicted, on the one hand you say that very common myth, on the other hand that rather obscure myth. But for anyone looking up and looking at those pediments, of course, you need to imagine that those have been many, many metres above the ground. Do you think there were any underlying messages from the stories that they picked for this temple? Yes. And in fact, this is one of the things that interests me the most,

is what the patrons' intentions are about these choices and how our viewers respond to them. And I think that these pedimental compositions are meant to offer both positive and negative exemplars to the viewers, particularly the athletes, but not only the athletes. So it's very clear to see in the case of the Centauromachy, where some of the late Greek men who were fighting off the centaurs use wrestling holds, real wrestling holds, on their opponents. And they, of course, fight nobly to fight off these bestial centaurs who are attacking the women. So they're acting in a heroic fashion. And in fact, in the center of the pediment on the West is the god Apollo, Apollo, the god of moderation, right, who exhorts the Lapith men to fight against

these centaurs. And not only are the Lapith men fighting, but so are the Lapith women, who were pushing the centaurs away and trying to resist the attacks of the centaurs and in this sense they offer a model of kind of chastity and virtue that these not only are are these women uh resisting the centaurs they're doing so in an energetic very physical and aggressive fashion and prior to this time the centauromachy myth had never been used as architectural sculpture in Greece, never. And what's more, never shown with the women as part of this melee. Usually it was just the men fighting when we see it in vase painting, for example. So now we have over life-size figures doing this. And then on the east pediment, we have also a kind of similar message that is to say, Pelops wins and he wins because the gods help him to win,

which is in fact coming to reality now. According to the ancient Greeks, a person won, an athlete won at the Olympic Games because Zeus selected the athlete, not just because of the athlete's own talents. But in this case, Poseidon helps Pelops to win by giving him his winged horses. And Oinomaeus, who was such a bad sport, loses.

And so Pelops offers a kind of model for heroic behavior in this respect. One of the other interesting things about the East pediment is that both of the protagonists, the male protagonists, are wearing armor and carrying weapons. And these are not suitable implements for a chariot race, in spite of Oinomaus' spear. But in fact, these weapons and armor are closely tied to Olympia and its associations with military victory. And by extension, this is an expression of the ancient Greek belief that athletics were the very best preparation for combat warfare. We're slightly keeping on that topic then. Let's focus on that other incredible architecture and art on the exterior of the Temple of Zeus. First off, Judy, the Metopes. What are the Metopes?

The Metopes are these 12 scenes that flank the short ends of the central portion of the temple, and all of them are devoted to the labours of Heracles, the son of Zeus, an athlete par excellence. Heracles not only has this filial connection to Zeus, but we have an abundant written literary tradition from the ancient world that links Heracles closely to Olympia. According to Pausanias, it was Heracles who laid out the boundaries of the Altus and who determined where visitors could and could not go, where they could and could not eat. And it was according to ancient authors that Heracles brought those olive trees to Olympia from which the crowns of the victors were crafted. And Heracles, in some traditions, is said to have founded the hero shrine for Pelops, which is at Olympia. And according to another tradition, some ancient writers said that

Heracles actually founded the Olympic Games. So he's got a lot of ties to Olympia, and we know that he had altars at Olympia as well. So all in all, he is a very apt choice alongside these pediment stories, these scenes, to be put on the exterior of the Temple of Zeus. Absolutely. And one of the Temple of Zeus. Absolutely. And one of the most extraordinary things about the labours chosen, the 12 labours of Heracles that are chosen, is that they represent a large geographical range, but with a heavy concentration of labours

that took place in the Peloponnese, the region of Greece in which Olympia is located. And one of them is a very, very local labor that had never been shown before anywhere. So it was something known from literature, but had no visual predecessor. And that is cleaning out the stables of King Augeas. And these are stables of horses, and they had never been cleaned. And so Heracles is given the unpleasant task of cleaning these stables. And what does he do? Well, of course, Athena helps him. He diverts a river to run through the stables and clean them

out. And Augeas was apparently a local king. And this diversion of the river seems to, once again, reflect an actual historical event. We know that in around 700 BC, that is when the ash altar was dispersed over the site, that those at Olympia who were in control of the site diverted the Claudius River, which was running very close to the Kronos Hill, diverted it further to the west so that it would not flood the site so frequently. That is to say that this myth of Heracles seems to embody a real historical event that had taken place in the distant past. Have you heard of the teenage werewolf prosecuted in 1603? Did you know that the 17th century British government

relied heavily on female spies? And do you want to know about chin-chucking and thigh sex? Of course you do. I'm Susanna Lipscomb, and my new podcast, Not Just the Tudors, is a deep dive into what I like to think of as the long 16th century. We'll be talking about everything from Aztecs to witches, Velazquez to Shakespeare, Mughal India to the Mayflower. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.

Subscribe to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Right, so moving on, we've looked at the exterior of the temple and the incredible glass and architecture of that part. So let's move into the interior, because within the Temple of Zeus, Judy, we do find one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. We do indeed. This is the colossal statue of Zeus shown seated by the sculptor Phidias, which was put in the building around 430 BC. And nothing of the statue survives. I should say that right off. But we have extremely long and detailed passages from ancient writers describing the statue of Zeus and the elaborate throne upon which he sat. We know that the statue of Zeus was made of crisp elephantine, that is gold and ivory. The drapery was made of

gold, the flesh parts of ivory, and we assume for good reason that this was erected on some kind of wooden scaffolding. We have one ancient writer who talks about seeing mice running up and down the scaffolding underneath the statue of Zeus, this wooden scaffolding. And he sat seated on this throne, which was decorated with precious materials and depicting all kinds of battles, mythological battles, as well as showing a number

of mythological figures. And then there is one single figure of an athlete crowning himself as if he were a victor at the Olympic Games. In his outstretched hand, Zeus holds the figure of Nike or victory. He sits very relaxed on this throne. And this sculpture was made by Phidias, who also made the statue of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon in Athens on the Athenian Acropolis. The Athena statue was earlier than that of Zeus, and the Athena statue was standing. Her height when she was fully standing was 12.2 meters. At Olympia, Phidias later made the statue of Zeus seated, and his seated height was 12.2 meters. And so we assume that there was some effort to kind of outdo himself, right? That if Zeus actually stood up,

he'd be much larger than the Athena in the Parthenon. The viewing conditions of the Phidian Zeus were also quite special. There was a pool in front of him, a pool of olive oil, which we presume was placed there to retain moisture in the ivory, to keep it moist. And the roof of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia was made of translucent marble roof tiles, so that light filtered in through these translucent marble roof tiles and augmented the light coming from the doorway of the temple. So that there was this kind of wonderful atmosphere in the building and God seemed to glow inside the temple. and God seemed to glow inside the temple. It's clever how you see so many of these ancient monuments, they take advantage of the natural light, you know,

to get that glow within the buildings, frankly, perhaps like on Orkney or elsewhere. Julie, just one last mention on this statue on the interior of the Temple of Zeus, because you mentioned earlier how on the apex you had the Spartan shield. Do we also see other similar military dedications? Have they been uncovered nearby the temple or within the remains of the temple? Yes, to both questions. We have a tremendous number of military victory dedications at Olympia, and there are kind of two categories I want to talk about. One are tropaia, the actual arms and weapons taken from the enemy, which were dedicated at Olympia

by the victorious army or the victorious commander of the victorious city. And Olympia actually has more weapons and armor than any other sanctuary in the ancient Mediterranean. More have been found there. So to give you some rough idea of numbers, the number of bronze helmets recovered from Olympia is over 1,000. And this is far more than are found at any other ancient site in the ancient world. So these objects were dedicated. Very often, they were inscribed with a dedication to Zeus by, as I said, a polis or an individual. We have many, many, many of these. A very famous example that I want to mention is a helmet that was dedicated by the Athenian general Miltiades. And his name is written on this bronze helmet that's at the site. So this will be given and these tropaia were

erected, once again, we think on wooden scaffolding to help hold these things up. And one of the peculiar things about this dedicated armor and these weapons was that very often they were damaged intentionally. For example, we see helmets pierced from the inside out, or cheek pieces of helmets bent, which makes them non-utilitarian. They can't be used again. And that seems to have been the intent, to make them unusable again, either as votive dedications. And one has to think about a site like Olympia, which did not have a closed gateway or a high wall around it in the classical period. In fact, we have no evidence of a wall before the fourth century BC, that all of this armor and weapons sitting out on the site

is like a ready-made arsenal for any army that wants to seize material there. So damaging this bronze material was a good idea. That's one category of monument from Olympia. And you have to imagine the site just filled with this stuff, filled with it. And then the other kinds of military victory monuments we have are bronze statues or marble statues. And one of the most prominent of these marble statues is the Nike of Paeonius, which was placed to the east of the Temple of Zeus, so very nearby the entrance. The Nike of Paeonius is a winged figure of Nike or Victory who was shown a lighting on the top of a triangular pillar. And this marble monument, marble for both components,

the base and the statue, came to a total height of around 11, 11 and a half meters high. And one can see the statue of Nike today in the Olympia Archaeological Museum. The triangular pillar inscribed with the victory dedication still stands on the site. And this monument was put up around 424 BC as a military victory monument to mark the victory of the Mycenaeans and now Pacteans over the enemy which was Sparta. The image of Nike is shown alighting on the column. It seems as if she's coming down, but there's something intervening between her and that triangular pillar and that intervening object upon which she stands is the eagle of Zeus.

So Zeus delivers the victory, right? He brings it in. And the animal that you see there today, there is an eagle there, although one wing is missing. And so it's very strange. It looks something like a turtle, but it's not a turtle. It's Zeus. And this is in keeping with this idea that Zeus delivers victory. And these military monuments are not simply to trumpet military victory, but these are thank offerings to the God

for awarding victory to the victorious army. Likewise, the athletic victory monuments are thank offerings to Zeus for granting the victory to the victorious athlete. The Nikkei was sculpted by a guy called Pionius of Mende. And we know of him from other sculptural commissions as well. He did, we're told by ancient writers, that he was one of the sculptors who did the acroteria or roof sculptures for the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. I remember many, many years ago going to see that sculpture, like his beautiful artwork

in the museum at Olympia. Once again, thanks to Miss Kawika, Mr. Bush and all of my A-level classical civilization and ancient teachers. But one thing which really struck out, and I know you're happy to talk about this in a second,

is the drapery on that statue. The flowing of the drapery, the position of Nikkei, the winged Nike. It does feel very innovative for the time. Indeed, it is part of a trend of drapery treatment that we see just towards the end of the 5th century BC, where drapery really begins to take on a life of its own and it flutters here and there in various ways. This is the most dramatic instance of this at the end of the 5th century BC where the drapery pushes against her body and flutters out behind her. One sees kind of the predecessor of this on the Parthenon pediments.

There's the winged figure of Iris who rushes forward to deliver news to an audience. And as she moves forward, the drapery presses up against her, but we don't have a big swathe of it in the back. That's something that comes with the Nikkei of Paeonius. One can think of this figure setting a trend again later. We see the same thing again with the Nikkei of Samothrace, now in the Louvre in Paris, where we see this kind of big swathe of drapery behind her. This sense of immediacy, right? She's just arriving, just in time, and not standing,

not stable, but in motion, makes the statue, I think, tremendously exciting for the viewer, and gives a real sense of the thrill of this victory. So we've had a look at the Temple of Zeus, we've had a look at the Winged Nike, this is an incredible time in Olympia's history. But moving on slightly to this other, one of my other favourite buildings from this ancient sanctuary, a round building from a northern kingdom, but it leaves a significant imprint on this ancient sanctuary. It does indeed. The Philippion, this circular structure, is the only circular structure at Olympia. First of all, this is important to know. And construction of this building was begun

around 338 BC. The general view, although of course like everything at Olympia it's contested, the general view is that the building was begun by Philip II, the King of Macedonia, and either was completed by him or was completed by his son Alexander the Great. And this building is generally regarded as a military victory monument to celebrate Philip's tremendous conquest of southern Greece at the Battle of Hyrenia in 338 BC. This marble structure is special because of its location, it's special because of its shape, and it's special because of its contents within. The building is in the northern portion of the Altus, I should say, very, very close to the Horion. So the southern area of Kronos Hill to the

south of Kronos Hill, but very close to the Horion, the so-called Horion, this temple, close to the ash altar, and close to the hero shrine for Pelops at the site, and not far from the Temple of Zeus. And in fact, like the Temple of Zeus, the Philippaeon was oriented to the east. And so the building's location is one in the oldest part of the sanctuary, where the oldest religious structures were located, and this surely was intentional. This circular building, we know from Pausanias and from the actual sculpted sculpture bases that survived. There was sculpture inside the building. Pausanias tells us that it depicted Philip, Alexander, and the family.

There were statues inside. And we have those statue bases, as I said. Pausanias is interesting because he describes the statues as chryselephantine, this golden ivory material that was used for the Phidian Zeus inside the Zeus temple. Now chryselephantine usually, not always, but usually is a material that's associated with divinities. So scholars tried to make some sense of Pausanias' description, were there really chrysalophantine statues of Philip and his family in the Philippaeon? Well, the sculpture stood on these

bases. I've already mentioned that. These bases have cuttings in them to receive plinths on which the sculpture stood, like little islands on which the sculpture stood. And the plinths that stood in these cuttings on the base were clearly made of marble. So either Pausanias is incorrect, the statues are not chryselephantine, but were made of marble. Or maybe he saw gilt statues and mistook them for chryselephantine. Or another possibility that has been proposed is that the statues were partly chryselephantine, but placed into some kind of marble plinth, which then went into the base. In any case, the choice to have Philip and his family shown in the Philippeion was already something very unusual. This is kind of the first family group we see at Olympia, but it's not the last by any means.

It sets a trend. And if, in fact, these statues were of Chryselephantine, then one has to think of a parallel that somehow Philip is showing himself in the same kind of guise, which seems hubristic. Although we know elsewhere in the Greek world, not on the Greek mainland, but elsewhere in the Greek world, Philip did demand worship in the same caliber as Zeus, and in fact Zeus is featured on some of his coinage. So the building is also unusual for its circular shape. I said this. And this is a shape that is usually associated with heroa, shrines for hero worship. Now, there is no evidence at all that there was religious activity at the Philippaeum. So we can't assume that there was worship there of Philip or his family. But it is a peculiar choice of buildings at the site. So that's about the Philippaeum.

And then you said there were followers or kind of this building was influential. And that's very much true. Later rulers, later kings in the Hellenistic period took their cue from this building and constructed monuments at Olympia whose placement and form were meant to respond directly to the Philippaeum. directly to the Philippaeum. To wrap it all up then, Judy, I mean, is that something which is really astonishing about the history of Olympia and looking at the archaeology and what survives? It's just looking at the location of certain buildings within the Altus or around the Altus and how their placement is designed to respond to earlier constructions at the site. Yes. And in fact, this is what I've been studying, is a long history of Olympia from around 600 BC to the 4th century AD. And I've been looking at how monuments respond to each other over time, and how Olympia changes over time. And there is

a kind of dialogue between monuments. One monument is built, and then another is placed to edge it out, to kind of elbow it aside by some rival city or rival general. And the placement of monuments is strategic, especially monuments that represent military victory. There is an effort to be very close to the Temple of Zeus, for example. So the form and interaction of these monuments over time, and as Olympia changes from a Greek site to a Roman site, how all of this works together and monuments interact with one another, and how they were placed, has been the focus of my research for many years now. Absolutely. And you can go and learn all about that research in Judy's book.

Judy, the book is called? Olympia, A Cultural History. Judy, absolutely fantastic. This was a brilliant chat and lovely to see you again. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you.