A EIDE ACKOSS THE PELOPONNESE. 169 



shown first a curious Byzantine basilica, which had 

 lately been dug out, and which is attributed to early 

 Christian times. We then passed on to the temple 

 of Zeus. This has now been fully excavated, so that 

 the plan is quite clear. Nothing remains actually in 

 situ save the basement, a few of the bottom drums of 

 the columns, and a piece of the wall of the cella. 

 But as the earthquake which destroyed it must have 

 burst in the middle of the temple, so that the 

 columns, in many cases complete, lie outwards on all 

 the four sides, it is not difficult to reconstruct it in 

 imagination. It must be confessed, however, that for 

 one who saw here his first Greek temple, this temple 

 at Olympia in its present state was profoundly disap- 

 pointing. Not because there is nothing standing ; I 

 was prepared for that. But even Pausanias's careful 

 statement, that the temple was built of " porous stone 

 from the neighbourhood," had not prepared me for 

 the extreme coarseness of the material. One some- 

 how had a notion, cherished even in the face of 

 obvious facts, that no Greek architect would look at 

 anything less attractive than Parian marble ; and yet 

 here you see drums and capitals of the roughest 

 possible composite. Three or four of these huge 

 members were entirely made of shells ! !N"o doubt 

 stucco and colour concealed these defects in the days 

 of old, but now they are painfully obvious. 



If the temple, however, as it now is, did not quite 

 fulfil one's hopes and wishes, the disappointment was 



