The Temple of Olympian Zeus (also known as Temple of Zeus) is located southeast of the Acropolis at a small distance from the center of Athens. The location of the temple was chosen according to legend by Deucalion ,the founder of Athens, in honor of Zeus who saved him from the great flood.

The construction of the temple as you can see it today begun in the 6th century BC, upon the ruins of an older one, and was completed in the 2nd AD at the time of the emperor Hadrian, who inaugurated it.

The Temple of Olympian Zeus was the biggest in the world at that time, with a length of 110 meters and a width of 45. In its internal there were statues of Zeus and the emperor Hadrian.

The temple was of Corinthian order and consisted of 104 marble columns, of which only 15 survive today. The most recent is the fall of the 16th column during a storm in 1842. A few years later the Voivode of Athen, Tzistarakis, used pieces of the fallen columns to make lime and build the Tzistarakis Mosque in Monastiraki. These two events were considered a harbinger of bad news by the Athenians and were associated with the plague that struck the city in the coming year.