Zeus temple | archaeological site

 temple, archaeological site

Peisistratos, the outspoken tyrran of pre-classical Athens, desided to establish the worship of Dionysus in Athens, in order to make drama a religious act, and part of the strictly scheduled religious activities that were taking place in the Attica. For that he moved the wooden statue of Elefthereos Dionysus, from its original temple in Voiotia, to the temple of Dionysus on the south slope of the Acropolis rock, just above the famous Dionysus Theatre. In return, he promised to build in Voiotia the most awsome and great temple of Greece, which according to the ruins seems to have been his actual intention. Had this grandiose plan was not interrupted by the death of the tyrran, the unworthy succesors and a most destructive earthquake, the Temple of Zeus would have been by far the greatest temple of the main Greek region, in both size and magnitude.