en from the opposite bank, the ruins present a most interesting
picture, with its attractiveness greatly enhanced by the neighboring
pines, which scatter themselves through the precinct itself and cover
densely the little conical hill of Kronos close by, while the grasses of
the plain grow luxuriantly among the fallen stones of the former temples
and apartments of the athletes. The ruins are so numerous and so
prostrate that the non-technical visitor is seriously embarrassed to
describe them, as is the case with every site of the kind.

All the ruins, practically, have been identified and explained, and
naturally they all have to do with the housing or with the contests of
the visiting athletes of ancient times, or with the worship of tutelary
divinities. Almost the first extensive ruin that we found on passing the
encircling precinct wall was the Prytaneum--a sort of ancient training
table at which victorious contestants were maintained gratis--while
beyond lay other equally extensive remnants of exercising places, such
as the Palaestra for the wrestlers. But all these were dominated,
evidently, by the two great temples, an ancient one of comparatively
small size sacred to Hera, and a mammoth edifice dedicated to Zeus,
which still gives evidence of its enormous extent, while the fallen
column-drums reveal some idea of the other proportions. It was in its
day the chief glory of the enclosure, and the statue of the god was even
reckoned among the seven wonders of the world. Unfortunately this
statue, like that of Athena at Athens, has been irretrievably lost. But
there is enough of the great shrine standing in the midst of the ruins
to inspire one with an idea of its greatness; and, in the museum above,
the heroic figures from its two pediments have been restored and set up
in such wise as to reproduce the external adornment of the temple with
remarkable success.

Gathered around this central building, the remainder of the ancient
structures having to do with the peculiar uses of the spot present a
bewildering array of broken stones and marbles. An obtrusive remnant of
a Byzantine church is the one discordant feature. Aside from this the
precinct recalls only the distant time when the regular games called all
Greece to Olympia, while the "peace of God" prevailed throughout the
kingdom. Just at the foot of Kronos a long terrace and flight of steps
mark the position of a row of old treasuries, as at Delphi, while along
th