(anc. geog.), with the surname Piatatis, (Strabo); so called from the territory of Pifa in Elis; described by Strabo, "as the temple of Jupiter Olympius, before which stands a grove of wild olive-trees, in which is the stadium, or foot-course, so called, because the eighth part of a mile; and by which the Alpheus, coming down from Arcadia, runs." A temple and shrine highly ennobled by gymnastic exercises; and distinguished by a peculiar degree of veneration, and still more so by the statue of Jupiter, the work of Phidias, (Mela); situated between Olfa and Olympius, mountains cognominal with those of Thesaly, distant 12 miles from Pylos; famous for games called the Olympian, celebrated the beginning of each fifth year, by which Greece computed time, (Pliny); a period of four years complete being called an Olympiad. Olympia was anciently called Pifa, or Pifa stood in its neighbourhood; and there Jupiter Olympius was worshipped. Historians take no notice of Pifa, though poets do, but only of Olympia: which is thought to have arisen, if it had ever any habitations, (so as to become a town or village, besides the temple and place of exercise,) from the ruins of Pifa; destroyed by the Eleans, according to Paufanias; who adds, that not a vestige either of the houses or walls was to be seen, but a plantation of vines on the spot where it stood. Again, Olympia and Pifa are said to have stood on different spots, but in each other's adjacency. The public edifices of Olympia were the temple of Jupiter, the gymnasium, the portico, the dwellings of the Athletes, the stadium or raised causeway, the Hippodromus or chariot-course, the barrier and goal. Olympiacus, (Virgil;) Olympicus, (Horace;) the epithets. Now called Longinico, in the Morea. E. Long. 22. 0. N. Lat. 37. 30.