a town of ancient Elis in Greece, stood at a small distance W. from Pisa, on the right bank of the Alpheus (Rufia), in a plain that opened westward towards the Ionian Sea, and was skirted on all other sides by hills. It was chiefly famous for its sacred grove, said to have been inclosed by Hercules, and called by pre-eminence Altis, a word which is the Peloponnesian Æolic form of Ἀλτης. Many sacred edifices rose up among the planes and wild olive-trees of this grove. By far the most important of these was the Olympium or Olympium, the temple of Jupiter Olympius, which stood near the southern boundary of the Altis, and faced the east. It was founded by the Eleians in 572 B.C. The spoils which that people had taken in their war against Pisa and the neighbouring cities were devoted to its erection; and after the lapse of nearly a century, it received its last finish from the chisel of Phidias the great sculptor. It was a peripteral hexastyle structure of the Doric order, built of limestone from the adjacent mountains, roofed with slabs of Pentelic marble, occupying a site of 230 feet in length, and 95 in breadth, and rising to the height of 68 feet. Both pediments were enriched Olympiad with legendary stories in relief: the front pediment was topped by a gilded statue of Victory, and below it, attached to the frieze, hung twenty-one votive bucklers, the offering of the Roman general Mummius. At the two ends of the temple were two brazen gates leading respectively into the two chambers into which the building was divided. The western and backmost chamber was called the Opisthodoma. On entering the eastern and front chamber, the spectator advanced straight forward up a double colonnade towards a rich and gorgeous curtain, which intercepted his view. The curtain was drawn aside, and there, on a cedar throne, spangled with inlaid gold, ivory, ebony, and precious stones, and crowded all over with painted and sculptured stories of the gods, appeared the master-work of Phidias, the colossal gold and ivory statue of the Olympian Jove, seated with an image of Victory in his right hand and an eagle-surmounted sceptre in his left, and almost touching the roof with his olive-crowned head. Behind the temple of Jupiter the background of the sacred grove was crowded with other structures. There were the Heraeum (the temple of Juno), the great altar of Jupiter, the Metroum (the temple of the Mother of the Gods), the Prytaneum, and the Bouleuterion. There were also altars, porticoes, monuments, and statues peeping out at intervals from among the trees.

Olympia was also famous as the scene of the Olympic games. Close to the eastern wall of the Altis stood the stadium, or seat for the judges, a long embankment of earth bent into the form of a horse-shoe, resting its circular extremity on the foot of Mount Cronius, and opening its other extremity to the south. Joining the two ends of the stadium, and forming a continuation, were two rows of stables and other apartments, which, inclining towards each other, ran southward until they made a narrow aperture, and inclosed a space. This space was called hippodaphsis, from being the starting-place of the horses; and embolus, from having an outline like the beak of a ship. The aperture of the embolus led into the hippodrome or race-course, which extended for the space of two stadia towards the River Alpheus, and was bounded on the right by a small eminence, and on the left by an artificial embankment.

The information regarding Olympia is chiefly derived from the fifth and sixth books of the Itinerary of Pausanias. Of all the edifices that he describes, the temple of Jupiter is the only one whose site can definitely be traced. Much light, however, has been thrown upon the subject by Leake's Peloponnesiaca. (See also Mure's Tour in Greece, &c., in 2 vols., 8vo, 1838.)