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Key Details
Type
Sacred SiteMythology
Greek Pantheon
Coordinates
37.638°N, 21.63°E
About This Location
Zeus's games, not Olympus
Olympia in Elis is a sanctuary of Zeus in a river valley, not the mountain of the gods. The games were a Panhellenic truce-festival; Pindar's odes pay the victors in myth. Pausanias walks the Altis: Pelops's precinct, Hera's older temple, Pheidias's chryselephantine Zeus. Foundation stories disagree (Heracles, Pelops, local kings). What is solid is the archaeology and the victor lists. The mountain Olympus is a different coordinate; the name is a cult title of Zeus, not a postal error.
Primary Sources
“The sacred grove of Zeus, which they call Altis, is surrounded by a wall.”
More from Greek Pantheon
Mount Olympus
MountainThe highest mountain in Greece and the mythological home of the twelve Olympian gods.
The Underworld
RealmThe gloomy realm of the dead ruled by Hades, located deep beneath the earth.
Delphi
Sacred SiteThe site of the oracle of Apollo, considered the center of the world (omphalos) by the ancient Greeks.
Tartarus
UnderworldThe deepest abyss of the underworld, a dungeon of torment where the Titans were imprisoned and the wicked punished for eternity.
Elysian Fields
RealmA paradise at the end of the earth where heroes and the virtuous were sent after death to live in eternal bliss.
River Styx
Body Of WaterThe principal river of the underworld, upon which even the gods swore binding oaths. Charon ferried the dead across its dark waters.