Diodorus Siculus, Library, Book XIII, Chapter 82

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Now the sacred buildings which they constructed, and especially the temple of Zeus, bear witness to the grand manner of the men of that day. Of the other sacred buildings some have been burned and others completely destroyed because of the many times the city has been taken in war, but the completion of the temple of Zeus, which was ready to receive its roof, was prevented by the war; and after the war, since the city had been completely destroyed, never in the subsequent years did the Acragantini find themselves able to finish their buildings. [2] The temple has a length of three hundred and forty feet, a width of sixty, and a height of one hundred and twenty not including the foundation.¹ And being as it is the largest temple in Sicily, it may not unreasonably be compared, so far as the magnitude of its substructure is concerned, with the temples outside of Sicily; for even though, as it turned out, the design could not be carried out, the scale of the undertaking at any rate is clear. [3] And though all other men build their temples either with walls forming the sides or with rows of columns, thus enclosing their sanctuaries, this temple combines both these plans; for the columns were built in with the walls,² the part extending outside the temple being rounded and that within square; and the circumference of the outer part of the column which extends from the wall is twenty feet and the body of a man may be contained in the fluting, while that of the inner part is twelve feet. [4] The porticoes were of enormous size and height, and in the east pediment they portrayed The Battle between the Gods and the Giants in sculptures which excelled in size and beauty, and in the west The Capture of Troy, in which each one of the heroes may be seen portrayed in a manner appropriate to his role. [5] There was at that time also an artificial pool outside the city, seven stades in circumference and twenty cubits deep; into this they brought water and ingeniously contrived to produce a multitude of fish of every variety for their public feastings, and with the fish swans spent their time and a vast multitude of every other kind of bird, so that the pool was an object of great delight to gaze upon. [6] And witness to the luxury of the inhabitants is also the extravagant cost of the monuments which they erected, some adorned with sculptured race-horses and others with the pet birds kept by girls and boys in their homes, monuments which Timaeus says he had seen extant even in his own lifetime.³ [7] And in the Olympiad previous to the one we are discussing, namely, the Ninety-second, when Exaenetus of Acragas won the "stadion,"⁴ he was conducted into the city in a chariot and in the procession there were, not to speak of the other things, three hundred chariots each drawn by two white horses, all the chariots belonging to citizens of Acragas. [8] Speaking generally, they led from youth onward a manner of life which was luxurious, wearing as they did exceedingly delicate clothing and gold ornaments and, besides, using strigils and oil-flasks made of silver and even of gold.

1 The actual dimensions of this great Olympieum are in English feet (c. 5 mm. longer than the Attic foot): length excluding steps 361 ft.; breadth 173 1/2; height of columns with capitals 62 1/2 (?); diameter of columns at bottom 14.

2 i.e. they were engaged or half-columns; see the frontispiece of this Volume.

3 Timaeus died c. 250 B.C.

4 He was victor not only in the Ninety-second Olympiad (412 B.C.; chap. 34) but also in the Ninety-first (416 B.C.; Book 12.82).

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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Cross-references to this page (3):
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), ATHLE´TAE
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), AGRIGENTUM
- Smith's Bio, Exae'netus
Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (8):
- LSJ, διά-ξυσμα
- LSJ, ἐξαίσι-ος
- LSJ, φι^λοτεχν-έω
- LSJ, κρηπι?δ-ωμα
- LSJ, οἶκος
- LSJ, στλεγγ-ίς
- LSJ, συνοικο-δομέω
- LSJ, ὑπόστα^σις

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