'', the earliest known representation of the statue in modern times. The
engraving was made by
Philippe Galle, from a drawing by
Maarten van Heemskerck district in southern Greece illustrating the Olympian Zeus statue (
Nordisk familjebok) The statue of Zeus was commissioned by the
Eleans, custodians of the
Olympic Games, in the latter half of the fifth century BC for their newly constructed
Temple of Zeus. Seeking to outdo their Athenian rivals, the Eleans employed sculptor
Phidias, who had previously made the massive statue of
Athena Parthenos in the
Parthenon. The statue occupied half the width of the aisle of the temple built to house it. The geographer
Strabo noted early in the 1st century BC that the statue gave "the impression that if Zeus arose and stood erect he would unroof the temple." The
Zeus was a
chryselephantine sculpture, made with ivory and gold panels on a wooden substructure. No copy in marble or bronze has survived, though there are recognizable but only approximate versions on coins of nearby
Elis and on Roman coins and
engraved gems. The 2nd-century AD geographer and traveler
Pausanias left a detailed description: the statue was crowned with a sculpted wreath of olive sprays and wore a gilded robe made from glass and carved with animals and lilies. Its right hand held a small chryselephantine statue of crowned
Nike, goddess of victory; its left a scepter inlaid with many metals, supporting an eagle. The throne featured painted figures and wrought images and was decorated with gold, precious stones, ebony, and ivory. Zeus' golden sandals rested upon a footstool decorated with an
Amazonomachy in relief. The passage underneath the throne was restricted by painted screens. Pausanias also recounts that the statue was kept constantly coated with olive oil to counter the harmful effect on the ivory caused by the "marshiness" of the
Altis grove. The floor in front of the image was paved with black tiles and surrounded by a raised rim of marble to contain the oil. According to the Roman historian
Livy, the Roman general
Aemilius Paullus (the victor over
Macedon) saw the statue and "was moved to his soul, as if he had seen the god in person", and according to
Plutarch, Aemilius Paullus "made that utterance which is now on every mouth, that Pheidias had moulded the Zeus of
Homer". The 1st-centuryAD Greek orator
Dio Chrysostom declared that a single glimpse of the statue would make a man forget all his earthly troubles. , marble and bronze (restored), following the type established by Phidias (
Hermitage Museum,
Saint Petersburg) According to
Strabo, when Phidias was asked about the model he would use for his Zeus, he answered that he would portray Zeus according to these words of
Homer: The sculptor also was reputed to have immortalised Pantarkes, the winner of the boys' wrestling event at the eighty-sixth Olympiad who was said to have been his "beloved" (), by carving ("Pantarkes is beautiful") into Zeus's little finger, and by placing a relief of the boy crowning himself at the feet of the statue. According to Pausanias, "when the image was quite finished Pheidias prayed the god to show by a sign whether the work was to his liking. Immediately, runs the legend, a thunderbolt fell on that part of the floor where down to the present day the bronze jar stood to cover the place." ==Loss and destruction==