Temple of Zeus at Nemea: Home of the Nemean Games

The Story of the Temple of Zeus at Nemea

In a broad valley among the hills of Corinthia, surrounded today by vineyards, a few slender columns rise above the ruins of an ancient sanctuary. This is Nemea, sacred to Zeus and home of the Nemean Games, one of the four great Panhellenic festivals of ancient Greece alongside those at Olympia, Delphi and Isthmia. Every two years, athletes from across the Greek world gathered here to compete for a crown of wild celery.

Nemea is linked with one of the most famous Greek myths. It was here that Heracles performed the first of his twelve labors, killing the Nemean lion, a monstrous beast whose golden hide could not be pierced by any weapon. Heracles wrestled the lion and strangled it with his bare hands, and from then on he wore its skin as armor. Some ancient writers said that he founded the Nemean Games to celebrate his victory.

Another legend gave the Games a more tragic origin. When the Seven against Thebes marched through Nemea, they stopped to ask for water. The nurse of the baby prince Opheltes set him down on a bed of wild celery while she showed them the way to a spring, and the child was killed by a serpent. The warriors held funeral games in his honor, and this was said to be the first Nemean Games. That is why the victors were crowned with celery and the judges wore dark robes of mourning.

The temple visible today was built around 330 BC, replacing an earlier temple of the 6th century BC that had been destroyed. It is a Doric temple with 6 columns across each end and 12 along each side, but its columns are unusually tall and slender, giving it an elegant look. Inside, it contained Corinthian and Ionic columns and a sunken room, called an adyton, below the floor, a rare feature whose exact purpose remains a mystery.

For centuries only three columns of the temple remained standing, a familiar sight to travelers passing through the valley. Excavations by the University of California, Berkeley, which began in the 1970s, revealed much more of the sanctuary, including baths, houses for athletes and the remains of an older temple. Since then, several more columns have been carefully reassembled using their original drums, slowly bringing the temple back toward its former glory.

One of the most evocative places at Nemea is the stadium, a short walk from the temple. Athletes entered it through a vaulted stone tunnel, and on its walls they scratched graffiti that can still be read, including the name of a young man and the word beautiful. Since 1996, the Society for the Revival of the Nemean Games has held modern Nemean Games in the ancient stadium, where anyone can race barefoot in a simple tunic, just as the ancients did.

Today Nemea is an easy stop on a trip through the Peloponnese, close to the main road between Athens and the south. Walk among the reassembled columns of the temple, visit the excellent site museum and stroll to the stadium to walk through the athletes' tunnel. Nemea is also one of the most famous wine regions of Greece, known for its red Agiorgitiko grape, so finish your visit at a local winery among the vineyards where Heracles once hunted the lion.