Agrigento - Valley of the Temples Valle dei Templi

In 1km/0.75 mi a road goes off on the left to the cemetery. At its southeast corner are remains of the Greek town walls.

Rooms 7 and 8: Finds from the Hellenic-Roman area of the town (fourth century B.C.-fourth century A.D.), remains of wall paintings, mosaics and inscriptions.

Room 14: Commentaries, topographical drawings and photographs of numerous archeological sites in the vicinity.

Room 3: Collection of black- and red-figured pottery from Athens (sixth-third centuries B.C.) and also Italian pottery (fifth-third centuries B.C.), including a bowl with the motif of the "triscele", the symbol of Trinakrias (sixth century B.C.) and a white-bottomed vessel from Akrágas with a design of Perseus and Andromeda.

Room 1: Cartographic and antique documents relating to the history of Agrigento are displayed here.

Room 2: Finds from the Neolithic period and the Bronze and Iron Ages; ancient finds from Gela and the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. necropolises, as well as from the necropolis at Montelusa (site of the oldest known graves in Agrigento).

Room 15: A red-figured Greek crater from Gela with a depiction of an Amazon battle (fifth century B.C.). In the succeeding rooms there are commentaries on the excavation areas of Nyssa and the province of Caltanissetta, and in the last room exhibitions are mounted.

Immediately south of the museum in Agrigento is the little Gothic church of San Nicola (13th century) with a fine doorway. Inside is a marble sarcophagus carved with scenes from the story of Phaedra and Hippolytus (second-third centuries A.D.). Close to the church, to the west, is the so-called Oratory of Phalaris and a theater built on a comitium (meeting-place).

Room 5: Oblational objects from the various temples of Agrigento, archaic statues of various deities, terracotta busts, oil-lamps and some fine heads of the helmeted Athene (fifth century B.C.), Persephone (fifth/fourth centuries B.C.) and a youth (sixth/fifth centuries B.C.).

Room 6: This two-storyed room is devoted to the buildings of the enormous temple of the Olympian Zeus, which Theron had constructed after 480 B.C. Alongside a model and reconstruction drawings there is one of the original 38 Atlas figures (each 7.65m/25ft high), the head of another Atlas and other fragments.

Room 10: The classical period is represented by the marble statue of an ephebe (about 480 B.C.). Room 11: Finds from the necropolis of Agrigento. Rooms 12 and 13: Prehistoric and ancient finds from the hinterland of Agrigento, including the necropolis of Sant'Angelo.

From the cemetery in Agrigento it is only 500m/550yd east on the stony ancient road to the Temple of Demeter (Tempio di Demetra) which stands on high ground. Originally built c. 470 B.C., it was converted by the Normans into the little church of San Biagio. To the east below the terrace is a cave sanctuary of Demeter (c. 650 B.C.). Soon afterwards another road on the right branches off the Via Crispi. After 500m/550yd a recently excavated section of the Greco-Roman city (fourth century B.C. to A.D. fifth century) is reached; with fine wall paintings and mosaic pavements.

There are extensive views from the small Temple of Aesculapius (Tempio de Esculapio; fifth century B.C.) in Agrigento.

The first of the temples, which like all the buildings of worship in Akrágas follows the Doric order, is known as the Temple of Hercules (Heracles). It is a circular temple (peripteros), which was built about 500 B.C. With a stylobate of from 25.28m/83ft to 67.04m/220ft it has a considerable size and with 6x15 pillars an extensive ground plan. This can be explained by the fact that inside the temple the pronaos is followed by a cella, which had to be especially long to take into account the tripartite adyton (adytum=most holy place) at the back. Finally beyond the cella there is another opisthodom, analogous to the entrance hall with two columns between the walls. The temple was destroyed by the Carthaginians in 406 B.C., rebuilt by the Romans and subsequently destroyed once more by an earthquake. Even in the ruins it is still possible to see that behind the entrance to the cella there were staircases on both sides, which gave access to the roof story. That eight pillars of the south ambulatory are still standing is due to the Englishman Alexander Herdenstel, who in 1923 directed restoration work at his own expense. Incidentally it is worth mentioning that the original dedicatee of the temple is not known; in Roman times it was - according to Cicero - dedicated to Hercules (Heracles), whose statue of worship had a particular attraction for the religious.

Northwest, beyond the railroad in Agrigento, are the remains of the so-called Temple of Vulcan (Tempio di Vulcano, built c. 470 B.C.). From here there is a view of the range of temples.

The Temple of the Olympian Zeus (Olympieion, Tempio di Giove Olimpico) is today an enormous mass of shattered stone blocks and pillars which an earthquake has scattered over an area of 6,000sq.m/6,800sq.yd. It is difficult without plans or the suggested reconstruction supplied by the Archeological Museum to form a picture of the building in its original state, which in its measurements apparently surpassed any other temple.

The tyrant Theron had the Olympieion designed to commemorate his victory over Carthage in the Battle of Himera in 480 B.C. It is a building of which it is only possible to talk in superlatives, for it is the largest of all Doric temples (it was even supposed to have surpassed the Temple G of Selinunte), and "it is the most original, but also the most unfathomable creation of the Greek world" (G. Gruben).

The foundations occupy a rectangle of 56.30m/185ft by 113.45m/372ft (ratio 1:2), on which rests the stylobate (52.74m/173ft by 110.10m/361ft) which supports seven columns on each of the narrow sides and 14 on the longer sides. These columns had an (estimated) height of about 18.20m/60ft and a correspondingly large base diameter of 4.05m/13ft. Goethe noted during his Italian journey of 1787: "It will give you an idea of the size of the fluting on the columns if I tell you that when I was standing there, I only managed to occupy the space of the fluting, which was like a small niche, by pressing outwards with both shoulders. It would take twenty-two men, standing next to one another in a circle, to form the circumference of one of these columns." Regarding what is "original" and "unfathomable" about the building, it departs completely from what is the norm of a Greek temple. The spaces between the columns were walled in, something which can still be deduced from remains of the southern longer side of the temple which can be seen on the site: the fragments of the wall have half-columns jutting out on the outside, and on the inside flat pilasters. The square wall came a good halfway up the height of the column. Over this niches were inserted, in which fully three-dimensional Atlantes stood. These gigantic figures were 7.65m/25ft high (one of them is to be found in the Archeological Museum, a copy stands on the temple site) and the number of them has been put at 38. They supported the entablature with pediments, the reliefs of which must have reached a height of 6m/19.5ft; according to Diodor, they dealt with the battle of the gods with the giants (on the east side) and the conquest of Troy (on the west side). The total height of the temple is estimated at approximately 40m/131ft. The walling-up of the intercolumns had the effect that there was no well-lit passage round the cella and the whole building was like one large enclosed room. There was no normal entrance in the middle of the shorter east side, because a pillar stood at this point. Instead there were entrances in the corners of this shorter side and also in the middle of the longer south side. Two rows of pillars divided the interior area into three aisles of more or less equal width. In addition there were walls between these, although possibly only up to halfway, enabling them "to let the vast area be flooded with light" (Gruben). How this enormous space was lit is not clear; E. Langlotz thinks of it as a hypaethral temple with a large roof opening. H. Drerup has pointed out that a room with pillars like this one can be considered a Phoenician-Carthaginian type of building. The gigantic Temple of Zeus, a testimony to the feelings of triumph of its creator Theron after his victory over Carthage and to the unbroken trust in the inexhaustible possibilities that Sicily offered at this time, did in fact exceed the limits of man's powers; it was left unfinished when the Carthaginians conquered Akrágas in retaliation, and remained a mere torso. It was also hit by earthquakes and for many years its ruins served as a quarry when the port of Porto Empédocle was being extended in the 18th century.

The grave of Theron can be reached from the southern parking lot by going through the Porta Aurea and then turning left. It is a tower-like burial temple which in fact dates from the A.D. first century and has no connection with the tyrant who died in 472 B.C. and was the victor of Himera and the builder of the Olympieion. Further south (turning off Tempio di Esculapio left at the large crossroads) the Temple of Aesculapius is reached. It dates from the fifth century B.C. and in the area around it (which is not open to the public) excavations are in progress.

If the footpath is followed uphill from the Temple of Hercules, the Villa Aurea is passed, standing in its luxuriant garden with the remains of necropolises from Roman and Christian times. Graves can also be made out in the rocks further up along the city wall. Then the so-called Temple of Concordia comes into view.

This group of buildings can claim the visitor's interest for various reasons: the Temple of Zeus is exceptional by virtue of its huge dimensions, while those buildings connected with the worship of the chthonian gods are indicative of the close connection which has existed from pre-Greek times between ancient Sicily and the gods of the underworld, especially Demeter, Hades and Persephone.