High up from the rest of the town, lies the Temple of Zeus, The temple is set in a clearing of pine woods and juniper trees. It was built around 600 BC and it used to house a statue of the god Zeus over ten metres high but it has since been lost or destroyed and only the fingers remain, somewhere in storage. After being built by the Greeks it was taken over by the Romans who built their temple on the interior of the structure. Sacked and burnt by Jewish marauders in the second century BC the dozens of Doric columns, each a metre wide and six metres high were toppled by the act of setting fires underneath them. What was left of the temple was utilized by the Byzantines around 500 BC. 
The plinth on which stood the statue of Zeus still exists as do the pillars, altars and inner walls. The rubble strewn site has been in the process of being renovated for decades by various groups of people including English soldiers who renovated and erected one and a half columns in the 1950s as shown in the picture. The reconstruction work continues to this day with mainly Italian enthusiasts and archeologists. There is a miniature railway around the site, built at the time of Mussolini, to facilitate the movement of the large pieces of rock. This is a giant stone jig-saw puzzle. The temple is not fenced off and it is possible to clamber over the ruins and enter the temple and if one is so inclined, pose on the plinth were the statue of Zeus once stood.
