Temple of Jupiter (Roman Heliopolis)

Temple of Jupiter
The remains of the temple
General information
Type	Roman temple
Architectural style	Classical
Location	Baalbek, Lebanon Heliopolis, Roman Phoenicia
Construction started	first century
Completed	late 2nd or early 3rd century
Height	95 m (312 ft)
Technical details
Size	90 by 54 m (295 by 177 ft)
Design and construction
Architect	Unknown
Main contractor	Commissioned by Augustus

The Temple of Jupiter (Roman Heliopolis) was a colossal temple dedicated to the cult of Zeus, located in Heliopolis of Roman Phoenicia (Baalbek of modern Lebanon). It was the main building in a huge "Great Court" (or "Sanctuary") of a Roman pagan temple complex that still partially stands.

The Temple of Jupiter in Heliopolis (in a complex area called Sanctuary of Heliopolitan Zeus) presumably replaced an earlier Phoenician one that used the same foundation. The presence of a huge quarry was one of the reasons for the Roman decision to create a huge "Great Court" of a big pagan temple complex in this mountain site, located at nearly 1100 meters of altitude and on the eastern Borders of the Roman Empire: it took three centuries to create this colossal Roman religion's temple complex.

On a single E-W axis almost 400 m long, the sanctuary of Heliopolitan Jupiter includes monumental propylaea, a hexagonal court, a large rectangular court, and the temple proper, where the cult idol was enthroned under a canopy in the cella.The sanctuary occupies an ancient tell, artificially enlarged by enormous works of terracing and masonry. At the W end near the N corner, the supporting walls contain three colossal quadrangular stones, called the "Trilithoi", each one nearly 20 by 4.5 by 3.6 m. Another even larger stone was left in a quarry at the foot of the hill W of the town. Two long vaulted galleries running E-W correspond at the basement level to the peristyle of the central court. They are open at the ends and joined by a transverse gallery. Some of their keystones carry Latin inscriptions. J.Rey-Coquais

The Temple of Jupiter —once wrongly credited to Helios— lay at the western end of the Great Court of Roman Heliopolis. It raised another 7 m (23 ft) on a 47.7 m × 87.75 m (156.5 ft × 287.9 ft) platform reached by a wide staircase.

This temple was dedicated to the Roman Zeus and the construction was started by Julius Caesar and continued later by Augustus: it was the biggest pagan temple dedicated to Jupiter in all the Roman empire. The columns were 30 meters high with a diameter of nearly 2.5 meters: the biggest in the classical world.