 A few of these temples are very large, with several, such as the Temple of Zeus Olympus and the Olympians at Athens being well over 300 feet in length, but most were less than half this size.It appears that some of the large temples began as wooden constructions in which the columns were replaced piecemeal as stone became available.This, at least was the interpretation of the historian Pausanias looking at the Temple of Hera at Olympia in the 2nd century AD.