The Temple of Jupiter was a colossal temple dedicated to the cult of Zeus, located in Hekiopolis or Baalbeck. 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 even 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 paganism’s temple complex.

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.

Under the Byzantines, it was also known as the “Trilithon” from the three massive stones in its foundation and, when taken together with the forecourt and Great Court, it is also known as the “Great Temple”. The Temple of Jupiter proper was circled by a peristyle of 54 unfluted Corinthians columns: 10 in front and back and 19 along each side.

Jupiter Temple is located inside the complex of Baalbeck Citadel.

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