The Greek and later Roman city built a temple to Athena on top of the highest part of the Troy mound. The earliest known temple here dates to the seventh century BC, replacing a long sequence of Bronze Age cult structures, and was substantially rebuilt by Lysimachus, one of Alexander the Great's successors, around 300 BC. The Romans rebuilt it again in the first century AD as part of Augustus's enthusiasm for the Trojan heritage of Rome.
What survives today is mostly foundations — the rectangular outline of the Hellenistic and Roman temple cella, sections of marble paving, and a number of column drums and capitals laid out on the ground. The temple's most important sacred object — the Palladion, a wooden statue of Athena said to have fallen from heaven and to have protected Troy for as long as it stood inside the city — was already a legend in Homer's time. The Romans believed Aeneas had carried the Palladion away from burning Troy and ultimately brought it to Rome. Information panels explain the building's complex re-use sequence.