Treasury of the Athenians

The Treasury of the Athenians is the best-preserved building in the sanctuary and one of the most historically loaded small structures in the ancient world. Built around 490 BC from Pentelic marble, it commemorated the Athenian victory at Marathon and announced to the world that Athens was a power to be reckoned with. The building was restored and reconstructed in 1906 using original blocks, and stands almost complete — small in scale, but precise and beautifully detailed, with sculpted metopes depicting the labours of Heracles and the exploits of Theseus.

The inscriptions covering the walls and steps are also remarkable: hymns to Apollo, accounts of athletic victories, and decrees — a public noticeboard carved in stone for all of antiquity to read. Passing the Treasury on the Sacred Way, as every visitor to Delphi did, you would have been reading Athenian propaganda delivered in marble, at the moment of their greatest triumph.

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A story
The Treasury was built to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC — the extraordinary moment when the outnumbered Athenians defeated the Persian invasion force that everyone assumed would crush them. The Athenians placed it along the Sacred Way where every visitor to Delphi would pass it, so that the whole world would know what Athens had done.

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