The largest building at ancient Olympia was not a temple but a hotel. The Leonidaion was built in the 4th century BC by a wealthy Naxian named Leonidas to house distinguished visitors to the Games — ambassadors, rulers, and important delegates who came every four years. It covered nearly 7,500 square metres: a large central courtyard surrounded by rooms on all four sides, with a colonnade of Doric columns on the exterior and Ionic columns on the interior.
In the Roman period the building was taken over as the residence of the Roman governor of Achaea, a sign of how the political significance of the Games had been converted into a tool of imperial administration. The foundations survive and the scale is easy to read from the ground.