Here Greek art show all its beauty: the sober and solemn front, neatly divided by columns, presents an alteration of functional and decorative elements with a remarkable scenic effect.

Realized in about 470/460 B.C., the building is today visible because of the partial "anastylosis" (lifting of the fallen parts) which has given it back to the culture and admiration of the world.
The temple, risen in the stimulating splendour of doric sacred architecture in the period of its strongest incidence, rises ori a platform put on four steps, 70, 18 m. long and 27, 65 m. wide, with an area of 1940, 72 square metres. 

The interior shows the greek building scheme: an unmistakable sky-line consisting of a cella (=naos: m. 41,34 x 11,42), the real house of the god, who was venerated in the form of a statue, preceded by a simple two-columns hall (=pronaos) or "in antis" vestibule and followed in the back by another vestibule (=opisthodomos) which was the room where the treasures, the offerings and the archives of the temple were kept. As the temples were inviolable, many people left their own money and treasures on deposit, and also took shelter there those persons who enjoyed this right. The elegant and aired colonnade, following the classic model of canonical doric style, has six columns in the front side, fifteen columns in the longer side; each column consists of 6 drums, with a bundle of 20 flutes (18 in those ones in the pranaos), and is 10,19 m. tall. The column, which has a diameter of base of 2,23 m. and 1,8 1 on the top, has a square board called abacus, placed on a rounded echinus or pillow which, in the lower part, narrows to join the tapered top of the column.

The stylobate consist of four steps all around the building. In the anterior part, from half the second column to half the fifth column, is a staircase of II steps 14,15 m. wide. Eveything, in the past, was sourmounted by the architectural triumph of the fronton or tympanum, compared for its shape to an eagle with opened wings. The slooping roof, supported bu trusses, was covered by terracotta slabs, held by "sime", a sort of drip-stones to colleot rainwater in lion-head water-spouts. 

As the others, the temple is orientated eastwards according to Greeks' and Romans' liturgic rule, which wanted the statue of the god looking at the rising sun, origin of light and life, and never the sunset, which represented the night and the death. At the extreme west, in the darkness, was Hades's (=Pluto) kingdom.

According to recent studies, the temple was dedicated to Hers, the Roman June, protectress of marriages, engaged couples and pregnant women; here, newly-married couples, after a purifying bath in Hipsas river, today Cottone, in a procession brought a lamb to the goddess.
The ceremony of marriage occurred with the greatest solemnity and publicity because, as there dind't exist any public register, only their witness could guaranteed that the union was legitimate.

The bride wore a tunic without hem, held by a belt (called Heracle's knot). Here the couple would come back later for the thanksgiving ceremony which consisted in the offering to the goddess of the belt; it should have become too tight because of the pregnancy of the woman and the knot (as aforesaid called Heraoles's knot) should have to be loosed by the husband following the rituals, at the presence of their friends and relatives.