Two stumps of lonely columns placed on the base constitute the remains of the temple which still charme us because to them are connected important memories of the city.
The dedicatory inscription (the famous Selinuntine Table) testifies that the building was consacrated to Zeus.

It was the pride of Selinuntines who built it as a thanksgiving offering to Zeus, the most important god of Selinuntine Pantheon, as a victory monument.
The temple was one of the most magnificent in ancient times for its size.

Local peasants called it "the Giant's Pilasters" and the surviving colunn "the old woman's spindle".
The immense rectangular platform, today free from the appalling ruin, is 113,34 m. long and 54,05 m. large, with an area of 126,027 square metres, and is more than 30 m, high.

With its eight columns on the fronton and seventeen on each long side, is neither too narrow nor too large, and precedes in time the scheme of Parthenon in Athens, which expresser perfectly the hellenic ideal. Entering this temple, the feeling of magnificence must have surely been peerless.

The diameter of the bases of the columns is 3,41 m., 1,91 m. on the top. They're 16,27 m. high and their circonference is 16,70 m. The area of the abacus is more than 16 square metres.
The cella (naos) is 65, m. long and 19,81 m. wide, and was divided by the aisle of the temple, decorated with a double row of 10 monolithic columns, preceded by a simple "in antis" hall decorated with 6 columns, and provided with a chapel designed to lodge the statue for god's cult and followed in the back by a two columns vestibule (opisthdomos). Two stairs leaning to the walls led to the garret. The building had probably an unroofed cella and therefore was called "ipetrale". E.M. Pouqueville writes that the temples consecrated to Jove to the Sun and to the Moon had to be doric and unroofed.

The construction, started about in 530 B.C., tells Diosorus Siculus, had not been finished when HannibaI sacked the city in 409 B.C.. The temple wasn't really finished, because many columns are still without flutes and we know that this work was executed after the drums constituting the columns were set up and the arrangement of the capital. Like all the others, this temple is orientated eastwards.
This building offers the uncommon possibility of observing how styles and techniques changed during 121 years of construction, so that it shows an archaic face in the eastern side and a classic one in the western side. Jove, god's and men's father and king, who, with a gesture, makes the universe tremble, is the genius who animates the vault of heaven. People thought that life, strength, glory, authority, the beneficial rain, the spontaneous vegetation derived from him.

Mount Olympus, covered by clouds, was its home.
He guarded oaths because they contributed very much to keep order, and he punished the perjurers. The sacred duty of hospitality was also protected by Jove and on his name geggars and foreigners introduced themselves; and he punished anyone who neglected to welcome and give hospitality to them.