opisthodomos

A similar room at the back of the cella is called the opisthodomos.

In the pronaos and opisthodomos, two columns each stood between short antae.

There was a small, off-axis doorway between the cella and the opisthodomos.

'opisthodomos' are shortened so as to form simple pillars.

The building has a pronaos, a cella housing cult images at the centre of the structure, and an opisthodomos.

"Pronaos" and "opisthodomos" were often closed off from the peristasis by wooden barriers or fences.

Like most major temples it has three "rooms" or porches: the pronaos, plus a naos and an opisthodomos.

As late as the 2nd century AD, the travel writer Pausanias saw one wooden column in the opisthodomos.

On the Athenian Acropolis especially, the opisthodomos came to be a treasury, where the revenues and precious dedications of the temple were kept.

Architecturally, the opisthodomos (as a back room) balances the pronaos or porch of a temple, creating a plan with diaxial symmetry.

However, the temple was probably reconstructed since in 454 BC the treasury of the Delian League was transferred in its opisthodomos.

This led to the development of the peripteros, with a frontal pronaos (porch), mirrored by a similar arrangement at the back of the building, the opisthodomos, which became necessary for entirely aesthetic reasons.

Both the pronaos and the opisthodomos are decorated with continuous Ionic friezes (instead of the more typical Doric triglyphs, supplementing the sculptures at the pediments and the metopes.

In the main temple was placed the wooden statue (from olive wood) of Athena Polias, and in the megaron (or opisthodomos) votives, the treasures, and material of the worship.

The pronaos and opisthodomos, the entrance portico and the balancing false portico at the rear, were constructed in antis, with six metopes at either end, carved with the 12 labours of Heracles, in which Heracles successfully defeats a series of creatures and monsters that threaten righteous order.