Some splendid temples were adorned with sculpture. In the pediment, figures were arrenged in the triangular space, in the each corners were usually lying figures. Earlier pediment was high relief but later had sometimes free-standing figures.

The entablature was also often carved. In Ionian order was continuous frieze relief and in Doric order was paneled reliefs, metopes. These relieves were not always carved, some temples had no relief or on only frontal side.

Temple was maybe sculptured when the construction had been finished. Since the stone used for the friezes or the metopes formed a part of the entablature, these had to be arranged before constructing the pediment. But the carving had no need to be finished, it had not or only roughly carved and completed after the construction of the temple. In case of Parthenon, stylistic chronology of the sculptures revealed that the carving was done in the final stage of the establishment.

Earlier pediment had to be placed before the construction, since it was carved in relief such as frieze or metopes. Because later pediment had free-standing figures, the artist didn't need to worry about the process and was able to carve them in his workshop, not on the scaffold of the temple.

Besides the construction of the smaller temples, to bulid a larger temple took many years. To construct the Parthenon took about 20 years, nevertheless some materials of the older temple were recycled for it. Election was sometimes interrupted by a war or depression of the city. Although the construction of the temple of Zeus Olympios at Athens was started about 530B.C., it was finished 129 A.D.