The huge quarry nearby likely played into the Roman decision to create a huge "Great Court" of a big pagan temple complex in this mountain site, despite being located at 1,145 meters of altitude and lying on the remote eastern border of the Roman Empire.

[3] Although the 6th-century Greek historian John Malalas dates the temple to the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 138–161), construction probably started soon after around 16 BC, when Baalbek became a Roman colony known as Colonia Julia Augusta Felix Heliopolitana.

[5] The temple complex is on a raised plaza erected 7 m (23 ft) over an earlier T-shaped base consisting of a podium, staircase, and foundation walls.

[13] The Temple of Jupiter proper was circled by a peristyle of 54 unfluted Corinthian columns:[14] ten in front and back and nineteen along each side.

In the early 2nd century, Trajan added the temple's forecourt, with porticos of pink granite shipped from Aswan at the southern end of Egypt.

[citation needed] The Temple-Sanctuary of Heliopolitan Zeus was ruined by earthquakes,[15] destroyed and pillaged for stone under Theodosius[16] and again under Justinian: eight columns were taken to Constantinople (Istanbul) for incorporation into the Hagia Sophia.

[19][20] Individual Roman cranes were not capable of lifting stones in the 60 to 100 tonne range, but a special one could have been built only for the construction of this temple.

Represented as a beardless youth and in the garb of a charioteer, his right hand held a whip, the left a lightning bolt and ears of wheat.

[13] Their capitals remain nearly perfect on the south side, while the Beqaa's winter winds have worn the northern faces almost bare.