It is a Doric peripteral temple, and is located at the north-west side of the Agora of Athens, on top of the Agoraios Kolonos hill.

Archaeological evidence suggests that there was no earlier building on the site except for a small sanctuary that was burned during the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BCE.

After the battle of Plataea, the Greeks swore never to rebuild their sanctuaries destroyed by the Persians during their invasion of Greece, but to leave them in ruins, as a perpetual reminder of the war.

Construction started in 449 BCE, and some scholars believe the building not to have been completed for some three decades, funds and workers having been redirected towards the Parthenon.

The alignment of the antae of the pronaos with the third flank columns of the peristyle is a design element unique to the middle of the 5th century BCE.

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.

[5]In the 3rd century BCE a small garden of pomegranate, myrtle, and laurel trees and shrubs was planted around the temple.

Another is based on the literal sense of the word akamates (= flaneur, or loiterer), because during the Ottoman Era the temple was used only once a year, on the day of the feast of St. George.

It was used as a burial place for non-Orthodox Europeans in the 19th century, among whom were many philhellenes who gave their lives in the cause of Greek War of Independence (1821–1830).

Otto ordered the building to be used as a museum, in which capacity it remained until 1934, when it reverted to its status of an ancient monument and extensive archaeological research was allowed.