CORINTH 



1580 



CORINTH 



Greeks in the eighth century B.C. It lay be- 

 tween two gulfs, the Corinthian on the west 

 and Saronic on the east, on each of which there 

 was a fine harbor. The city was built to the 

 north and at the foot of a hill 1,886 feet high, 

 a natural citadel more imposing than the 

 famous Acropolis of Athens, and was surrounded 

 by walls having a circuit of ten miles. Two 

 parallel walls connected the city with its harbor 

 on the west, and a chain of fortifications with 

 the harbor on the east, while across the isthmus 

 a tram-road was built by which vessels could 

 be hauled from one harbor to the other. 



Who founded the city of Corinth is un- 

 known. In the myths of Homer the place is 

 called Ephyra, and it is mentioned as the home 



ALL, THAT REMAINS OF CORINTH 

 Of the great ancient city only a single ruin re- 

 mains, and it is one of the most interesting relics 

 of antiquity. The original of the illustration was 

 a great temple , seven fluted Doric columns sur- 

 vive, each a single stone twenty-three and one- 

 half feet in height and over seventeen feet in cir- 

 cumference at the base. The Apostle Paul saw 

 its courts frequented by worshipers ; from their 

 numbers he drew in part the members of the 

 church he founded. Around this building stretched 

 the streets, mansions and other temples of a 

 splendid metropolis. 



of Sisyphus, Bellerophon and Medea. To its 

 reputation as a great commercial center was 

 added that of one of the wickedest cities of its 

 time, for its wealth and prosperity were a 

 source of corruption to its inhabitants. In art 

 and literature Corinth ranked far below Athens, 

 but the Corinthians were skilled workers in 

 bronze and clay, and their city was adorned 

 with costly statues and paintings. The Corin- 

 thian clay vases, with their fantastic decora- 

 tions, were famous. Most of the temples, 

 shrines, statues and tombs mentioned by the 



ancient writers have disappeared, but there 

 still survive seven massive columns of a temple 

 to Apollo, dating from the sixth or seventh 

 century B. c. 



As Athens rose to supremacy in Grecian af- 

 fairs its increasing importance as a commercial 

 state awakened a spirit of jealousy in the 

 ambitious city of Corinth, and the latter be- 

 came an ally of Sparta in the Peloponnesian 

 War (which see). Though leagued with other 

 Grecian states against Sparta in the Corinthian 

 War, between 395 B.C. and 387 B.C., Corinth 

 returned to its former allegiance and aided 

 Sparta in the struggle with Thebes. As the 

 last uprising against Rome had its center in 

 Corinth, the city was completely destroyed in 

 146 B. c., by Lucius Mummius, the Roman gen- 

 eral. A century later Julius Caesar rebuilt it, 

 and it became the prosperous capital of the 

 Roman province of Achaia. 



Saint Paul's missionary labors took him to 

 Corinth (see Acts XVIII, 1) ; there he founded 

 a church, and two of his epistles were ad- 

 dressed to the Corinthian Christians. After 

 being twice captured by the Turks and once by 

 the Venetians, and given over to the flames in 

 the Greek Revolutionary War, Corinth was 

 finally destroyed by an earthquake in 1858. 

 The modern town, built three and one-half 

 miles northeast of ancient Corinth, has a pop- 

 ulation of about 5,000. 



The Isthmus of Corinth, separating the Gulf 

 of Corinth from the Saronic Gulf, is a neck of 

 land about ten miles long and from four to 

 eight miles wide. The Peloponnesus is some- 

 times likened to a mulberry leaf, and the 

 isthmus to the stalk from which it hangs. In 

 ancient times a wall was built across this neck 

 of land to keep out invaders from the north, 

 and on the Saronic Gulf, at the place where the 

 wall terminated, the modern town of Isthmia 

 has grown up. On the site of the town the 

 Greeks were accustomed to celebrate the Isth- 

 mian games (which see), and a few ruins of 

 the old stadium may still be seen there. The 

 ancient city of Corinth was situated at the 

 southern end of the isthmus. 



The Corinth Canal, which connects the Gulf 

 of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf, was begun 

 in 1882 by a French company and completed 

 by the Greeks in 1893. An unsuccessful at- 

 tempt to construct such a canal had been made 

 by Emperor Nero. The canal is four miles 

 long, seventy feet wide and twenty-six feet 

 deep. Ships sailing from Adriatic ports to the 

 Piraeus, the seaport of Athens, shorten that 



