Taxi Day trip to Ancient Corinth & Canal

Starting from Athens, we drive westwards until we reach the Corinth Canal with its breathtaking views (short stop here). Shortly after, we reach the ancient town of Corinth where St. Paul lived and preached for two years. In ancient times, Corinth was among the richest cities and this is quite evident by its remains, including the huge “agora” (market place) and Apollos Temple (6th century B.C.). See the ancient port of Kechreai where St Paul disembarked.

Price: 150€ 4 Hours

ANCIENT CORINTH

Ancient Corinth, the original City of Corinth, was founded in the 10th Century BCE and was the largest city in ancient Greece. More importantly, Corinth was ancient Greece’s richest port. The Corinth Paul knew had been re-founded by Julius Caesar as a Roman colony in 44 BCE. Using Rome’s tried and true format for subduing conquered populations, the “new” Corinth was populated with conscripted Italian, Greek, Syrian, Egyptian and Judean freed slaves. Like Ancient Corinth, New Corinth thrived. It’s strategic location also brought thousands of settlers from all over the Mediterranean. Soon enormous personal wealth was to be found in the local ruling class, which was made up of self-made men and a surprising number of self-made women, as well.
Corinth was known as an especially “wild” city and had a reputation for licentiousness. Paul was faced with a city that was used to coin one of the Greek words for “fornicate”, which was korinthiazomai ! This reputation was based, in part, on the ancient Greek historian Strabo’s report that there were 1,000 sacred prostitutes in the temple of Aphrodite on the Acrocorinth, which was an 1,886-foot hill that rises above the City of Corinth to the south.
The wealth of Corinth rested largely on control of trade in western Mediterranean. In the late 6th century Corinth sought to maintain this commercial hegemony by mediating conflicts arising between its neighbors, specifically Athens, Thebes and Sparta, and by contributing to the Pan Hellenistic efforts against Persian attempts to subdue Greece.
Corinth, or Korinth (Κόρινθος) is a Greek city, on the Isthmus of Corinth, the original isthmus, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece. To the west of the isthmus lies the Gulf of Corinth.
Corinth is about 48 miles (78 km) west of Athens. The isthmus, which was in ancient times traversed by hauling ships over the rocky ridge on sledges, is now cut by a canal. It is also the capital of the prefecture of Corinthia. The city is surrounded by Lechaio, Kalamaki, Loutraki, Geraneia mountains, and the southern mountains.

HISTORY OF ANCIENT CORINTH & ACROCORINTH
Some very ancient names for places, such as Korinthos derive from a pre-Greek, “Pelasgian” language; it seems likely that Corinth was also the site of a Bronze Age Mycenean palace-city, like Mycenae, Tiryns or Pylos. Myth made Sisyphus the founder of a race of ancient kings at Corinth. In Corinth, Jason abandoned Medea.
Later, in classical times the ancient city rivalled Athens and Thebes in wealth, based on the isthmian traffic and trade. Until the mid-6th century Corinth was a major exporter of black-figure pottery to cities around the Greek world. Athenian potters later came to dominate the market. Corinth’s great temple on its acropolis was dedicated to Aphrodite. According to most sources, there were more than one thousand temple prostitutes employed at the Temple of Aphrodite. Corinth was also the host of the Isthmian Games.
In the 7th century BC, when Corinth was ruled by the tyrants Cypselus and Periander, the city sent forth colonists to found new settlements: Syracuse, Ambracia, and with Corcyra, itself perhaps the site of an early Corinthian settlement, Apollonia and Anactorium. The city was a major participant in the Persian Wars, but afterwards was frequently an enemy of Athens and an ally of Sparta in the Peloponnesian League. In 431 BC, one of the factors leading to the Peloponnesian War was the dispute between Corinth and Athens over the Corinthian colony of Corcyra.
The Romans under Lucius Mummius destroyed Corinth following a siege in 146 BC; when he entered the city Mummius put all the men to the sword and sold the women and children into slavery before he torched the city, for which he was given the cognomen Achaicus as the conqueror of the Achaean League. While there is archeological evidence of some minimal habitation in the years afterwards, Julius Caesar refounded the city as Colonia laus Iulia Corinthiensis in 44 BC shortly before his assassination. According to Appian, the new settlers were drawn from freedmen of Rome. Under the Romans it became the seat of government for Southern Greece or Achaia (Acts 18:12-16). It was noted for its wealth, and for the luxurious, immoral and vicious habits of the people. It had a large mixed population of Romans, Greeks, and Jews.
When Paul first visited the city (AD 51 or 52), Gallio, the brother of Seneca, was proconsul. Paul resided here for eighteen months (18:1-18). Here he first became acquainted with Aquila and Priscilla, and soon after his departure Apollos came from Ephesus. Although he intended to pass through Corinth the second time before he visited Macedonia, circumstances were such, in the absence of Titus, that he went from Troas to Macedonia, and then likely passed into Corinth for a “second benefit” (2 Corinthians 1:15), and remained for three months, according to Acts 20:3.
During this second visit in the spring of 58 it is likely the Epistle to the Romans was written. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians reflects the difficulties of maintaining a Christian community in such a cosmopolitan city.
During Alaric’s invasion of Greece, in 395–396, Corinth was one of the cities he despoiled, selling many of its citizens into slavery.

ACROCORINTH (GR. ΑΚΡΟΚΟΡΙΝΘΟΣ)

Acrocorinth (Gr. Ακροκόρινθος), the acropolis of Corinth, is a monolithic rock overseeing the ancient city of Corinth, Greece.
Ιt rises about 1800 feet above the surrounding plain. At the highest summit was the Temple of Aphrodite. Interpretations that this was the location of the 1000 temple prostitutes have been challenged.

It was continuously occupied from arcchaic times to the early nineteenth century. The city’s archaic acropolis, already an easily defendable position due to its geomorphology, was further heavily fortified during the Byzantine Empire as it became the seat of the strategos of the Thema of Hellas. Later it was a fortress of the Franks after the Fourth Crusade, the Venetians and the Ottoman Turks. With its secure water supply, Acrocorinth’s fortress was used as the last defending line in southern Greece repelling foes from entering the Peloponnesian peninsula. Three circuit walls formed the man-made defense of the hill. The highest peak on the site was home to a temple to Aphrodite which was Christianized as a church, then became a mosque. The American School began excavations on it in 1929. Currently, Acrocorinth is one of the most important medieval castle sites of Greece.

In a Corinthian myth related in the second century CE to Pausanias (Description of Greece ii. 1.6 and 4.7), Briareus, one of the Hecatonchires, was the arbitrator in a dispute between Poseidon and Helios, between sea and sun: he adjudged the Isthmus of Corinth to belong to Poseidon and the acropolis of Corinth (Acrocorinth) to be sacred to Helios.

The Upper Peirene spring is located within the encircling walls. “The spring, which is behind the temple, they say was the gift of Asopus to Sisyphus. The latter knew, so runs the legend, that Zeus had ravished Aegina, the daughter of Asopus, but refused to give information to the seeker before he had a spring given him on the Acrocorinthus.” (Pausanias, 2.5.1).

PREHISTORIC ERA
The city was founded in the Neolithic Age, circa 6000 BC. According to myth, the city was founded by Corinthos, a descendant of the god Helios (the Sun), while other myths suggest that it was founded by the goddess Ephyra, a daughter of the titan Oceanus, thus the ancient name of the city (also Ephyra). There is evidence that the city was destroyed around 2000 BC.
Before the end of the Mycenaean period the Dorians attempted to settle in Corinth. While at first they failed, their second attempt was successful when their leader Aletes followed a different path around the Corinthian Gulf from Antirio.
Some ancient names for the place, such as Korinthos, derive from a pre-Greek, “Pelasgian” language; it seems likely that Corinth was also the site of a Bronze Age Mycenaean palace-city, like Mycenae, Tiryns or Pylos. According to myth, Sisyphus was the founder of a race of ancient kings at Corinth. It was also in Corinth that Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, abandoned Medea. During the Trojan War Corinthians participated under the leadership of Agamemnon.

CLASSICAL ERA
Later, in classical times the ancient city rivalled Athens and Thebes in wealth, based on the Isthmian traffic and trade. Until the mid-6th century Corinth was a major exporter of black-figure pottery to cities around the Greek world. Athenian potters later came to dominate the market. Corinth’s great temple on its ancient acropolis was dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite. According to most sources, there were more than one thousand temple prostitutes employed at the Temple of Aphrodite. Corinth was also the host of the Isthmian Games.
In the 7th century BC, when Corinth was ruled by the tyrants Cypselus (r. 657-627 BC) and his son Periander (r. 627-585 BC), the city sent forth colonists to found new settlements: Epidamnus (modern day Durres, Albania), Syracuse, Ambracia (modern day town of Lefkas), Corcyra (modern day town of Corfu) and Anactorium. Periander also founded Apollonia (modern day Fier, Albania) and Potidaea (in Chalcidice). Corinth was also one of the nine Greek sponsor-cities to found the colony of Naukratis in Ancient Egypt. Naucratis was founded to accommodate the increasing trade volume between the Greek world and the pharaohnic Egypt, during the reign of Pharaoh Psammetichus I of the 26th dynasty.
Periander was one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. During his reign the first Corinthian coins were struck. He was the first to attempt to cut across the Isthmus to create a seaway to allow ship traffic between the Corinthian and the Saronic Gulf. He abandoned the venture due to the extreme technical difficulties he met, but he created the Diolkos (a stone-build overland ramp) instead. The era of the Cypselids, ending with Periander’s nephew Psammetichus, named after the hellenophile Egyptian Pharaoh Psammetichus I (see above), was the golden age of the city of Corinth.
During this era Corinthians developed the Corinthian order, the third order of the classical architecture after the Ionic and the Doric. The Corinthian order was the most complicated of the three, showing the accumulation of wealth and the luxurious lifestyle in the ancient city-state, while the Doric order was analogous to the strict and simplistic lifestyle of the older Dorians like the Spartans, and the Ionic was a balance between those two following the philosophy of harmony of Ionians like the Athenians.
At this time there was a famous ancient saying: “Ou pantos plein es Korinthon”, which translates as “Not everyone is able to go to Corinth”, due to the expensive living standards that prevailed in the city. The city was renowned for the temple prostitutes of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who served the wealthy merchants and the powerful officials living in or traveling in and out of the city. The most famous of them, Lais, was said to have extraordinary abilities and charged tremendous fees for her favours.
The city had two main ports, one in the Corinthian Gulf and one in the Saronic Gulf, serving the trade routes of the western and eastern Mediterranean, respectively. In the Corinthian Gulf lay Lechaion, which connected the city to its western colonies (Greek: apoikoiai) and Magna Graecia, while in the Saronic Gulf the port of Kenchreai served the ships coming from Athens, Ionia, Cyprus and the rest of the Levant. Both ports had docks for the large war fleet of the city-state.
The city was a major participant in the Persian Wars, offering 40 war ships in the sea Battle of Salamis under the admiral Adeimantos and 5,000 hoplites (wearing their characteristic Corinthian helmets) in the following Battle of Plataea but afterwards was frequently an enemy of Athens and an ally of Sparta in the Peloponnesian League. In 431 BC, one of the factors leading to the Peloponnesian War was the dispute between Corinth and Athens over the Corinthian colony of Corcyra (Corfu), which probably stemmed from the traditional trade rivalry between the two cities.
After the end of the Peloponnesian War, Corinth and Thebes, which were former allies with Sparta in the Peloponnesian League, had grown dissatisfied with the hegemony of Sparta and started the Corinthian War against it, which further weakened the city-states of the Peloponnese. This weakness allowed for the subsequent invasion of the Macedonians of the north and the forging of the Corinthian League by Philip II of Macedon against the Persian Empire.
In the 4th century BC, Corinth was home to Diogenes of Sinope, one of the world’s best known cynics.

WINGED HORSE PEGASUS ON ANCIENT COINS
Pegasus, or Pegasos as he was called by the Greeks, was a winged horse, born from the liaison of the sea-god Poseidon and the beautiful Medusa. The liaison made the goddess Athena angry, and she cursed Medusa to be ugly and deadly. When she was killed, Pegasus sprang from her neck. (See my page on the story of Medusa).
It’s easy to speculate on the origin of the idea of a winged horse. A horse that seems as swift as the wind .. an exceptional horse .. might seem to fly, and might be talked about as flying. And the flight of Pegasus can be used as a metaphor for the soul’s immortality.
In legend, Bellerophon, who became king of Corinth, tamed Pegasus with the aid of a golden bridle given to him by the goddess Athena. So Pegasus appears on many coins of Corinth and her colonies. He appears on other ancient coins too. Here are some of them.

ROMAN ERA
The Romans under Lucius Mummius destroyed Corinth following a siege in 146 BC; when he entered the city Mummius put all the men to the sword and sold the women and children into slavery before he torched the city, for which he was given the cognomen Achaicus as the conqueror of the Achaean League (see Battle of Corinth). While there is archeological evidence of some minimal habitation in the years afterwards, Julius Caesar refounded the city as Colonia laus Iulia Corinthiensis in 44 BC shortly before his assassination. According to Appian, the new settlers were drawn from freedmen of Rome. Under the Romans it became the seat of government for Southern Greece or Achaia (according to Acts 18:12-16). It was noted for its wealth, and for the luxurious, immoral and vicious habits of the people. It had a large mixed population of Romans, Greeks, and Jews.
When the apostle Paul first visited the city (AD 51 or 52), Gallio, the brother of Seneca, was proconsul. Paul resided here for eighteen months (see Acts 18:1-18). Here he first became acquainted with Aquila and Priscilla, and soon after his departure Apollos came from Ephesus. Although he intended to pass through Corinth the second time before he visited Macedonia, circumstances were such, in the absence of Titus, that he went from Troas to Macedonia, and then likely passed into Corinth for a “second benefit” (see 2 Corinthians 1:15), and remained for three months, according to Acts 20:3. During this second visit in the spring of 58 it is likely the Epistle to the Romans was written.
Paul also wrote two of his epistles to the Christian community at Corinth, the First Epistle to the Corinthians and the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. The first Epistle reflects the difficulties of maintaining a Christian community in such a cosmopolitan.

BYZANTINE ERA
The city was destroyed by an earthquake in 375 and again in 551. During Alaric’s invasion of Greece, in 395–396, Corinth was one of the cities he despoiled, selling many of its citizens into slavery.
During the reign of Byzantine emperor Justinian I, a large stone wall was erected from the Saronic to the Corinthian gulf, protecting the city and the Peloponnesean peninsula from the barbarian invasions of the north. The stone wall was about six miles (10 km) long and was named Examilion (exi=six in Greek). During this era Corinth was the seat of the Thema of Hellas (representing modern day Greece).
In the 12th century (during the reign of the Comnenus dynasty), the wealth of the city, generated from the silk trade to the Latin states of western Europe, attracted the attention of the Sicilian Normans under Roger of Sicily, who plundered it in 1147.

PRINCIPALITY OF ACHAEA

In 1204, Geoffrey I de Villehardouin, nephew of the homonymous famous historian of the Fourth Crusade, was granted Corinth after the sack of Constantinople, with the title of Prince of Achaea. From 1205-1208 the Corinthians resisted the Frankish domination from their stronghold in Acrocorinth, under the command of the Greek general Leo Sgouros. The French knight William of Champlitte led the crusader forces. In 1208 Leo Sgouros killed himself by riding off the top of Acrocorinth, but from 1208 to 1210 the Corinthians continued to resist against the enemy forces. After the collapse of the resistance and for the years to come, Corinth became a full part of the Principality of Achaea, governed by the Villehardouin’s from their capital in Andravida of Elis. Corinth was the last significant town of Achaea on its northern borders with another crusader state, the Duchy of Athens.

OTTOMAN RULE & INDEPENDENCE WAR

In 1458, five years after the final Fall of Constantinople, the Turks of the Ottoman Empire conquered the city and its mighty castle.
During the Greek War of Independence, 1821-1830 the city was totally destroyed by the Turkish forces. The city was officially liberated in 1832 after the Treaty of London. In 1833, the site was considered among the candidates for the new capital city of the recently founded Kingdom of Greece, due to its historical significance and strategic position. Athens, then an insignificant village, was chosen instead.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF ANCIENT CORINTH

The museum is located within the archaeological site and falls under the jurisdiction of the 37th Ephoreia of the Greek Archaeological Service. It houses the catalogued finds from the American Excavations. A selection of these are on display in three display rooms and a large courtyard. The remainder comprise a study collection. The exhibition consists of two main galleries housing sculpture, ceramics, and minor objects of prehistoric through medieval date deriving from excavations in and around Corinth. The terracottas from the Asklepieion, located in a third room can be viewed by request only. Hours vary but the museum is generally open during the winter from 8:45am-5:00pm and extended hours in summer from 8:45am-7:00pm.
The museum was built in 1931/32 by the architect W. Stuart Thompson and was extended towards the east in 1950. It contains collections of prehistoric finds, various items ranging from the Geometric to the Hellenistic period, Roman and Byzantine finds, excavation finds from the Asklepieion of Corinth, and a collection of sculptures and inscriptions.

Some of the most important items of the exhibition are:
• Large Mycenaean krater decorated with a painted representation of warriors on a chariot. Dated to 1200 B.C.
• Corinthian amphora with a lid . It bears a representation of two heraldic cocks and a double palmette at the centre. Dated to ca. 600 B.C.
• Mosaic, pebbled floor, with a representation of griffins devouring a horse. It is one of the earliest preserved Greek mosaics, dated to ca. 400 B.C.
• Mosaic floor decorated with the head of Dionysos framed by ornaments. It comes from a Roman villa and dates to the 2nd century A.D.
• Marble statue of a youth. Roman portrait, possibly of Lucius Caesar, son of Augustus, dated to the end of the 1st century B.C. or the beginning of the 1st century A.D. It imitates a Greek original of the first half of the 4th century B.C.
• Marble sphinx from a funerary monument. It is resting on the hind legs and standing on the fore. Traces of painted decoration are preserved on the torso and the wings. Corinthian product, dated to the middle of the 6th century B.C.
• Byzantine glazed plate. It is decorated with a representation of Digenis Acritas and a princess, and dates from the 12th century A.D. It belongs to a series of imported Byzantine vases, spanning the period from the end of the 9th until the end of the 14th century A.D.