History
Prehistory and founding myths
Neolithic artifacts show that the site of Corinth had been occupied as early as the fifth millennium BC. According to Hellenic 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.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.
In a Corinthian myth related in the second century AD to Pausanias[1] Briareus, one of the Hecatonchires, was the arbitrator in a dispute between Poseidon and Helios, between the sea and the sun: his verdict was that the Isthmus of Corinth belonged to Poseidon and the acropolis of Corinth (Acrocorinth) to Helios. Thus Greeks of the Classical age accounted for archaic cult of the sun-titan in the highest part of the site.
The Upper Peirene spring is located within the walls of the acropolis. "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).
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.
Corinth under the Bacchiadae
Main article: Bacchiadae
The Bacchiadae (Ancient Greek: Βακχιάδαι Bakkhiadai), a tightly-knit Doric clan claiming descent from the Dorian hero Heracles through the seven sons and three daughters of a legendary king Bacchis, were the ruling kinship group of archaic Corinth in the eighth and seventh centuries BC, a period of expanding Corinthian cultural power. Corinth had been a backwater in eighth-century Greece.[2] In 747 BC (a traditional date) an aristocratic revolution ousted the Bacchiad kings, when the royal clan of Bacchiadae, numbering perhaps a couple of hundred adult males took power from the last king, Telestes.[3] Practicising strict endogamy[4] which kept clan outlines within a distinct extended oikos, they dispensed with kingship and ruled as a group, governing the city by electing annually a prytanis who held the kingly position[5] for his brief term,[6] no doubt a council (though none is specifically documented in the scant literary materials) and a polemarchos to head the army.In 657 BC the Bacchiadae were expelled in turn by the tyrant Cypselus,[7] who had been polemarch. The exiled Bacchiadae fled to Corcyra but also to Sparta and west, traditionally to found Syracuse in Sicily, and to Etruria, where Demaratus installed himself at Tarquinia, founding a dynasty of Etruscan kings. The royal line of the Lynkestis of Macedon also claimed Bacchiad descent.
Corinth under the tyrants
Main article: Cypselus
Cypselus or Kypselos (Greek: Κύψελος) was the first tyrant of Corinth, Greece, in the 7th century BC.With increased wealth and more complicated trade relations and social structures, Greek city-states tended to overthrow their traditional hereditary priest-kings; Corinth, the richest archaic polis, led the way.[8] Like the signori of late medieval and Renaissance Italy, the tyrants usually seized power at the head of some popular support. Often the tyrants upheld existing laws and customs and were highly conservative as to cult practices, thus maintaining stability with little risk to their own personal security. As in Renaissance Italy, a cult of personality naturally substituted for the divine right of the former legitimate royal house.
Cypselus, the son of Eëtion and a disfigured woman named Labda, who was a member of the Bacchiad kin usurped the power in archaic matriarchal right of his mother, became tyrant and expelled the Bacchiadae.
According to Herodotus the Bacchiadae heard two prophecies from the Delphic oracle that the son of Eëtion would overthrow their dynasty, and they planned to kill the baby once it was born. However, Herodotus says that the newborn smiled at each of the men sent to kill it, and none of them could go through with the plan. An etiological myth-element, to account for the name Cypselus (cypsele, "chest") accounted how Labda then hid the baby in a chest, and when the men had composed themselves and returned to kill it, they could not find it. (Compare the infancy of Perseus.) The ivory chest of Cypselus, richly worked with mythological narratives and adorned with gold, was a votive offering at Olympia, where Pausanias gave it a minute description in his second century AD travel guide.[9]
When Cypselus had grown up, he fulfilled the prophecy. Corinth had been involved in wars with Argos and Corcyra, and the Corinthians were unhappy with their rulers. At the time, around 657 BC, Cypselus was polemarch, the archon in charge of the military, and he used his influence with the soldiery to expel the king. He also expelled his other enemies, but allowed them to set up colonies in northwestern Greece. He also increased trade with the colonies in Italy and Sicily. He was a popular ruler, and unlike many later tyrants, he did not need a bodyguard and died a natural death.
He ruled for thirty years and was succeeded as tyrant by his son Periander in 627 BC. The treasury Cypselus built at Delphi was apparently still standing in the time of Herodotus, and the chest of Cypselus was seen by the traveller Pausanias at Olympia in the second century AD.
During the 7th century BC, when Corinth was ruled by the tyrants, the city sent forth colonists to found new settlements: Epidamnus (modern day Durrës, Albania), Syracuse, Ambracia (modern day town of Lefkas), Corcyra (modern day town of Corfu) and Anactorium. Periander also founded Apollonia in Illyria (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.
Classical Corinth
In classical times, Corinth rivaled 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. It was once believed that Corinth housed a great temple on its ancient acropolis dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite; yet excavations of the temples of Aphrodite in Corinth reveal them to be small in stature [10]. Despite the mythical story from Strabo of there being more than one thousand temple prostitutes employed at the Temple of Aphrodite, this was likely not accurate as the story rests on a misunderstanding.[11] Corinth was also the host of the Isthmian Games.Periander was considered 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.
Horace is quoted as saying: "non licet omnibus adire Corinthum", which translates as "Not everyone is able to go to Corinth",[12] 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 forty war ships in the sea Battle of Salamis under the admiral Adeimantos and 5,000 hoplites (wearing their characteristic Corinthian helmets[citation needed]) 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.
Later history
In the 3rd century BC, Corinth was a member of the Achaean League, and was completely destroyed by the Roman general Lucius Mummius in 146 BC.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.[citation needed]
The city and its environs
Acrocorinth, the acropolis
Main article: Acrocorinth
Acrocorinthis, the acropolis of ancient Corinth, is a monolithic rock that was continuously occupied from archaic times to the early nineteenth century. The city's archaic acropolis, already an easily defensible 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 line of defense in southern Greece because it commanded the isthmus of Corinth, repelling foes from entry into 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, and 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.Archaic Age
Street in ancient Corinth.
747 BC | Bacchiad clan abolished monarchy and established their own aristocratic oligarchy.747-650 BC | During Bacchiad rule Corinth becomes unified state.
747-650 BC | Large scale public buildings/monuments constructed during Bacchaid rule.
733 BC | Corinth established colonies at Corcyra and Syracuse.
730 BC | Corinth emerged as a highly advanced Greek city.
658-628 BC | Cypselus removed the Bacchiad aristocracy from power and ruled for three decades.
650 BC | Temples to Apollo and Poseidon built under tyranny of Cypselus.
600 BC | The tyrant Periander brought Corcyra to order.
581 BC | Periander's nephew who succeeded him was assassinated causing Corinth's dictatorship to come to an end.
581 BC | Isthmian Games established by leading families.
570 BC | Silver coins called 'colts' or 'foals' were started to be used.
550 BC | Corinth becomes ally of Sparta.
525 BC | Corinth formed a conciliatory alliance with Sparta against Argos.
519 BC | Corinth mediated between Athens and Thebes.
491 BC | Corinth mediated between Syracuse and Gala.
481-480 BC | Conference at Isthmus of Corinth (previous conference had been at Sparta) established Hellenic League, which allied against Persia under the Spartans.
Just before the beginning of the classical period, the trireme was developed here. This ship design would become widespread in the navies of the Mediterranean area until the late Roman period. Corinth took part in the first naval battle on record, against the Hellenic city of Corcyra. (Thucydides 1:13)
Classical Greek era
458 BC | Corinth defeated by Athens at Megara.435 BC | Corinth and Corcyra war over Epidamnus.
433 BC | Athens allies with Corcyra against Corinth.
432-430 | Siege/Battle of Potidaea.
404 BC | Sparta refuses to destroy Athens causing bad relations with Corinth. Corinth joins Argos, Boetia, and Athens against Sparta in Corinthian War.
379 BC | Corinth and as part of the Peloponnesian League joins Sparta in an attempt to defeat Thebes and eventually take over Athens.
366 BC | The Athenian Assembly ordered Chares to occupy the Athenian ally and install a democratic government. But failed when Corinth, Phlius and Epidaurus allied with Boeotia backing Corinth up in the war.
338 BC | First congress of Corinth.
337 BC (Spring) | Second congress of Corinth established Common Peace.
337 BC (Summer) | During the time Philip began ravishing through Greece, the "League of Corinth" or the "Greek League" brought all of Greece, except Sparta, into alliance and united the country. The purpose was to end inter-country wars and focus on keeping Philip II out.
In classical times the ancient city rivaled 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. It was once believed that Corinth housed a great temple on its ancient acropolis dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite; yet excavations of the temples of Aphrodite in Corinth reveal them to be small in stature.[2] Despite the mythical story from Strabo of there being more than one thousand temple prostitutes employed at the Temple of Aphrodite, this was likely not accurate as the story rests on a misunderstanding.[3] 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 Durrës, Albania), Syracuse, Ambracia (modern day town of Lefkas), Corcyra (modern day town of Corfu) and Anactorium. Periander also founded Apollonia in Illyria (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.
Corinthian order columns in ancient Corinth.
Periander was considered 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.
Horace is quoted as saying: "non licet omnibus adire Corinthum", which translates as "Not everyone is able to go to Corinth",[4] 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[citation needed]) 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.
Hellenistic Period
335 BC | Alexander appointed the hegemon of the Greek League to unite in the fight against Persia.332 BC | The Greek League was dead and Alexander was in control of Greece.
249 BC | Revolt of Alexander of Corinth.
243 BC | Corinth taken from Macedonians by Sicyon and the Achaeans.
146 BC | Corinth destroyed by Rome during Battle of Corinth.
Roman era
Further information: Roman Greece
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.
Paul visited 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.[5]
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 city.
Byzantine era
Further information: Byzantine Greece
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 November 856, an earthquake in Corinth killed an estimated 45,000.[citation needed]
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 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. The Byzantines reconquered the city and it became part of the despotate of Morea in 1388. The Ottomans captured it in 1395. The Byzantines captured it again in 1403. Theodore II Plaiologos, who was Despot of Morea, built the Hexamilion wall across the Isthmus of Corinth.Ottoman Rule
In 1458, five years after the final Fall of Constantinople, the Turks of the Ottoman Empire conquered the city and its mighty castle. The Ottomans renamed it Gördes. It became the Sanjak centre of Morea in Rumelia Province. The Venetians captured it in 1687 and it fell under the control of the Republic of Venice according to Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. Ottomans retook the city in 1715. It was the capital of Mora Province between 1715–1731 and the Sanjak centre between 1731-1821.Independence
During the Greek War of Independence, 1821-1830 the city was destroyed by the Turkish forces.[citation needed] 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 town, was chosen instead.Modern Corinth
The Municipality of Corinth or Dimos Korinthion had a population of 36,991 in 2001. The municipality includes the town of Ancient Corinth (1,770 inh.), where the ancient and the medieval city used to be built at the foothills of the rock of Acrocorinth 3 km from the new city centre, the town of Examilia (1,547 inh.), and the smaller settlements of Xylokeriza (777 inh.) and Solomos (686 inh.).
The Corinth Canal, carrying ship traffic between the western Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea, is about 4 km east of the city, cutting through the Isthmus of Corinth.
A city square is located next to its port. The port operates north of the square, and serves the local needs of industry and agriculture. It is mainly a cargo exporting facility. The town centre is home to some surprisingly glamorous shops and bars for a relatively small town, as well as high quality local leather and jewellery outlets.
Corinth is a major industrial hub at a national level. Copper cables, petroleum products, medical equipment, marble, gypsum, ceramic tiles, salt, mineral water & beverages, meat products, and gums are produced nearby. As of 2005, a period of de-industrialization has commenced as a large pipework complex, a textile factory and a meat packing facility disrupted their operations.
A large oil-refinery complex is situated about 12 km northeast of the city, which some think is the line marking the Athens metro area. The complex is amongst the largest in the eastern Mediterranean. It is surrounded by Greece Interstate 8A and a 3+1 lanes per direction freeway. A modern rest area with restaurants and gas stations is located nearby on the freeway.
The city has a station of an electric railway line (Proastiakos) to the Athens metropolitan area. This was completed in 2008. Expectations for further economic and residential expansion are significant due to this new development.
The city is also a major road hub being the entry point to the Peloponnesian peninsula, the southernmost area of continental Greece
