Corinthus
(
Κόρινθος). A famous city of Greece, situated on the
isthmus of the same name. Commanding by its position the Ionian and the Aegean seas, and
holding, as it were, the keys of the Peloponnesus, Corinth, from the pre-eminent advantages of
its situation, was already the seat of opulence and the arts, while the rest of Greece was
sunk in comparative obscurity and barbarism. Its origin is, of course, obscure; but we
are assured that it already existed under the name of
Ἐφύρη
before the siege of Troy. According to the assertions of the Corinthians themselves, their
city received its name from Corinthus, the son of Zeus; but Pausanias does not credit this
popular tradition, and cites the poet Eumelus to show that the appellation was really derived
from Corinthus, the son of Marathon (ii. 1). Homer certainly employs both names
indiscriminately (
Il. ii. 570; xiii. 663). Pausanias reports that the descendants of
Sisyphus reigned at Corinth until the invasion of their territory by the Dorians and the
Heraclidae, when Doridas and Hyanthidas, the last princes of this race, abdicated the crown in
favour of Aletes, a descendant of Heracles, whose lineal successors remained in possession of
the throne of Corinth during five generations, when the crown passed into the family of the
Bacchiadae, so named from Bacchis, the son of Prumnis, who retained it for five other
generations. After this the sovereign power was transferred to annual magistrates, still
chosen, however, from the line of the Bacchiadae, with the title of
πρυτάνεις.
The oligarchy so long established by this rich and powerful family was at length overthrown,
about B.C. 629, by Cypselus, who banished many of the Corinthians, depriving others of their
possessions, and putting others to death (
Herod.v. 92). Among those
who fled from his persecution was Demaratus, of the family of the Bacchiadae, who settled at
Tarquinii in Etruria, and whose descendants became sovereigns of Rome. The reign of Cypselus
was prosperous, and the system of colonization, which had previously succeeded so well in the
settlements of Corcyra and Syracuse, was actively pursued by that prince, who added Ambracia,
Anactorium, and Leucas to the maritime dependencies of the Corinthians.
|
Corinth and its Ports.
|
Cypselus was succeeded by his son Periander. On the death of this latter (B.C. 585), after a
reign of forty-four years, according to Aristotle, his nephew Psammetichus came to the throne,
but lived only three years. At his decease Corinth regained its
independence, when a moderate aristocracy was established, under which the Republic enjoyed a
state of tranquillity and prosperity unequalled by any other city of Greece. We are told by
Thucydides that the Corinthians were the first to build war-galleys or triremes; and the
earliest naval engagement, according to the same historian, was fought by their fleet and that
of the Corcyreans, who had been alienated from their mother-State by the cruelty and impolicy
of Periander. The city is believed to have had at this time a population of 300,000 souls.
|
Coin of Corinth.
|
The arts of painting and sculpture, more especially that of casting in bronze, attained to
the highest perfection at Corinth, and rendered this city the ornament of Greece, until it was
stripped by the rapacity of a Roman general. Such was the beauty of its vases, that the tombs
in which they had been deposited were ransacked by the Roman colonists whom Iulius Caesar had
established there after the destruction of the city; and these, being transported to Rome,
were purchased at enormous prices. See
Aes.
When the
Achaean League (q.v.) became
involved in a destructive war with the Romans, Corinth was the last hold of their tottering
Republic; and had its citizens wisely submitted to the offers proposed by the victorious
Metellus, it might have been preserved; but the deputation of that general having been treated
with scorn and even insult,
|
Ancient Corinth. (Restoration.)
|
the city became exposed to all the vengeance of the Romans (Polyb. xl. 4.1). L. Mummius,
the consul, appeared before its walls with a numerous army, and after defeating the Achaeans
in a general engagement, entered the town, now left without defence and deserted by the
greater part of the inhabitants. It was then given up to plunder and finally set on fire; the
walls also were razed to the ground, so that scarcely a vestige of this once great and noble
city remained (B.C. 146). Polybius, who saw its destruction, affirmed that he had seen the
finest paintings strewed on the ground, and the Roman soldiers using them as boards for dice
or draughts. Pausanias reports (vii. 16) that all the men were put to the sword, the women and
children sold, and the most valuable statues and paintings removed to Rome. (See
Mummius.) Strabo observes that the finest works of art
which adorned that capital in his time had come from Corinth. He likewise states that Corinth
remained for many years deserted and in ruins. Iulius Caesar, however, not long before his
death, sent a numerous colony thither, by means of which Corinth was once more raised from its
state of ruin, and renamed Colonia Iulia Corinthus. It was already a large and populous city
and the capital of Achaia, when St. Paul preached the Gospel there for a year and six months
(Acts, xviii. 11). It is also evident that when visited by Pausanias it was thickly adorned by
public buildings and enriched with numerous works of art, and as late as the time of Hierocles
we find it styled the metropolis of Greece. In a later age the Venetians received the place
from a Greek emperor; Mohammed II. took it from them in 1458; the Venetians recovered it in
1699, and fortified the Acrocorinthus again; but the Turks took it anew in 1715, and retained
it until driven from the Peloponnesus in 1822. In 1858, it was wholly destroyed by an
earthquake, since which time it has been rebuilt upon a site three miles to the northeast.
An important feature of the scenery around Corinth was the Acrocorinthus, a mention of which
has been made in a previous article. (See
Acrocorinthus.) On the summit of this hill was erected a temple of
Aphrodité, to whom the whole of the Acrocorinthus, in fact, was sacred. In the
times of Corinthian opulence and prosperity, it is said that the shrine of the goddess was
attended by no less than one thousand female slaves, dedicated to her service as courtesans.
These priestesses of Aphrodité contributed not a little to the wealth and luxury of
the city, whence arose the well-known expression,
οὐ παντὸς ἀνδρὸς
εἰς Κόρινθον ἐστ̓ ὁ πλοῦς, or, as Horace expresses it (
Epist.
i. 17, 36), “
Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum,”
in allusion to its expensive pleasures.
Corinth was famed for its three harbours—Lechaeum, on the Corinthian Gulf, and
Cenchreae and Schoenus, on the Saronic. Near this last was the
Δίολκος, where vessels were transported over the isthmus by machinery. The city
was the birthplace of the painters Ardices, Cleophantus, and Cleanthes; of the statesmen
Periander, Phidon, Philolaüs, and Timoleon; and of Arion , who invented the
dithyramb.
See Wagner,
Rerum Corinthiacarum Specimen (Darmstadt, 1824);
Barth,
Corinthiorum Commercii et Mercaturae Historiae Particula (Berlin,
1844); and E. Curtius,
Peloponnesos, vol. ii. p. 514 foll.