In 46 Julius Caesar repeopled Corinth with Italian freedmen
and dispossessed Greeks. Under its new name Laus Julii and
an Italian constitution it rapidly recovered its commercial
prosperity. Augustus made it the capital of Achaea; Hadrian
enriched it with public works. Its prosperity, as also its profligacy,
is attested by the New Testament, by Strabo and
Pausanias. After the Gothic raids of 267 and 395 Corinth was
secured by new fortifications at the Isthmus. Though restricted
to the citadel, the medieval town became the administrative
and ecclesiastical capital of Peloponnesus, and enjoyed a thriving
trade and silk industry until in 1147 it was sacked by the
Normans. In 1210 it was joined to the Latin duchy of the
Morea, and subsequently was contended for by various Italian
pretenders. Since the Turkish conquest (1459) the history of
Corinth has been uneventful, save for a raid by the Maltese in
1611 and a Venetian occupation from 1687 to 1715.
Authorities.—Strabo, pp. 378-382; Pausanias ii. 1-4; Curtius, Peloponnesos (Gotha, 1851), ii., 514–556; E. Wilisch, Die Altkorinthische Thonindustrie (Leipzig, 1892) and Geschichte Korinth’s (1887, 1896, 1901); G. Gilbert, Griechische Staatsaltertümer (Leipzig, 1885), li. pp. 87-91. (M. O. B. C.)
II. Archaeology and Modern Town.—The modern town of New Corinth, the head of a district in the province of Corinth (pop. 71,229), is situated on the Isthmus of Corinth near the south-eastern recess of the Gulf of Corinth, 3½ m. N.E. from the site of the ancient city. It was founded in 1858, when Old Corinth was destroyed by an earthquake. It is connected by railway with Athens (57 m.), with Patras (80 m.), and with Nauplia (40 m.), the capital of Argolis. Communication by sea with Athens, Patras, the Ionian Islands and the shores of the Ambracian Gulf, is constant since the opening of the Corinthian ship canal, in 1893. It has not, however, attained great prosperity. It has broad streets and low houses, but is architecturally unattractive, like most of the creations of the time of King Otto. Its chief exports are seedless grapes (“currants”), olive-oil, silk and cereals. Pop. (1905) about 4300.
Old Corinth passed through its various stages, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Turkish. After the War of Liberation it was again Greek, and, being a considerable town, was suggested as the capital of the new kingdom of Greece. The earthquake of 1858 levelled it to the ground with the exception of about a dozen houses. A mere handful of the old inhabitants remained on the site. But fertile fields and running water made it attractive; and outsiders gradually came in. At present it is an untidy, poverty-stricken village of about 1000 inhabitants, mostly of Albanian blood. Like the ancient city, it spreads out over two terraces, one about 100 ft. above the other. These were formed in different geological ages by the gulf, which had in historical times receded to a distance of 1¼ m. from the city. At the nearest point to the city was laid out the harbour, Lechaeum, a basin dug far into the shore and joined with the city by long walls. At about the middle of the two terraces, 1½ m. long, the edge of the upper one was worn back into a deep indentation, probably by running water, possibly by quarrying. Here was the heart of the ancient city. At the lower end of the indentation is the modern public square, shaded by a gigantic and picturesque plane tree, nourished by the surplus water of Pirene. As the visitor looks from the square up the indentation he sees on a height to the right a venerable temple ruin, and, directly in front, Acro-Corinth, rising over 1500 ft. above the village. Even from the village, the view over the gulf, including Parnassus with its giant neighbours on the N., Cyllene and its neighbours on the W., and Geraneia on the N.E., is very fine. But from Acro-Corinth the view is still finer, and is perhaps unsurpassed in Greece.
The excavations begun in 1896 by the American school of Classical Studies at Athens, under the direction of Rufus B. Richardson, have brought to light important monuments of the ancient city, both Greek and Roman.
The first object was the locating of the agora, or public square, first because Pausanias says that most of the important monuments of the city were either on or near the agora; and secondly because, beginning with the agora, he mentions, sometimes with a brief description, the principal monuments in order along three of the principal thoroughfares radiating from it. In the first year’s work twenty-one trial trenches were dug in the hope of finding a clue to its position. Somewhat less than a quarter of a mile to the N.W. of the temple, set back into the edge of the upper terrace, there was found, under 20 ft. of soil, a ruined Roman theatre built upon the ruins of a Greek theatre. This theatre was, according to Pausanias, on the street leading from the agora towards Sicyon, and so to the west of the agora. Another trench dug across the deep indentation to the E. of the temple revealed a broad limestone pavement leading from the very northern edge of the city up through the indentation, in the direction of Acro-Corinth. It required little sagacity to identify it with the street mentioned by Pausanias as leading from the agora towards Lechaeum. It was practically certain that by following up this pavement to its point of intersection with the road from Sicyon the agora would be discovered.
The limestone pavement, with long porches on either side, was found to stop at the foot of a marble staircase of thirty-four steps of Byzantine construction, underneath which appeared a Roman arrangement of the two flights with a platform halfway up. The top flight led up to the propylaea. The remains of the propylaea above ground are few; but the foundations are massive and well laid, at the end of the upper terrace where it is farthest worn back. These foundations are clearly those of a Roman triumphal arch, which perhaps took the name “propylaea” from an ancient Greek structure on the same spot. This arch appears on Roman coins from Augustus to Commodus; according to Pausanias it bore two four-horse chariots, one driven by Helios and the other by Phaethon, his son, all in gilded bronze.
Although a considerable part of the agora has been excavated, none of the statues which Pausanias saw in it have been discovered. On the upper (S.) side are excellent foundations of a long porch. On the N. side, stretching westward from the
