Ancient Corinth

Μετάφραση

Ancient Corinth

Ancient Corinth was one of the largest and most important cities of Greece. It was a city-state on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnese to the mainland of Greece. The archaeological site is situated on the northern foothills of the Acrocorinth hill. Excavations by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and recent excavations conducted by the Greek Ministry of Culture have brought to light the Roman Forum, temples, fountains, porticoes, baths, latrines and various other monuments. The archaeological site includes the following monuments:

• Diolkos of the Corinthian Isthmus
• The Temple of Apollo
• The Fountain of Peirene
• Asklepieion and the Lerna Fountain
• Odeum
• Amphitheater
• The Temple of Dimitra and Kore
• Theater
• Glauke Fountain
• Temple E (of Octavia)
• Bema of Saint Paul (Roman Forum)

Temple of Apollo

The Temple of Apollo is a Doric peripteral temple, rich in history and surely one of the must-see places in Greece. It was constructed ca. 540 B.C on the site of an earlier seventh century B.C. temple, some remains of which have been excavated from the area of Temple Hill. Built of local oolithic limestone on top of an imposing, rocky hill to the north of Acrocorinth, the Archaic temple reflected the growth and prosperity of the ancient city. Today, although only seven standing columns of the western pteron and part of the crepis and its foundations are preserved, the temple is the most important monument of the Archaeological Site of Ancient Corinth, and remains one of the few standing Archaic Greek Temples in the world. In the earliest excavation reports of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, it appears as the "Old Temple". With the discovery of the theater in 1897 and the Fountain of Peirene in 1898, however, the excavated site of Corinth could be related to the description of Pausanias, and by 1898 Rufus B. Richardson had identified the Old Temple as the Temple of Apollo.

The temple which stands on the site today originally had a total of 38 columns, but only 7 remain standing today. Each was over 7 meters high, with 6 columns at either end, and 15 along the lengths. The stylobate which measures 53.82 X 21.48 m shows some upward curvature. The curvature of the stylobate meant that the convex flooring of the temple allowed for the structure to appear more symmetrical than it actually was, making the Temple of Apollo at Corinth probably the earliest example of this addition to temple building. The Parthenon in Athens is another famous example of this innovation. The interior of the temple consists of a porch at either end and a long central part (the cella) divided into two cella chambers by a cross wall. The western cella had 4 interior columns and the eastern had 8 interior columns. One theory is that, the larger chamber contained a treasury.

During the Roman period, a radical renovation was carried out of the temple itself. As a result, the interior columns were removed and reused in the exterior colonnade at the west end of the forum to the northwest of the South Stoa. At the same period the main entrance of the temple was changed from an easterly to a westerly approach. In the Ottoman period, the eastern part of the temple was demolished and a new residence of the local Turkish Bey was built on top of its crepis.  

The Fountain of Peirene

The Fountain of Peirene is one of the most famous and iconic monuments of Ancient Corinth. Anyone who has wandered among the ruins will most likely have shot a photo of the spring facade and court. It represents the start of an intricate underground water system stretching hundreds of meters beneath the Roman forum, and the architecture preserved today marks a visual fragment of numerous phases of construction, use, additions, and renovations. Besides that, it is a major orienting point in the landscape for understanding Corinthian history and ancient conceptions of the city. According to myth, the monument owes its name to Poseidon’s lover Peirene literally dissolved into tears when Artemis accidentally killed her son Kenchrias Another myth says that the fountain was created by the hoof of Pegasus striking the ground.

The first indications alluding to its use date back to the Neolithic period, while the first spatial configuration dates to the geometric and archaic period. By the 2nd century B.C., it consisted of six chambers providing access to three deep draw basins supplied with water by conduits excavated hundreds of meters back under the forum. The water was stored in four huge reservoirs. Later, Peirene received an extreme makeover when the Romans came to town, gaining a grandiose façade bearing Doric semi-columns framing the earlier antechambers, a great court, and an open-air basin the size of a swimming pool.  The second storey was a solid wall with engaged Ionic half-columns. At the center of the courtyard, the open-air fountain was created at a lower level and supplied with water through large ducts below the courtyard floor. The east and west apses were added in Late Antiquity and the reused marble columns and their decorative “outlookers” in front of the facade are Byzantine additions. In later centuries, a small church was built at the southwest corner of the courtyard, which was gradually filled with earth and used as a burial ground. Even after the fountain and courtyard were completely buried, the fountain continued to provide water for the village fountains and numerous wells.