BY its geographical position Corinth seems to have been predestined to commercial greatness. While it commanded the land route from the Peloponnesus to continental Greece, its two harbours on either side of the isthmus, opening, the one on the Corinthian, and the other on the Saronic Gulf, made it a natural emporium for East and West. There was no reason indeed why its military power should not have been as distinguished as its opulence. Its great acropolis (Acro-Corinthus, as it was called), a precipitous mountain nearly 1900 feet high, rising abruptly out of the plain and commanding a view of nearly the half of Greece, with a plateau on its summit large enough to accommodate thousands of men, was marked out by nature as an impregnable fortress. But, whether owing to the Phoenician element in the population or to the peace-making tendencies of its commercial pursuits, Corinth was never of very much account in war, though it was the first city in Greece to build a navy.

One of the most famous of its early kings was Sisyphus, whose name is supposed to have been a reduplication of the Greek word sophos. His wisdom, however, seems to have been of a mean and sinister kind, better described as cunning, if we may judge from some of the illustrations of it which have come down to us. According to a well-known tradition he was condemned by Zeus to the hopeless and never-ending task, in Hades, of pushing a stone up the side of a mountain, from which it always rolled back before he could place it securely on the summit—an appropriate enough punishment for a man who had been guilty of murdering travellers as they crossed the isthmus by rolling down great stones upon them from the mountains.

His beautiful grandson, Bellerophon, was a man of a different type. His incorruptible virtue, when tempted by the queen of Argos, and the divine protection granted to him in all the perils to which, like Joseph in Egypt, he was exposed—culminating in his marriage to the King of Lycia’s daughter with half the kingdom for a dowry—formed a pleasing theme for ancient poets and moralists. According to one tradition, it was the hoof of his winged horse Pegasus that struck the first water from the fountain Peirene, on the top of Acro-Corinthus. According to another account the spring was a gift to Sisyphus from the river Asopus, for having given information against Zeus in a matter affecting his family welfare.

Another famous name was that of Creon, King of Corinth, whose daughter GlaukÉ came to such a tragic end. According to the common version of the story, Jason had come to Corinth with his wife Medea, by whose aid he had succeeded in bringing back the Golden Fleece from Colchis. Forgetful of his vows, he fell in love with GlaukÉ and was about to marry her, when the enraged Medea, who was skilled in the magical arts of the East, sent the bride a beautiful undergarment, which, as soon as it was put on, set fire to the wearer. Pausanias mentions a fountain into which GlaukÉ threw herself in her agony, and within the last few years the enclosed well referred to has been brought to light.

After a long line of kings the BacchiadÆ are said to have come into power, ruling jointly, with one of their number as president, until the government was usurped by Cypselus, one of those “tyrants” who figure so prominently in Greek history during the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. Among the finest votive offerings at Olympia was an elaborately-carved chest dedicated by his descendants, the Cypselids, to commemorate the preservation of his life while he was an infant. His birth had been heralded by oracles which portended destruction to the ruling clan, from which his mother was sprung, and messengers were sent to Petra, where his parents lived, to take the child’s life. They had arranged that the first of them who should receive the child in his arms should dash it to the ground. But when the unsuspecting mother put it into the hands of one of them, he was so touched by a smile on the face of the infant that he passed it on to the second, and so on, till they had all failed to carry out their cruel design. On leaving the house they began to reproach one another for their weakness of purpose, and agreed to go in again and all take a share in the deed. But the mother had overheard the conversation, and succeeded in saving the child’s life by concealing it in a chest, for which reason it was called Cypselus.

Cypselus was succeeded by his son Periander, who ruled with a rod of iron, but brought the country to a still higher degree of prosperity than it had ever attained before. According to Herodotus, his cruel policy of destroying men of light and leading among his subjects had been learned from Thrasybulus of Miletus, to whom he sent a deputy for advice as to the best means of securing his position. Thrasybulus said nothing, but took his visitor into a corn-field, and as they passed along cut down all the high and heavy stalks which attracted his attention. According to Aristotle, however, Periander was the teacher of this lesson, not the learner. He was succeeded by a son, who was soon driven from the throne. A democratic government was then established, which continued, with the occasional rise of an oligarchy, for several centuries. So deep was the impression made on the Corinthians by the cruelty of their despots, that when a conference was held at Sparta some time afterwards for the purpose of considering a proposal to restore the Peisistratid dynasty to Athens, the Corinthian deputy made a strong and eloquent protest against it, and the design had to be abandoned.

The unhappy relations of Corinth to her colony Corcyra have already been alluded to (p. 9). On the other hand, there are few brighter pages in the annals of Greece than the story of the deliverance of Syracuse, another of her colonies, from the tyranny of Dionysius by Timoleon, one of the best and greatest of her sons. Timoleon had lived in retirement for twenty years, owing to a crushing sorrow which had befallen him in connection with the death of his brother Timophanes, who had sought to make himself master of the city. Timoleon went up to the citadel with one or two other patriotic men to remonstrate with the new despot, who was bringing in a reign of terror. Timophanes was obdurate, and from angry words the parties came to blows, with the result that the usurper was slain. Timoleon himself took no part in the affray, his heart being torn with conflicting emotions, owing to his love for his brother, whose life he had once heroically saved in battle. His position excited general sympathy, but in some quarters he was blamed for his brother’s death, and his mother was inexorable in her bitter grief, refusing ever to look upon his face again. After his long and sad seclusion he was now called by the voice of the assembled people to take command of the expedition to Sicily, the task having been declined by many of the leading men. He accepted the commission; and with such signal success did he execute it, with very limited means at his command, that his achievements were universally attributed to the favour of the gods. He was equally eminent for courage and sagacity. On one occasion, when he was about to encounter a Carthaginian army many times greater than his own, he met some mules carrying burdens of parsley, which was generally used for putting on tombstones. The evil omen struck the imagination of his soldiers and their hearts were beginning to sink, when Timoleon, seizing some of the parsley, made a wreath of it and put it on his head, exclaiming that it was their Corinthian emblem of victory which fortune was now putting in their way. His officers followed his example, the result being that the spirits of the army rose, and they went forward to a glorious victory. As soon as he had restored freedom and order throughout the island he invited the citizens of Syracuse to join with him in pulling down the tyrant’s stronghold, setting up courts of justice in its place. He then resigned his commission, refusing to accept any official position in the state, of which he had been virtually the restorer. But so deep was the impression made on the community by his great and disinterested services that whenever there was a serious difference of opinion on any public question he was called in as umpire. He lost his eyesight towards the end of his life, and Cornelius Nepos gives a touching picture of the acclamation with which he would be greeted by the assembly when he was led into the hall seated on his car, from which the mules had been unyoked, to hear some question referred to him, and of the profound respect with which his judgment would be received. One of the results of Timoleon’s mission to Sicily was that the dethroned Dionysius was brought over to Corinth, and spent the remainder of his life there in very humble circumstances. He made a livelihood by teaching reading and singing, and for a while he was as great an object of interest in the city as Napoleon the Great would have been if he had been sent to London instead of St. Helena.

Owing to its geographical position Corinth was frequently the scene of conference between different Greek states. In 337 B.C. a general congress was summoned by Philip for the purpose of obtaining approval of his scheme for the invasion of Persia in his new rÔle as the head of Greece. The desired assent was given (Sparta alone withholding it), but the scheme was never carried out, owing to the assassination of Philip by an aggrieved member of his bodyguard. In the midst of splendid festivities to celebrate his daughter’s marriage to the King of Epirus and the birth of a son to himself by his new wife, the exultant king, clothed in white, was about to enter the crowded theatre at the end of a solemn procession, in which statues of the twelve great divinities of Olympus were followed by an image of himself—when, suddenly, the fatal blow was struck that put an end for ever to his hope of further conquest. Within two months after the death of his father, Alexander was marching with an army through Greece, and at another congress held in Corinth he had the same honours voted to him as his father had received. The following year (335 B.C.) Alexander was again at Corinth, seeing Greece for the last time, although he was only twenty-one years old. It was on this occasion that he was so taken with the amazing self-sufficiency of the cynical philosopher who had nothing better to ask of the young potentate, when he was honoured with a visit, than to request him to stand out of his sunshine. “If I were not Alexander,” exclaimed the monarch, “I would be Diogenes.”

At a later time Corinth played a prominent part in connection with the AchÆan League. The story of the capture of Acro-Corinthus from the Macedonians by Aratus on a moonlit night, so graphically told by Plutarch, is one of the most interesting passages in any of his biographies. A hundred years afterwards (146 B.C.) the forwardness of Corinth in an attempt to throw off the Roman yoke led to its complete destruction and depopulation by the Roman consul, L. Mummius. In the next century, however, Julius CÆsar saw the vast capabilities of the site, and planted on it a Roman colony, which led to such a development of trade that in the first century of the Christian era it was again one of the most flourishing cities of Greece.

Of its wealth and magnificence very slight traces now remain. The most imposing ruin is that of a Dorian temple of Apollo, dating from the sixth or seventh century B.C. Seven of its columns, with a portion of the architrave, have braved the storm for 2600 years and escaped the hand of the destroyer. These monoliths, about 23½ feet high and fully 5½ feet thick, tapering upwards, form a most impressive monument. Two other columns have recently been discovered

An encampment on the site of the cella of the Temple.