CORINTH, a celebrated city of antiquity, for some [7:7:327] time the most illustrious of the Greek cities. It is said to have been founded 1514 years before Christ, by Sisyphus the son of Aeolus. Various reasons are given for its name, but most authors derive it from Corinthus the son of Pelops. It was situated on the southern part ôf the isthmus which joins the Peloponnesus, now the Morea’, to the continent. It consisted of a citadel built upon an eminence, and thence called Acrocorinthus; besides which it had two maritime towns subject to it, named Lechaeum and Cenchreae. The whole state extended scarcely half a degree in length or breadth; but so advantageously situated were the ports above-mentioned, that the Corinthians might have acquired a superiority, if not a command over all Greece, had not their situation inclined them to commerce rather than war. Their citadel was almost impregnable; and, commanding both the Ionian and Aegean seas, they could easily have cut off all communication from one half of Greece with the other, for which reason this city was called one of the gates of Greece.

But as the genius of the Corinthians led them to commerce rather than war, their city became the finest in all Greece. It was adorned with the most sumptuous buildings, as temples, palaces, theatres, portico, all of them enriched with a beautiful kind of columns, which, from the city, were denominated Corinthian. But though the Corinthians seldom or never engaged in a war with the view of enlarging, but rather of defending their little state, they did not forget to cultivate discipline both in time of peace and of war. Hence many brave and experienced generals have been furnished by Corinth to the other Grecian cities; and it was not uncommon for the latter to prefer a Corinthian general to any of their own.

This city continued to preserve its liberty till the year before Christ 146, when it was pillaged and burnt by the Romans. At that time it was the strongest place in the world; but the inhabitants were so disheartened by a preceding defeat, and the death of their general, that they had not presence of mind enough even to shut their gates. The Roman consul Mummius was so much surprised at this, that at first he could scarcely believe the circumstance, and fearing an ambuscade, advanced with all possible caution. But as he met with no resistance, his soldiers had nothing to do except to destroy the few inhabitants who had not fled, and to plunder the city. Such of the men as had remained in the towm were all put to the sword, and the women were sold as slaves. After this the city was ransacked by the rapacious soldiery, and the spoil is said to have been immense. There were, in fact, more vessels of all sorts of metal, and more fine pictures and statues executed by the greatest masters, in Corinth, than in any other city in the world. All the princes of Europe and Asia, who had any taste in painting and sculpture, furnished themselves here with the richest moveables; at Corinth were cast the finest statues for temples and palaces; and all the liberal arts had been brought to the greatest perfection. Man; r inestimable pieces of the most celebrated painters and statuaries fell into the hands of the ignorant soldiery, who either destroyed them, or parted with them for a trifle. Polybius the historian was an eye-witness of this barbarism of the Romans, and had the hiortification to see two of them playing at dice on a famous picture by Aristides, which was accounted one of the wonders of the world. The piece was a Bacchus, so exquisitely finished, that it was proverbially said of any extraordinary performance, it is as well done as the Bacchus of Aristides. This masterpiece of painting, however, the soldiers willingly exchanged for a more convenient table to play upon. But when the spoils of Corinth were afterwards put up to sale, Attalus, king of Pergamus, offered for it six hundred thousand sesterces, or nearly five thousand pounds of our money; upon which the ignorant Mummius, surprised at such a high price being offered for a picture, and imagining that there must be some magical virtue in it, interposed his authority, and, notwithstanding the complaints of Attalus, carried it to Rome, where it was lodged in the temple of Ceres, and afterwards destroyed by fire, together with the temple itself. Another instance of the stupidity of Mummius is, that when the pictures were put on board the transports, he told the masters of the vessels very seriously, that if any of the things were either lost or spoiled, he would oblige them to find others at their own cost; as if any other pieces could have supplied the loss of those inestimable originals, executed by the greatest masters in Greece. When the city had been thoroughly pillaged, it was barbarously set on fire at all points, and totally destroyed. At this time the famous metallic mixture is said to have been formed, which could never afterwards be imitated by art. The gold, silver, and brass, which«the Corinthians had concealed, were melted, and ran down the streets in streams; and when the flames were extinguished, a new metal was found, composed of several different ones, fused together by the conflagration, and greatly esteemed in after ages.

The town lay desolate until Julius Caesar settled on the spot a Roman colony·; when, in removing the rubbish, and excavating, many vases of brass or earthenware, finely embossed, were discovered. The price given for those curiosities excited industry in the new inhabitants; they left no burial-place unexamined; and Rome, it is said, was filled with the spoils of the sepulchres of Corinth.

Strabo, who was at Corinth soon after its restoration by the Romans, describes the site as follows. “A lofty mountain, in perpendicular height as much as three stadia and a half (nearly half a mile), the ascent thirty stadia (about three miles and a quarter), ends in a pointed summit called Acrocorinthus. Of this, the portion to the north is the most steep, beneath which lies the city, on a level area at the foot of the Acrocorinthus. The circuit of the city alone has been forty stadia (about five miles), and as much of it as was unsheltered by the mountain has been walled about. Within the inclosure was comprehended also the Acrocorinthus, where the mountain was capable of receiving a wall; and as we ascended, the vestiges of it were plain; so that the whole circumference exceeded eighty-five Stadia (nearly eleven miles). On the other sides the mountain is less precipitous, but rises very high, and is visible all around. Upon the summit is à small temple of Venus; and below it the spring Pirene, which does not overflow, but is always full of pellucid and potable water. They say it unites with some other hidden veins, and forms the spring at the base of the mountain, running into the city, and affording a sufficient supply for the use of the inhabitants. In the city there is plenty of wells, and also in the Acrocorinthus, as they say, for we did not see any. There, they relate, the winged horse Pegasus was taken as he was drinking, by Bellerophon. Below Pirene is the Sisypheum, a temple or palace of white stone, the remains of which are not inconsiderable. From the summit is beheld to the north Parnassus and Helicon, lofty mountains covered with snow; and below both, to the west, the Cris-sean gulf, bounded by Phocis, by Boeotia and the Megaris, and by Corinthia and Sicyonia, opposite to Phocis. Beyond all these are the mountains called the Oneian, stretching as far as Boeotia and Cithaeron, from the Scironian rocks on the road to Attica.”

New Corinth had flourished 217 years when it was visited by Pausanias. It had then a number of antiquities, many temples and statues, especially about the agora or market-place, and several baths, the Emperor Hadrian introduced water from a famous spring at Stymphalus in [7:7:328]Arcadia; and it was provided with various fountains alike copious and ornamental. The stream of one issued from a dolphin, on which was a brazen Neptune; of another, from the hoof of Pegasus, on whom Bellerophon was mounted. On the right hand, proceeding along the road leading from the market-place toward Sicyon, were the odcium and the theatre, near which was a temple of Minerva. The old gymnasium was at a distance. On the way from the market-place toward Lechaeum was a gate on which were placed Phaeton and the Sun in gilded chariots. Pirene entered a fountain of white marble, from which the current passed in an open channel. The metal called Corinthian brass is supposed to have been immerged while red hot in this water. On the way up to the Acrocorinthus were temples, statues, and altars; and at the gate next Tenea was a village with a temple of Apollo, sixty stadia or seven miles and a half distant, on the road to Mycenae. At Lcchaeum were a temple and a brazen image of Neptune; at Cenchreae there were also temples; and on the way from the city there were a grove of cypress trees, sepulchres, and monuments. Opposite was the Bath of Helen, composed of tepid salt water, flowing plentifully from a rock into the sea. Mummius had ruined the theatre of Corinth; and the munificence of the great Athenian, Herodes Atticus, was displayed in an edifice with a roof inferior to few of the most celebrated structures in Greece.

But the Roman colony was destined to suffer the same calamity as the Greek city, and from a conqueror more terrible than Mummius, namely, Alaric, the savage destroyer of Athens and of Greece. In a country harassed with frequent wars, as the Peloponnesus had since been, the Acrocorinthus was a post of too much consequence to be neglected. It was besieged and taken in 1456 by Mahommed II. in consequence of the despots, or lords of the Morea, brothers of the Greek emperor who had been killed in defending Constantinople, refusing payment of the arrears of the tribute which had been imposed by Sultan Murad in 1447. The country became subject to the Turks, except such maritime places as were in the possession of the Venetians; and many of the principal inhabitants were carried away to Constantinople. Corinth, with the M'orea, was ceded to the republic at the conclusion of the war in 1698, and again by it to the Turks in 1715.

Corinth is included in the canton of Kordos, by which name the city also is more commonly known than by the ancient name. It is on the elevated isthmus of Corinth, and being fortified, is the key of the gulf, and presents most beautiful prospects over the bay and the opposite shore, crowned with Parnassus and other hills. It contains three mosques,five Greek churches, and 500 houses, with a population of 4000 persons. It is a place of some trade, which consists of exports of wheat and other grain, w ool, cheese, oil, currants, kermes, tar, pitch, butter, wax, and honey. Though the remains of ancient and extensive buildings may be traced, they are chiefly in ruins, leaving nothing to remark but some Doric columns of very ancient architecture, and the remains of a bath of brick, of Latin construction. Long. 23. 3. 10. E. Lat. 37. 55. 54. N.

Corinth, the Isthmus of, in the Morea, is a neck of land which joins the Morea to Greece, and reaches from the gulf of Lepanto or Corinth, to that of Aegina. Periander, Alexander, Demetrius, Julius Caesar, Caligula, Nero, and Herodes Atticus, all attempted to cutachannel through it, but in vain, owing, it is said, to the difference in the level of the water on the two sides of the isthmus; and they therefore afterwards built a wall across it, which they called Hexamilium, because it was six miles in length. This was demolished by Amurath II. and afterwards rebuilt by the Venetians, but was levelled a second time by Mahommed II.