An encampment on the site of the cella of the Temple.
below ground by the American School of Archæology, to which we are also indebted for the identification of the fountain of Glauké, already mentioned, and that of the lower Peirene, with the masonry surrounding them. Marble propylæa, leading to the market-place, and a theatre have also been uncovered. On the top of Acro-Corinthus there was a temple of Aphrodité, with a ritual borrowed from that of the Phœnician Astarté, but scarcely any trace of it has been discovered, the remains being principally those of fortifications, including some of such a primitive and massive construction that the name of Cyclopean may be applied to them.
Scarcely anywhere do we find any sign of the “Corinthian” column, though the acanthus or thistle, which is said to have suggested that style of decoration to Callimachus, may frequently be seen in the bare and arid plain which forms the southern part of the isthmus. According to Vitruvius, the Latin writer on architecture, the idea occurred to Callimachus on seeing the acanthus growing over a basket which had been placed by her old nurse on the grave of a young lady who had died on the eve of her marriage. In the basket were deposited a number of little things which had been dear to the lady in her childhood, and on the top the nurse had placed a square flat tile to keep out the rain. When the spring came round, a hidden acanthus root put forth its leaves, which crept up the sides of the basket and coiled round the corners of the tile like volutes; and it was in imitation of the beautiful appearance thus presented that Callimachus designed the style of capital which afterwards became famous as the Corinthian order.
Northward from the propylæa the road leads to the harbour of Lechæum, about a mile and a half distant, and alongside of it traces of the two long walls can still be seen. The harbour is now a lagoon, and that on the eastern side of the isthmus at Cenchreæ is also desolate—a state of things which contrasts sadly with what might have been seen as early as 700 B.C., when Corinth was famous for its shipping, and had just built four triremes (full-deckers, with triple banks of oars) for the people of Samos, who had never possessed such ships before. To many minds, however, Cenchreæ suggests other thoughts, for it was there that Phœbe, the prototype of Christian deaconesses, dwelt, whom St. Paul commended to the Christians at Rome as “our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchreæ.” Another thing that reminds us of St. Paul is a fragment of marble in the local museum bearing the letters ... αγωγη εβ ..., the original having evidently been συναγωγη εβραιων, recalling the fact mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles that Paul spent a year and a half in Corinth with Aquila and Priscilla, in a house adjoining the synagogue. At the little railway station of New Corinth we had a proof how much more lasting may be the influence of the pen than of the sword when we were offered a copy of the New Testament in Greek, issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society. New Corinth lies to the north-west of the ancient city, not very far from the Lechæan harbour. It is a well-built little town of about 4000 inhabitants, and was founded fifty years ago, when the old town was destroyed by an earthquake—the third time that such a calamity had happened to it during the Christian era. At no great distance are the traces of the walls by which the Peloponnesian states at various periods attempted to secure themselves against invasion from the north. Some remains have also been found of the diolkos or tramway, running across the narrowest and lowest part of the isthmus, by which it was customary to transport not only the freight of vessels but the vessels themselves, while the passengers frequently walked across to the port on the other side.
The idea of cutting a canal is said to date as far back as the reign of Periander, already mentioned, who was accounted one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. It was entertained by Demetrius Poliorcetes and Julius Cæsar, but Nero was the first to make any serious attempt to carry it out. “A great multitude of soldiers and prisoners, including apparently 6000 Jews sent by Vespasian from Judæa, were assembled at the isthmus, and operations were begun with much solemnity, apparently about the end of 67 A.D. The emperor himself, after chanting hymns in honour of the marine deities, set the example by giving a few strokes with a golden pickaxe, which the governor of Greece formally handed to him. Then the multitude fell to work in earnest, the soldiers turning up the earth, and the prisoners hewing at the rocks. A beginning was made on the western side of the isthmus, but excavations had been carried for a distance of only about four furlongs when they were suddenly suspended in consequence of evil tidings which Nero received of conspiracies at Rome and disaffection among the armies of the West.”[4]
The modern canal, which was undertaken by a French Company in 1881, was completed by a Greek Company in 1893. To one sailing through it has a much more striking appearance than the Suez Canal, owing to the height of its banks on either side, for the most part cut out of sandy or alluvial soil, and rising like walls to a height of more than 100 feet. At one point the railway passes over it at a height of about 170 feet above the water. The canal is about three and a half miles long. It reduces the voyage from the Ionian Islands to Athens to about half the distance involved in sailing round Cape Matapan, but unfortunately it is too narrow (only about 75 feet wide) to be of much use for the larger ships. As a rule it is only the Greek coasting vessels that take advantage of it, and there is little or no prospect of its ever becoming one of the great highways to the East.
Not far from the eastern end of the canal is the precinct that was sacred to Poseidon, where the Isthmian Games were held every second year. The stadium can still be traced, memorable, among other things, as the scene of the inauguration of Alexander the Great as the acknowledged prince of Greece, and of the proclamation of liberty to the Greeks, one hundred and forty years
