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The Early History of Corinth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

T. J. Dunbabin
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Extract

In his Presidential address to the Hellenic Society in 1914, Walter Leaf expressed the hope that a study of the history of ancient Corinth might be undertaken. He directed special attention to the economic history, to be interpreted mainly from the material remains of Corinth and of Corinthian industry. This task has not yet been carried out. Much has been written on Corinthian art and industry, but the historical conclusions of these archaeological studies remain still to be drawn. The Corinthians, more than other Greeks, had an individual way of life, recognised by their contemporaries, which can be used as a point from which to survey the Greek world; it is expressed by Herodotus in a single phrase, ἤκιστα δὲ Κορίνθιοι ὄνονται τοὺς χειροτέχνας. The economic approach should therefore be especially suited to the history of Corinth. But before this interpretation can be written, we must acquire a solid body of fact about Corinthian history and economic life, drawing chiefly on the material remains. What follows is the first chapter of such a study, dealing with the beginnings and early history of Corinth down to about 750 B.C. Most of my conclusions are not new, but I hope that some of the arguments are. The basis is the archaeological evidence uncovered by the Americans at Corinth, by Payne at Perachora.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 68 , November 1948 , pp. 59 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1948

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References

1 JHS XXXV, 164–5Google Scholar.

2 The history of Corinth is the subject of a book by J. G. O'Neill. Dr. O'Neill was unfortunate in his date of writing. His book appeared in the year before the publication of Necrocorinthia, before also any of the archaic mater from the American excavations at Corinth was available for study in detailed publications. This particularly affects his treatment of the early period. He does not attempt except in the most general and perfunctory way to draw on the evidence for Corinthian trade and economics to he found in vases and other products of Corinthian industry.

3 Herod., ii, 167, 2.

4 I am especially indebted to T. Lenschau, RE Suppl. IV, 991 ff.

5 Payne, H. and others, Perachora I (1940)Google Scholar; Weinber, S. S.Corinth VII, i; The Geometric and Orientalising Pottery (1943).Google Scholar

6 Cf. Haley, and Blegen, , AJA XXXII, 141 ffGoogle Scholar.

7 Weinberg, , ‘Prehistoric Corinth’ (Hesp. VI, 487 ffGoogle Scholar.); from Temple of Apollo and Asklepieion.

No adequate survey of the whole area of ancient Corinth has been published, as the American publication deals only with the central area, the main area of excavations. The most useful plan is that in RE Suppl. VI, 189 (Fig. 1).

8 A few Mycenaean sherds in square of Old Corinth (AJA XL, 207Google Scholar); at Kheliotomylos (AJA XXXIV, 404–9Google Scholar) and the North Cemetery (AJA XXXIII, 538–9Google Scholar; XXXIV, loc. cit.).

Important Mycenaean finds from Corinth have now come to light (see n. 19a). They will change the picture of Mycenaean Corinth and support the view that it was a considerable city.

9 Blegen, C. W., AJA XXVII, 156 ff.Google Scholar; Shear, T. L., AJA XXXIV, 409Google Scholar.

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14 B 570.

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18 Strabo 338; cf. Leaf, op. cit., p. 219. In AJA XXVII, 155Google Scholar Leaf offers in interpretation of Strabo's statement that there was a river Selleis and a river Ephyre near Sikyon the identification of the Selleis with the Longopotamos which flows just west of Corinth, of Ephyre with Aetopetra, a small Mycenaean site (no. 3 in Blegen's, list, AJA XXIV, 3 f.Google Scholar). If it is desired to follow the Corinthian scholars or poets and locate Ephyre at or near Corinth, it is better to identify it with Korakou, the main Mycenaean site of the Corinthia and predecessor of Corinth. But it must be remembered that the question is primarily a literary one.

The other Ephyrai named by Strabo in Thesprotia and Elis are not here relevant, as we are concerned only with the Ephyre of Sisyphos, which lay μυχῷ Ἄργεος and was identified by Strabo with Corinth.

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There is no direct evidence for an exact dating of the fountains Peirene and Glauke, which might on general grounds be thought to belong to the seventh century (see Dunkley, B., BSA XXXVI, 145 ff.Google Scholar). For Glauke see Scranton, R. L., Corinth I, ii, 149 ffGoogle Scholar.

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25 Newhall, Agnes, AJA XXXV, 1 ff.Google Scholar; XXXVII, 605 ff. For the nomenclature of the periods of Corinthian vasepainting see note at end (p. 68).

26 Thuc. iv. 42. 2; cf. Veil. Pat. i. 13.

27 Schol. Pind. Ol. xiii, 17 c. Eusebius begins the kingdoms of Sparta and Corinth in the same year (Chronica, ed. Fotheringham, , p. 109Google Scholar), and Diodorus (vii. 9 Vogel) puts the same date for Aletes (447 years before Kypselos), but his regnal years add up to 417 years only. It would appear, not that a reign of thirty years has fallen out (as Busolt GG I, 631, n. 4; Lenschau, RE Suppl. IV, 1008), but that he should have put the beginning of Aletes' reign thirty years after the Return of the Herakleids, as is done by the Scholiast on Pindar. Other dates for the foundation of Corinth: e.g., 1098–7, Veil. Pat. i. 13; cf. Busolt, loc. cit., Porzio, G., Riv. st. ant. XI (1907), 567 f.Google Scholar: will be variants of the date for the Return of the Herakleids.

28 C. 378.

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30 As is wrongly stated by Hanell, K., Megarische Studien 76, n. 1Google Scholar, on the authority of Xen. Hell. iv. 5. 1; cf. Perachora I, 22Google Scholar.

31 Paus. ii. 6. 7.

32 Paus. ii. 26. 1 ff.

33 Cf. Hanell, op. cit., pp. 69 ff.

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35 Weinberg, op. cit., pp. 8, 24.

36 Id., p. 8.

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38 Id., pp. 32–3.

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40 Id., pp. 34 ff., pll. 8–9.

41 Samos, Paus. vii. 4. 4; Poseidonia, Strabo C. 252.

42 Paus. ii. 24. 1.

43 IG IX. 1, 698.

44 Dionys. Byz. fr. 9 in Müller, , Geog. Gr. Min. II, 23Google Scholar. The temple at Byzantion lay on a promontory of the Golden Horn, and ἄκραια does not refer, as by etymology and common use, to a situation on a mountain-top. In this its situation was comparable to that of the Heraion of Perachora.

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50 Schol. Pind. Nem. vii, 155; Schol. Ar. Ran. 442; Schol. Plat. Euthyd. 292e; Zenob. v. 8; Hesychius and Suidas s.v. Δίος Κόρινθος.

51 Two are illustrated by Weinberg, in Corinth VII, i, pl. 11Google Scholar and AJA XLV, 36, fig. 12Google Scholar.

52 Cf. BSA XL, 11Google Scholar. Heurtley there speaks of ‘the appearance of Corinthian geometric at Aetos about 850 B.C.,’ but further study of Corinthian Geometric suggests that this date should be lowered, and that the earliest Corinthian vases from Ithaka are appreciably later than the earliest from Perachora though of the same types (one- and two-handled black cups and other simple vases). See now Robertson, M., BSA XLIII, 9 ff., 122 fGoogle Scholar.

53 Robertson, M., BSA XLIII, 60 ff.Google Scholar; cf. BSA XXXIX, 17 ffGoogle Scholar.

54 See Blakeway, A. A., JRS XXV, 130, 133Google Scholar (whose dates are too high).

55 Johansen, VS, 4–6; Payne, NC, 1; Weinberg, , AJA XLV, 32Google Scholar. The question whether some vases commonly called Protocorinthian were not made elsewhere, discussed by Weinberg in the article quoted, does not affect the argument from distribution, for Weinberg's ‘Aeginetan’ group has not so wide a distribution as the certain product of Corinth.

56 Perachora I, 33–4Google Scholar.

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58 Strabo C. 378.

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60 This statement is based on the unpublished work of Brock, J. K. (see BSA XLIV, forthcoming)Google Scholar and, for Crete, on the association of Cretan and Corinthian vases in the new graves at Knossos, one of which contains an Egyptian scarab of the XXV Dynasty which offers a check on the absolute chronology (cf. Dunbabin, , The Western Greeks, 462–3Google Scholar).

61 Robertson, M., JHS LX, 16Google Scholar. Smith, Sidney, AJ XXII, 99Google Scholar, suggests that the home of the Greek settlers of Posideion was at Corinth or in its neighbourhood. This may be true of the seventh century, but in view of the greater bulk of Cycladic imports in the eighth century we should place the base of the traders at that date at or near Delos.

62 Maass, E., Griechen und Semiten auf der Isthmus von Korinth (1902)Google Scholar; cf. Wade-Gery, , CAH II, 538Google Scholar; Farnell, , Cults I, 201 ff.Google Scholar; ii, 668. The latest statement of the Phoenician theory, Zimmermann, R., PhW 1931, 1417 ffGoogle Scholar.

63 Schol. Lye. 658; Steph. Byz. s.v. Θοινίκαιον.

64 Corinth VIII, i, nos. 1–2Google Scholar; cf. Dow, S., AJA XLVI, 69 ffGoogle Scholar.

65 B 570.

66 Kinkel, , Ep. Gr. Frag., pp. 185 ffGoogle Scholar.

67 Paus. ii. 1. 1 (εἰ δὴ Ευμήλου ἡ συγγραφή).

68 Kinkel, op. cit., p. 186; Bethe, RE VI, 1081.

69 Fr. 2 Kinkel (Schol. Pind. Ol. xiii, 74).

70 Fr. 13 Kinkel; Paus. iv. 4. 1; iv. 33. 2.

71 It is conceivable that these lines were written during the Second Messenian War. The association with the Messenians cannot be set aside, and the insistence on freedom agrees with a period when freedom was threatened. But there is no authority or support for the latter date, and it would involve the dubious construction which elevates the Second Messenian War into a pan-hellenic struggle. It could only be upheld as a piece of special pleading by those who on literary grounds cannot accept an eighth-century, pre-hesiodic, Eumelos.

72 761 may represent a date one generation before the First Messenian War, for the hymn was said to have been written in the time of Phintas, father of Androkles and Antiokhos the kings at the beginning of the war (Paus. iv. 4. 1). 744 may represent the beginning of the war, or, as Bethe suggests (RE VI, 1080), the date of the beginning of the Bakkhiad oligarchy (ca. 747 according to the traditional chronology).

73 Alex, Clem.. Strom, i. 131. 8Google Scholar: . Freeman, , History of Sicily I, 344, n. 2Google Scholar, supposes Eumelos to have joined Arkhias in the foundation of Syracuse, but adds ‘I do not quite see the force of έπιβεβληκέναι.’ LS9 give under the heading II, 9 the meaning ‘overlap in time.’

74 Fr. 8 Kinkel (Schol. Ap. Rhod. ii, 946).

75 Fr. 17 Kinkel (Tzetzes ad Hes. i, p. 23)

76 Bethe, , RE VI, 1080Google Scholar.