Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/357

 CORINTH 353 Clarius and of Venus ; also two of Mercury and three of Jupiter; while conspicuous among them all, in the very centre of the agora, stood a Minerva of bronze on a pedestal adorned with a beautiful bass-relief of the muses. North of the agora was the Propylasa, surmounted by two gilded cars, the one bearing Phaethon, the other the sun. Beyond stood a brazen Hercules, near which was the fountain Pi- rene, celebrated for the salubrity of its waters, which issued from artificial caverns, and were collected in an open marble basin. From this fountain Pindar characterizes Corinth as the "city of Pirene;" and the Delphic oracle, according to Herodotus, speaks of the Corin- thians as "those who dwell around the beauti- ful Pirene." The ascent to the citadel was lined on either side with temples and altars, nine of which are mentioned by Pausanias; while on the summit itself stood the famed temple of Venus, to which goddess the entire Acrocorinthus was especially consecrated. In the days of Corinthian luxury and opulence, this shrine is said to have been attended by 1,000 female slaves, who were kept for the use of strangers visiting the city. On the street which led from the agora to Sicyon stood the temple of Apollo, some traces of which still remain in the N. W. outskirts of the modern town. Corinth is now a small town, whose inhabitants carry on a little trade in dried fruits, wheat, and oil, which they export from a port in the bay of Corinth. A concession was granted in 1873 to Theodore Turbini, a banker of Athens, for cutting a canal through the isthmus of Corinth, to be completed in 1879. The earliest rulers of Corinth are represented as ^Eolians, though a large proportion of the population were no doubt lonians. The reputed founder of the ancient dynasty was Sisyphus. Under him and his descendants the city is rep- resented to have been very prosperous, and to have grown in wealth and power. Thucydides says that the Dorians, when invading the Pelo- ponnesus, took possession of the hill Solygia, near the Saronic gulf, from which they carried Corinth. on war against the ^Eolian inhabitants of Cor- inth, till they reduced the city. Aletes, their leader, became the first Dorian king, and the founder of a dynasty, which, continuing through 12 generations, according to tradition, ruled upward of 300 years. During this period Cor- inth, though thus ruled by Dorian kings, and regarded as a Dorian city, did not by any means conform to all the severe institutions of the Dorians; the commercial connections and importance of the city, the luxury and wealth which a vast foreign trade introduced, exerted a powerful influence upon the for- tunes of the state. About 747 B. C. the pow- erful Dorian family known as the Bacchiadaa succeeded in abolishing royalty, and in electing one of their own number as annual prytanis, or president. Thus was established an oligarchy which lasted till about 657, when it was over- thrown by Cypselus. Under the Bacchiads Cor- inth was already distinguished for commercial enterprise, wealth, and power ; and at this time Syracuse and Corcyra were colonized by the Corinthians. It was probably under them also that the first navy of triremes, or war galleys, was launched upon the Grecian waters* Thu- cydides expressly assures us that the Corinthi- ans were the first of the Greeks to use triremes or galleys with three banks of oars. Cypselus established a new dynasty, which for 74 years ruled Corinth with great energy and skill. The sway of Oypselus was mild and popular ; that of Periander, his son and successor, cruel and oppressive. But both unquestionably did much to advance the prosperity of the state. The numerous colonies planted in their time fully attest the growing strength of the city, which was now the first maritime power of Greece, and the centre through which passed the trade between Europe and Asia. Periander patronized letters and art, and wel- comed to his court the poet Arion and the philosopher Anacharsis. By some he was classed among the seven sages of Greece. Psammetichus, the last of the despots of Cor- inth, was deposed by the Spartans. From