Isthmus of Corinth

“ I will take, then, a milder case (more instructive in its way than much pathology) which has for us this twofold value, that it is full of human and pathetic interest, and at the same time reflects, all the more if there are legendary elements in it, the popular imagination of the tyrant’s mood. It is the tragedy of Periandros, lord of Corinth. Hear Sosikles the Corinthian in Herodotus. ”

“ It reminds us in many ways of the Socratic 'Elenchus' as displayed in the Platonic dialogues.↑ Corinth was the most corrupt as well as the most commercial of Greek cities, and held a number of great courtesans, indeed some of the most celebrated, e.g. Laïs, Cyrené, Sinopé, practised their profession there; they, however, set a very high value on their favours, and hence the saying, "Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum"—"it is not for every man to go to Corinth."↑ This was the mild punishment inflicted upon the adulterer by Athenian custom. ”

“ Aquila and Priscilla were also tent-makers and part of the time they all worked at this trade to get money to live by. Then they gave all the rest of their time to the main business for which Paul had come to Corinth. It was a very happy group of workers for they all loved and enjoyed each other and they all 127loved and enjoyed their work. As Corinth was a great city close to the sea, people from all countries in the world came there. There were men of many colours and men of many languages. They had not learned how to live good and beautiful lives. ”

“ You must not think that you are burdening a poor man—that is all. I can introduce you to everybody that is worth knowing in Corinth, and, if you have any business on hand, shall doubtless be able to help you. And it will be a pleasure, I assure you, to have a companion who is not wearied with an old man's complaints of the new times."
Cleanor thankfully accepted the invitation. When the Nereid reached the port of Corinth he found that the Syracusan's arrival had been expected. ”

“ A CORINTHIAN NOBLEMAN BEING SOLD AS A SLAVE IN THE MARKET-PLACE.
Cleanor recognized among the victims several whose acquaintance he had made during his brief sojourn in Corinth during the previous year. The contrast between their present degradation and the almost insolent pride of their prosperous days touched him to the heart. The emotion of Polybius was even more profound. Some of these men were lifelong friends. He had sat by their side at the council; he had been a guest at their hospitable tables. Some of them bore names associated with the greatest glories of Greece. ”

“ Then he commanded his army to march back to the city of Antium.
[Illustration]
Rome was saved; but Coriolanus could never return to his home, his mother, his wife and children. He was lost to them.
SAVED BY A DOLPHIN In the city of Corinth [Footnote: Cor'inth.] there once lived a wonderful musician whose name was Arion. [Footnote: A r_i_'on.] No other person could play on the lyre or sing so sweetly as he; and the songs which he composed were famous in many lands.
The king of Corinth was his friend. The people of Corinth never grew tired of praising his sweet music. ”

“ But Polybius and his companion were so impatient to reach their destination that the time seemed to hang heavily on their hands. Disturbing rumours, too, were current about the policy which Rome was likely to pursue at Corinth. That the city would speedily [324] be captured was considered certain, and there were ominous conjectures as to its probable fate. One day the friends had accepted an invitation to dinner from Diagoras, the Athenian governor of the island, and Corinth was naturally the principal subject of conversation. What Diagoras had to say was alarming in the extreme. ”

“ Or what intelligence thou bring’st with thee?
COR. SH. Good tidings for thy house and husband, queen.
JO. What are they? Who hath sent thee to our hall?
COR. SH. From Corinth come I, and will quickly tell
What sure will please you; though perchance ’twill grieve.
JO. What news can move us thus two ways at once?
COR. SH. ’Twas rumoured that the people of the land
Of Corinth would make Oedipus their king.
JO. Is ancient Polybus not still in power?
COR. SH. No. Death confines him in a kingly grave. ”

“ No great man of letters ever came out of Corinth, no poet and no orator; but Corinthian bronze was famous, and the city was full of works of art. When Mummius sacked Corinth and left it desolate, he made his famous bargain with the contractors who removed the spoil: if they damaged any of the works of art, they were to replace them with others as good. ”

“ Thus the elder Lais, Gnathæna, and Phryne were celebrated for their incredible demands. There is a story that the orator Demosthenes made a trip to Corinth and paid ten thousand drachmæ for a single evening with the younger Lais. As has been intimated, Corinth possessed the most voluptuous, Athens the most highly cultivated hetæræ. The excessive charges of "the Corinthian maiden" gave occasion for the proverb: "Not every man can journey to Corinth." ”

“ FROM THE REBUILDING OF THE LONG WALLS OF ATHENS TO THE PEACE OF ANTALKIDAS.
Large plans of Konon — organization of a mercenary force at Corinth. — Naval conflicts of the Corinthians and Lacedæmonians, in the Corinthian Gulf. — Land-warfare — the Lacedæmonians established at Sikyon — the anti-Spartan allies occupying the lines of Corinth from sea to sea. — Sufferings of the Corinthians from the war being carried on in their territory. Many Corinthian proprietors become averse to the war. — Growth and manifestation of the philo-Laconian party in Corinth. ”

“ V Everybody had heard of Periander, king of Corinth. Some had heard of his great learning, and others had heard of his selfishness and cruelty.
Strangers admired him for his wisdom. His own people despised him for his wickedness.
When he heard that some men had come to Corinth with a very costly golden tripod, he had them brought before him.
"I have heard all about that tripod," he said, "and I know why you are carrying it from one place to another. Do you expect to find any man in Corinth who deserves so rich a gift?"
"We hope that you are the man," said the messengers. ”

“ When Corinthus died childless, the Corinthians sent to Colchis for Medea, in accordance with the entail made [Pg 175] by Aietes (as "Eumelus" has told us in verse) , when he left Ephyre for Colchis. [16] Nothing can be less Homeric.
The "Eumelus" of whom we have reports wrote pseudo-history in verse, for he has to make Medea survive Aietes, Bounos, Epopeus, Marathon, and Corinthus, and then, in the prime of beauty, succeed to the realm of Corinthus as Queen of Corinth. Leaving Corinth for Athens under a cloud, Medea gives Corinth to Sisyphus. ”

“ Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism—as different as all these movements may be, they have one thing in common: the fear of the object. Flatteringly or with vehemence, the motif is removed. The opposing tendency does not make Corinth a narrator of things which are to be looked at. Rather, the object is naturalized. A crucifixion of Corinth's is no picture puzzle; but so very much a crucifixion that the observer can feel a shudder. At times the observer is crucified also. ”

“ From this situation, it is no wonder that Corinth should be a place of great trade and wealth; and, as affluence is apt to produce luxury of all kinds, neither is it to be wondered at if a place so famous for wealth and arts should be infamous for vice. It was in a particular manner noted for fornication, insomuch that a Corinthian woman was a proverbial phrase for a strumpet, and korinthiazein, korinthiasesthai—to play the Corinthian, is to play the whore, or indulge whorish inclinations. ”

“ As no church could be organized at the house of Cornelius at that time, these ordinances had to be postponed. In truth, their introduction and observance must always be guarded with care, lest they be abused and perverted, as they were at Corinth some years later. But of this we are sure: "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted of a man according to that which he hath, and not according to that which he hath not."
I cannot close without a few reflections on what has been said. When Cornelius was told what to do, he did not hesitate a moment. Forthwith he sent for Peter. ”

“ Beneath the clumsiness of the calibre there is greatness. He cannot choose, but this weakness goes with a victorious power. More important considerations than those of taste are met with surprising accuracy, so that the lacunae in the customary requirements are less noticeable. Corinth takes objects which otherwise exist only in name, religious stuffs, ancient legends, episodes from history. ”

“ Corinth itself, a city sanctified by its antiquity, by its gods, by its arts, by the beauty of its women, by its fountains, its cypresses, its very ruins themselves, whence its unrivalled situation had always restored it, fell anew, buried in its flames, by the hands of Tourakhan, that ancient and ambitious vizier of Amurath. Its flames were seen from Athens, from Ægina, from Lepanto, from Cytheron, from Pindus. The inhabitants, as also those of Patras, were led into slavery in Asia, to the number of 60,000. ”

“ Frank L. Goodspeed, Ph.D., of Springfield, Mass., and used by his kind permission.
"By virtue of her situation on 'the bridge of the seas,' Corinth became the common resort and the universal market of the Greeks. Her population and wealth were further augmented by the manufactures in metallurgy, dyeing, and porcelain, which grew up in connection with her commerce. The wealth, luxury, and profligacy of Corinth were proverbial in the ancient world."
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But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul gave attention to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. ”

“ The Roman commissioner immediately on receiving this news sent the desired permission to Polybius, and the two friends, who had everything in readiness for their journey, started at once. Travelling all night they reached Corinth, which was not more than thirty miles from Athens, shortly after dawn. The city presented a most lamentable ap [333] pearance. The great market-place, and all the other squares and open spaces, were thronged with a helpless and miserable crowd of men, women, and children, of all ages and all ranks, doomed to the cruellest lot that humanity can endure. ”

“ What is to be got rid of is not this or that defect or vice, but 'all filthiness of flesh and spirit.' The former, of course, refers primarily to sins of impurity which in the eyes of the Greeks of Corinth were scarcely sins at all, and the latter to a state of mind when fancy, imagination, and memory were enlisted in the service of evil. Both are rampant in our day as they were in Corinth. Much modern literature and the new gospel of 'Art for Art's sake' minister to both, and every man carries in himself inclinations to either. ”

“ THE LAST OF THE GREEKS. MOST of Cleanor's fellow-passengers on board the Nereid—for this was the name of the singularly un-nymphlike trading vessel that carried him to Corinth—were a curious medley of races and occupations. Corinth was the mart of the western world, and was frequented, for business or for pleasure, by all its races. There were soothsayers from Egypt, who found their customers all the more credulous because they boasted that they believed in nothing; Syrian conjurors; Hebrew slave-dealers; a mixed troop of commercial travellers ”

“ HOW I CAME TO CORINTH AND SAW THE TOMB OF EUCHARIS.
At Corinth I found no man to employ me as transcriber. But because of the number of rich people in that city (some living there but many more resorting thither for pleasure) and many spending their whole lives in continual revelling, there was a great demand for such buffoons, and mimes, and inferior actors, as attend at great men’s feasts to make them merry ”

“ A philosopher who was continually exercising his intellect on such investigations as these, being entrusted, as Hermippus relates, with the citadel of Corinth by Antigonus, got drunk and lost even Corinth itself, being outwitted and defeated by Aratus the Sicyonian; who formerly had argued in his Dialogues against Zeno the philosopher, contending that a wise man would in every respect be a good general ”

“ From Athens Paul proceeded to Corinth, the commercial metropolis of Greece, and a city renowned for its wealth, its luxury, and its wickedness. Corinth was about sixty miles from Athens, in a direction very nearly west. Two of the exiled Jews, Aquila and his wife Priscilla, whom a decree of the Emperor Claudius had expelled from Rome, had taken refuge in Corinth. They cordially received Paul, and he abode with them. They were tent-makers by occupation; making tents, then in great demand, of cloth woven from goat’s-hair. ”

“ Corund is a man undaunted in war, but the man is too superstitious and quaketh at that which hath not flesh and blood. Apparitions and urchin-shows can quite unman him. There's Corinius, careth not for God or man a point. ”

“ It was because of these circumstances that Paul prolonged his stay in Corinth.
4. PERSONAL WORK IN CORINTH Jesus and Ganid had many more interesting experiences in Corinth. They had close converse with a great number of persons who greatly profited by the instruction received from Jesus.
The miller he taught about grinding up the grains of truth in the mill of living experience so as to render the difficult things of divine life readily receivable by even the weak and feeble among one's fellow mortals. Said Jesus: "Give the milk of truth to those who are babes in spiritual perception. ”