Apollo and the Archaic temple at Corinth

Hesperia, Summer, 2004 by Nancy Bookidis, Ronald S. Stroud

We propose tentatively that the topographic requirements of the story in Plutarch, Aratos 40 are best met by the temenos on Temple Hill. Its central location in the Hellenistic city would have been a suitable venue for the unruly political protest meeting described by Plutarch. Even with its temple and possible subsidiary buildings, the temenos was large enough to have accommodated the crowd in question and to enable some of them to have found seating. It is spacious enough for Aratos to have led his horse into the sanctuary, rather than leave it outside, and for him to have withdrawn slowly enough to create the impression that he was about to hand over his mount to someone else. Its location on the old Classical road that exited the northwest corner of the later Roman forum also gave it close access to a nearby route to Acrocorinth, for by proceeding to the south from this corner one passed along the road that skirted the west end of the South Stoa and led directly up to the citadel. In the opposite direction, that is, the north, along this same road could have come some of the Corinthians with whom Plutarch says Aratos calmly conversed, urging them to proceed to the Apollonion.

The absence of gates into the existing temenos presents a possible difficulty with this proposed identification. One ancient approach, revealed by excavation, was by means of a broad, stone stairway at the southeast corner of Temple Hill. It is unlikely that this would have been the only way into the sanctuary, however, since building blocks (including the enormous monolithic columns of the Archaic temple), statues, and dedications would have to have been hauled up this steep ascent. While it appears that ancient buildings and the vertical cutting away of Temple Hill made access difficult on the east and north sides, the situation may have been different on the west side, where the slope is gentler. Extensive quarrying in Byzantine times has removed all evidence of earlier levels here, but topographically a main entrance into the temenos on Temple Hill in antiquity on this side makes the most sense. Large objects could have been moved most easily into the sanctuary from the west and hypothetical gates there would have given ready access to the road to Sikyon mentioned by Pausanias (2.3.6), which, as noted above, also leads south to Acrocorinth. It is important to remember that, according to Plutarch, Aratos did not immediately ride off to Sikyon after he left the Apollonion. He walked toward Acrocorinth and not until he had approached the heights and given orders to the commander of the fortress did he jump on his horse and flee.

This identification must remain hypothetical, but we are persuaded by Odelberg's association of the Apollonion in this story with the site of the temple treasury of Apollo implied in Herodotos 3.52 and the temple and bronze statue of Apollo seen by Pausanias (2.3.6) outside the northwest corner of the Roman forum on the road to Sikyon. (22)

We next examine a fourth passage from literature that may be helpful, one that has seldom played a role in studies of Corinthian topography. Among the epigrams attributed to Simonides in the Greek Anthology 6.212 is the following: