Apollo and the Archaic temple at Corinth

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

Another find from this part of Corinth that might be relevant is the fluted poros shaft of the Archaic period inscribed with the name of the dedicator, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.][---]. It was found just to the east of Temple Hill, in a late context. If Williams is correct in interpreting this small column as part of a support for a tripod, (35) similar to those dedicated to Apollo at Ptoon, its association with a sanctuary of Apollo on Temple Hill would not be out of the question. Williams prefers, however, to connect it with other tripod bases from the Sacred Spring.

We do not believe that the dedication to Apollo Kynneios, once copied by Pouqueville at the Teneatic Gate of Corinth and now lost, can be linked with Apollo on Temple Hill. (36) The reading of Apollo's name on a fragmentary revetment slab, Corinth VIII.3, no. 372, line 2, also seems very uncertain, despite the fact that the stone was found between the Fountain of Glauke and the Odeion.

Finally, we note the often published and much discussed Latin inscription on an Ionic architrave block that mentions a temple and a statue of Apollo Augustus and 10 tabernae (decem tabernas). (37) George Wheler saw the block reused in a Turk's house located on the right side of the road on the way to Sikyon, "a little way out of the Town [Corinth]"; he copied the text in 1676 and published the editio princeps in 1682. (38) Both Wheler and Leake (1846) tried to connect this inscription with the remains of a large Doric temple near the edge of the plateau that carries the north city wall, which they thought was the Apollo temple referred to by Pausanias in 2.3.6. (39)

In the American School excavations of 1896, Richardson reported the "reexcavation" of this architrave in trench Vb, more than 100 m east of Temple Hill. (40) Without reference to Wheler's editio princeps or to Leake's report of 1846, he tried to identify some of the walls uncovered in the trench with the decem tabernas of the inscription. But clearly, arguments based on the secondary or tertiary findspot of this inscription in trench Vb are without value for locating and identifying the monuments named in it. We follow Leake in believing that the architrave is too small to have formed part of a temple, including the one on Temple Hill. The inscription is evidence for the existence of a shrine and statue of Apollo Augustus and an accompanying market or dining complex of rooms, but since these structures could have been almost anywhere in Corinth, we see no convincing reason to associate them with the Doric temple on Temple Hill.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

We now turn to evidence from the architectural form of the existing Archaic temple and its successors on Temple Hill. As is well known, Dorpfeld's excavation in 1886 revealed that the interior ground plan of the Archaic temple included a room facing east and, behind it, divided by a wall, another, smaller chamber. Although the Athenian Parthenon, which was dedicated to a single deity, shares a similar ground plan, with its self-contained western chamber possibly having served as a treasury, some scholars have argued in favor of a joint dedication of the Archaic temple in Corinth, imagining a different deity in each of the two chambers. They have found support for this theory in the existence of four blocks resting on bedrock, below floor level, under the smaller western chamber. Dorpfeld interpreted these blocks as belonging to the base of a cult statue. (41) We note that no trace of a similar base survived in the eastern chamber. Only two of these blocks remained in situ in 1899 when the excavators of the American School completely laid bare the foundations and the rock-cut beddings for the walls of the temple. On the basis of Dorpfeld's original plan and the adjacent rock cuttings, however, the American excavators reconstructed a base ca. 2.75 x 2.00 m, consisting originally of six blocks. (42)