Approaching Κόρινθος

Ancient Corinth [(Greek: Κόρινθος, Kórinthos;] was first inhabited in the Neolithic period (5000-3000 B.C.). The peak period of the town, though, started in the 8th century B.C. and lasted until its destruction by the Roman general Mummius in 146 B.C. Representative of its wealth is the Doric temple of Apollo, which was built in 550 B.C.The city was re-inhabited in 44 B.C. and gradually developed again. In 51/52 A.D., Apostle Paul visited Corinth. The center of the Roman city was organized to the south of the temple of Apollo and included shops, small shrines, fountains, baths and other public buildings. When Paul arrived in 51 CE, the Corinth he saw was little more than 100 years old, but was five times as large as Athens and the capital of the province. The city was young, dynamic, not hidebound by tradition, a mix of dislocated individuals without strong ethnic identities seeking to shed their former low status by achieving social honor and material success. Paul was not intimidated by a big, bustling, cosmopolitan hub city, with no dominant religious or intellectual tradition, for Corinth shared many characteristics with Tarsus, his home town, and Syrian Antioch, his home church city. The heart of the city, the forum, was filled with temples and shrines to the emperor and various members of his family, built alongside temples to the older Greek gods such as Apollo. Apollo's son, Asklepios, the god of healing, had a shrine there as well as at Epidaurus, the ancient site of miracle healings, about 50 miles southeast. All that remains visible in Corinth today of the religio-political structure Paul confronted are a few columns of the temple of Apollo. Beginning in 582 BC, in the spring of every second year the Isthmian Games were celebrated in honor of the sea god Poseidon. The Doric Temple of Apollo, one of Corinth's major landmarks, was constructed in 550 BC at the height of the city's wealth. Paul lived in Corinth for 18 months (Acts 18:1-18), working as a tentmaker and converting as many Jews and pagans as he could. Here he first became acquainted with Aquila and Priscilla, who became his fellow-workers.