Ancient crossroads of Greece — St Paul's letters and the Canal
Ancient Corinth was one of the most powerful and wealthy cities of the ancient world — positioned on the narrow isthmus between mainland Greece and the Peloponnese, it controlled trade routes between the Adriatic and Aegean and grew rich on merchants' dues. Today the archaeological site contains the remains of seven Doric columns from the Temple of Apollo (550 BCE), the Bema where St Paul was tried, a remarkable Roman agora, and the Acrocorinth — a towering rock fortress above the plain with views across to Athens on clear days. The 19th-century Corinth Canal, cut through the isthmus, is a dr…
Corinth was described by Thucydides as the commercial centre of Greece. It was sacked and razed by the Roman general Lucius Mummius in 146 BCE (the city's treasures shipped to Rome) and refounded as a Roman colony by Julius Caesar in 44 BCE. St Paul preached here for 18 months around 50 CE and addressed two of his New Testament letters to the Corinthians. The city was destroyed by earthquake in 375 CE. The modern town was built after another earthquake destroyed the previous settlement in 1858; the ancient site 5km away is entirely separate.