Corinth, a city of Greece, celebrated in antiquity, situated on the rocky isthmus of Corinth ( miles wide, and 262 feet high), which connects the Peloponnesus with the mainland. The city lay under the northern declivity of the mountain (1886 feet high, and forming one of the strongest natural fortifications in the world) on which stood its citadel (Acrocorinthus), and had three harbours, Lechæum, to the west, on the Gulf of Corinth; Cenchreæ and Schœnus, to the east, on the Saronic Gulf. Its position, midway between the Ægean and Adriatic Seas, was exceptionally advantageous for trade. It was as easy to transport goods across the narrow isthmus—called by Pindar 'the bridge of the untiring sea'—as it was difficult to round the Peloponnesus. In its western harbour lay the ships of Italy, Sicily, and Spain; and to Cenchreæ came Egyptian papyrus, Libyan ivory, Syrian perfumes, Phœnician dates, Eubœan fruits, and Phrygian slaves. The exports of Corinthian manufacture were chiefly productions of art, such as statues, pictures, vases, pillars, and vessels of metal and earthenware. Syracuse, Molyeria, Sollum in Acarnania, Ambracia, Anactorium, Leucas, Corcyra, Epidamnus, Apollonia, and Potidæa were among the colonies of Corinth. At its most flourishing period it is said to have had a population of 300,000, with more than half a million slaves employed in the fleet and in the colonies in the Mediterranean. It was at Corinth that the first triremes were built, and the first naval battle of the Greeks was fought between the fleets of Corinth and its colony Corcyra (see CORFU).
According to legend, the city of Corinth (anciently called Ephyre) was founded about 1350 B.C. by the Æolian Sisyphus, whose descendants ruled the country round till conquered by the Dorians under the Heraclid Aletes in 1074. Monarchy was abolished in 748, and an oligarchy of 200 families lasted till 657, when it was overthrown by Cypselus. He and his son Periander (629–585) greatly extended the city's industry and trade. In 582 the old Dorian constitution was restored. Corinth, which had formerly been the ally of Athens, after the Persian wars became jealous of the increasing power and commerce of the Athenians, and joined the league of the Dorian states. It waged an unsuccessful war on Athens in 458, and incited the Peloponnesians to begin (431) the Peloponnesian war (see GREECE). In 395, at the instigation of Persia, it entered into an alliance with Thebes, Athens, and Argos against Sparta, and the 'Corinthian War' began, which ended with the Peace of Antalcidas (387), dividing the supremacy of Greece between Persia and Sparta. Timophanes made himself master of Corinth in 366, but was overthrown and murdered by his patriotic brother Timoleon. The assemblies of the Greeks that appointed Philip and Alexander of Macedon the leaders against Persia, were held at Corinth in 338 and 336. Under the Macedonian supremacy it was occupied by a strong garrison. After the expulsion of the Macedonians it joined the Achæan league (243), of which it formed part down to 146 B.C., when it was utterly destroyed by the Romans under Munnimus. Exactly a century afterwards Corinth was rebuilt by Julius Cæsar, new-named Colonia Julia Corinthus, and peopled with veterans and the descendants of freedmen; and under Augustus and his successors it quickly became once more 'the citadel and star of Greece.' It reached almost its old importance as a trading and manufacturing town, and centred in itself the traffic that had formerly belonged to Athens and Delos. About sixty or seventy years before its completion by Hadrian, it was visited by St Paul, who, during a sojourn of a year and a half, planted a Christian church in Corinth, to which he addressed two of his epistles. The city was (from 27 A.D.) the seat of the pro-consul of the Roman province of Achaia, and the restoration of the Isthmian Games brought to it multitudes of Greeks from all parts of the Roman empire.
The Corinthians were devoted to the worship of the deities of love and of the sea. Aphrodite's temple was the oldest and the holiest in Greece. In her rites at Corinth, Phœnician influence is distinctly traceable. According to Strabo, in the most flourishing period of the city more than 1000 hierodouloi were kept there—'a source of much danger to strangers as of lustre and credit to the service of the goddess.' It was at Corinth, where unbridled licentiousness received such religious consecration, that the Apostle Paul wrote his description of heathen corruption in the Epistle to the Romans. Nowhere in the Hellenic world was licentiousness so prevalent. 'The vices of the Greeks were notorious in the Roman empire, the Corinthian vices even in Greece.' With all the artistic skill and culture of the Corinthians, and the lavish expense at which they adorned their wealthy city, they showed but little creative power in art, and 'among the illustrious writers of Greece, not a single Corinthian appears.' Yet Corinth produced the painters Ardices, Cleophantus, and Cleanthes; the statesmen Periander, Phidon, Philolaus, and Timoleon; Arion, the inventor of the dithyramb; and was the abode in his later life of the cynic philosopher, Diogenes.
Corinth was spoiled by Gothic hordes at the end of the 3d century, by Alaric in 396, and by the Slavs in the 8th century. In 1205 it was taken by the Franks, and from them it fell back into the hands of the eastern emperors, from whom in 1459 it was wrested by the Turks. It was held by the Venetians from 1699 to 1715, when it was retaken by the Turks, under whom it sank to a miserable village. After being delivered from Turkish domination in 1822, Corinth slowly increased from 1830 till the 21st February 1858, when it was utterly destroyed by an earthquake. The town has since been rebuilt in a more convenient position, 3 miles to the north-east. Its population is now 3000. A mile and a half east-north-east of New Corinth, on the Gulf of Lepanto (anciently Gulf of Corinth), is the western mouth of the canal through the isthmus. Two new towns have been laid out at its east and west mouths, the eastern named Isthmia, the western Posidonia. See CANAL, Vol. II. p. 699.