Templum Apollinis Corinthi

About

Archaic Doric temple built c. 560 BCE, one of the oldest stone temples in mainland Greece; seven of its original 38 monolithic limestone columns still stand. It survived the Roman sack of Corinth under Mummius in 146 BCE and remained a landmark when Julius Caesar refounded the city as Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis in 44 BCE, still dominating the Roman forum in 117 CE. Pausanias (writing mid-2nd century CE, i.e. shortly after this snapshot) describes it standing over the marketplace.

What happened here

The building itself is a house for the god, and most people never go inside. Everything public happens on the steps and at the altar in front: an animal led up, examined, killed cleanly, its organs read, the meat divided and eaten. The priest covers his head and a flute player keeps up a noise so no ill-omened word is heard. Worshippers leave what they can afford — a terracotta figure, a coin, a model of the body part they want healed — and the accumulated clutter is periodically cleared and buried on site. On festival days the doors are opened and the cult statue is dressed, garlanded, and sometimes carried out through the streets. The temple also holds money, which is why towns keep their treasury in one.

In ancient writing

• Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.3.6

  Passed on the way up from the market place: a temple of Apollo with a bronze statue of the god in front of it.

Sources

• Pausanias Description of Greece 2.3.6
• https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/570500582/imagery-location