The City of Corinth and Urbanism in Late Antique Greece by Amelia Robertson Brown B.A. (Princeton University) 1999 M.A. (University of California, Berkeley) 2002 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Susanna Elm, Chair Professor Ronald S. Stroud Professor Christopher H. Hallett Professor Maria Mavroudi Fall 2008 Abstract The City of Corinth and Urbanism in Late Antique Greece by Amelia Robertson Brown Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology University of California, Berkeley Professor Susanna Elm, Chair This dissertation is a history of the city of Corinth in Late Antiquity, an examination of urban life between the third and sixth centuries after Christ. Published histories chart earlier periods of Corinthian civic life, but few extend into Late Antiquity, though Corinth was then still central to political, economic and cultural life in the Roman province of Achaia, modern southern Greece. Beyond this regional importance, Corinth forms an important benchmark for other Mediterranean cities in its mix of Ancient Greek, imperial Roman and developing Christian institutions. Many relevant Ancient authors have only recently been analyzed by archaeologists, however, while published material culture is organized separately from history in most archaeological field reports. This evidence has varying utility for the writer of history, and the genre and biases of Ancient authors, the conditions of the early excavations at Corinth, and recent academic work on Late Antique Greece all receive mention. Beyond an organized account of urban life in the Agora, city and countryside of Late Antique Corinth, this dissertation also asks why such life was changing so dramatically in Late Antiquity, and explores some of the factors responsible. In Achaia, as elsewhere in the Later Roman Empire, political, economic and cultural conditions were undergoing significant change, resulting in new leaders at Corinth, new products for sale, old buildings abandoned or reused, and a new religion with its own new buildings. Some of these changes happened abruptly in the fifth century, but most were gradual, and emerged from institutions which existed in the third century. Finally, many elements essential to urban life such as local leaders, roads, water supplies and a capacity to recover after disasters are still present in Late Antiquity, and confirm that Corinth was a city throughout that era. 2 Table of Contents I. Introduction 7 II. Sources for Late Antique Corinth 10 III. Corinthian Administration, Infrastructure, Challenge 57 IV. The Agora and Central Area of Late Antique Corinth 99 V. The City: Center, North, East, South, Acrocorinth 142 VI. The Corinthia 168 VII. Conclusions 182 VIIIA. Figures 186 VIIIB. Bibliography 198 3 Table of Figures 1. The Corinthia and Northeastern Peloponnese, ca. 2008. 186 2. The Corinthia. 186 3. Corinth and Lechaion, in Late Antiquity. 187 4. The Agora, Central Area and Panagia Field, ca. 2nd-4th c. 188 5. The Agora and Central Area, ca. 3rd-4th c. 189 6. The Agora and Central Area, ca. 5th-6th c. 190 7. The Panagia Field, 3rd-4th c. 191 8. The Panagia Field, 5th-7th c. 191 9. Christian Basilicas excavated at Corinth. 192 10. Isthmia in Late Antiquity. 192 11. Cenchreae in Late Antiquity. 193 12. Acrocorinth and the Corinthia, looking west from Perdikaria. 194 13. Acrocorinth, looking south from Ancient Corinth. 194 14. The Gulf of Corinth, Perachora and Boeotia, looking north from the top of the Theater, Ancient Corinth. 195 15. The Agora, looking southwest from the site of the Propylaia, Ancient Corinth. 195 16. The Lechaion Road, looking north from the Agora and the site of the Propylaia, Ancient Corinth. 196 17 Ancient Corinth, from the south in the early 19th c. 196 18 The Main Square (Plateia) of Ancient Corinth in the early 19th c. 197 4 Preface For Greek words in this dissertation I use mainly familiar Latinized or Anglicized forms, with occasional direct transliteration of Greek; the latter is internally consistent except for the transliteration of eta (i/e), ypsilon (y/u/v) and beta (b/v). I have mainly used AJA or OCD abbreviations, with the following additions: Corinth NB = Corinth Excavation Notebook I- = Corinth Inscription S- = Corinth Sculpture A- = Corinth Architecture Acknowledgements I wish to thank several people and natural forces who supported my work on this dissertation, especially and first of all my husband Graham. My advisors at Berkeley have all been great sources of wisdom and encouragement, and I thank them warmly as well, along with all my other incredible professors, colleagues and staff in AHMA. I also express my deep appreciation to the scholars, staff and students at Corinth, particularly the Director, Guy D.R. Sanders, and the Curator, Ioulia Tzonou-Herbst. My family were always behind me and excited to discuss my work, and I thank them too. Academically I would never be where I am today without the mentoring and inspiration of Mrs. Bloomberg and Mrs. Siemon at Dana Hall School, who taught me about mythology, Latin, Greek, Alcibiades, Cyrus and Ancient History; Professors Kolbaba, Curcic and Gondicas at Princeton University, who welcomed me into Hellenic Studies and introduced me to Byzantium; and President Jackson and Drs. Bakirtzis and Bakirtzis of Thessaloniki. I feel immensely grateful to have learned from such great minds; errors of fact and interpretation in the following work are, of course, my own. Lastly special thanks must be extended, as always, to Helena, without whom this would not be possible. 5 For Graham, Jimmy and the Captain. 6 I. Introduction The city of Corinth provides a unique opportunity to investigate the urban life of a Roman provincial capital of Greece in Late Antiquity, and draw new conclusions on the wider implications of that urban life for Greek history during the eventful third to sixth centuries after Christ.1 Although a few modern works of history consider Roman Corinth, none extends very deeply into Late Antiquity.2 However the textual and archaeological sources exist for writing the history of the city in that era, and current scholarship provides important parallels and provocative theories for interpreting that history. Corinth was throughout Late Antiquity central to civic, commercial and cultural activities in her territory of the Corinthia, in the Peloponnese and in the entire Roman province of Achaia, modern southern Greece. The city forms an important benchmark for other cities of Roman Achaia in its shifting mix of ancient Greek, imperial Roman and developing Christian institutions, illuminated by uniquely extensive modern excavation. Outside of Corinth, many cities of southern Greece still fail to attract much interest even in their Roman phases, and Greece as a whole often slips through the gap in scholarship between Late Antiquity in West and East. Thus besides filling in a gap on scholarship about Corinth, this dissertation also makes an important contribution to the study of Greek cities under the Later Roman Empire. In Late Antiquity Corinth was always a city, a community of people living in close proximity and 1 All dates are after Christ unless otherwise noted. Late Antiquity is, for the purposes of this dissertation, contemporary with the era of ancient history variously called Late Roman, Early Christian, Early Byzantine or Early Medieval, extending from the end of the Severan Dynasty of Roman emperors in 235 through the murder of the usurper emperor Phocas in 610. The subsequent emperor Heraclius founded a new dynasty, adopted the Greek title Basileus, and lost political control over the majority of the Later Roman Empire to the Arabs. These political events along with contemporary changes in material culture signal a decisive shift to the Byzantine Empire, and the Byzantine or Medieval era in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean. 2 There is no surviving Ancient narrative of Greek, Roman or Late Antique Corinth. Modern historical narratives of Roman Corinth may be found in Darrow (1906) through Herodes Atticus, Walbank (1986) through the Antonine Dynasty (death of Commodus, 192), Wiseman (1979) up to the Herulians in 267, and Engels (1990) with a thematic treatment extending patchily into the third and fourth centuries. For Late Antiquity itself there are a number of short historical and archaeological overviews which also include the Middle Ages: Finley 1932; Scranton 1957 (Corinth XVI); Rothaus 2000; Sanders 2002 (EHB), 2003 (Corinth XX), 2004, 2005. 7 maintaining common institutions who identified themselves as Corinthians. But over these centuries they transferred their civic allegiance and office-holding from a local council under an imperial governor to a Christian archbishop under an imperial general. From the third to the sixth centuries, they changed slightly what they bought and where, how they decorated their city, and how they honored their leaders. Then abruptly in the later sixth and early seventh centuries they ceased to do any of these things in the traditional way. Throughout Late Antiquity they continued to patronize public baths and introduced Christian festivals while abandoning centuries-old communal gatherings at the theater, odeum, amphitheater and stadium along with the artistic, athletic and spectacular events once held there. And at the same time, connected to all of these but clearly not the only cause, was the growing practice of Christianity: the abandonment or destruction of age-old and relatively new temples, sanctuaries, cults, festivals and ritual practices of myriad deities, and the emergence of new basilica church buildings and new rituals. I do not aim to untangle all these elements from one another in the work that follows, only as far as possible to indicate what happened in one city in Late Antiquity, and contribute to the wider discussion of these issues as they relate to Greece and the end of Antiquity in the eastern Mediterranean. In Chapter II, the relevant primary sources for the history of Late Antique Corinth are discussed: geographic, literary, archaeological and epigraphic. Alongside certain constants of topography, geology and climate, there is quite a wide range of available textual and archaeological source material. But some relevant Late Antique authors have only recently been edited or closely studied, let alone questioned on their presentation of history by archaeologists. The published material culture is on the whole organized separately in catalogues, with chronology particularly of pottery often subject to revision. Important new studies have occurred since most of the material from the city center of Corinth was first excavated and published in the early twentieth century. Excavations are also ongoing at the site, and important discoveries from Late Antiquity have been made in the last decade. All this available evidence has varying utility for the writer of history, and the genre and biases of ancient authors, the conditions of the early excavations, and recent academic work on Late Antique Greece all receive mention. In conclusion selected studies of other Late 8 Antique urban areas offer helpful methodologies and comparative material for the organization of this work. Chapter III then forms a history of Late Antique Corinthian civic administration, infrastructure and external challenges, based on a combination of textual and archaeological evidence. Part A treats imperial and local administration, Part B the Christian hierarchy which gradually grew up alongside this traditional administration and then to a certain extent absorbed it. Part C examines the important continuities in civic infrastructure constructed and maintained by these authorities: networks of public and private property, roads, water systems and fortifications. Part D covers the main external human challenges to the city in Late Antiquity, the barbarian invasions and the imperial response to them. Part E concludes by placing the main natural challenges of earthquakes and plague alongside these. Finally Chapters IV-VI tour Corinth’s Agora and city center, periphery, and wider territory as they changed in Late Antiquity. I examine each area throughout the centuries, and draw conclusions on the meaning and importance of those changes. Beyond this organized account of urban life in Late Antique Corinth, this dissertation continually asks why that life was changing so dramatically between the third and sixth centuries, and explores some of the factors responsible. For while awareness of a civic identity as Corinthians doubtless remained, by the early seventh century the components and birth-rights of that identity were significantly changed. 9 II. Sources for Late Antique Corinth The sources for the history of the city of Corinth in Late Antiquity fall into three broad categories. The first body of evidence is inherent in the landscape itself, and encompasses the topography, geology, climate and natural features of the Corinthia. The second set of sources embraces all those texts relevant to Corinth in Late Antiquity: the works of Ancient and Late Antique authors, relevant later Byzantine, Ottoman and Early Modern accounts, and inscriptions. Finally, there are the material remains under excavation since the end of the nineteenth century, and the evolving corpus of modern archaeological and historical scholarship based at least in part upon them. Each of these categories of evidence is fragmentary and partial, yet each also has its own insights to offer for writing the history of the city in Late Antiquity. A. Corinthian Landscapes Geographers, generals, poets and historians alike have long admired the unique situation of the city of Corinth, commanding two seas and two landmasses from the shelter of rocky Acrocorinth (Figs. 1-3, 12-14, 17).3 But basic topography only scratches the surface of the natural features of geology and climate relevant for following the course of Late Antique history there. Stones and sediments, springs and earthquakes, rainfall, flora and fauna: these also shape the possibilities and limitations of life on the Isthmus today as in millennia past. The Corinthia, the territory of the city of Corinth, occupies the northeastern corner of the Peloponnesian peninsula of present-day Greece.4 Here the narrow Isthmus 3 Topography of Corinth: Thucyd. 1.13.2-6; Strabo 8.6.20-22 (378-380); Paus. 2.1-5; Miliarakis 1886; Fowler and Stillwell 1932 (Corinth I), 18-114; Sakellariou and Faraklas 1971; Wiseman 1978; Kordoses 1981. On the significance of landscape for Ancient History: Avraméa (1997, 41- 50) on earthquakes and erosion in the Byzantine Peloponnese, based on Zangger (1996) for the Argolid; also Rackham and Moody 1996 (Crete); Rackham 1983 (Boeotia); Cary 1949 (Greece). 4 The Corinthia has been a political and administrative entity as well as a geographic one since Antiquity, always including the Isthmus but varying in its exact borders in the mountains to north and south. Greek City-state: O’Neill 1930, 1-58; Will 1955; Salmon 1984. Roman Corinth, Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis, briefly under the Flavians C. Iulia Flavia Augusta C.: Earle Fox 1903; Darrow 1906; Broneer 1941; Wiseman 1979; Walbank 1986, 1997; Engels 1990; Romano 2000, 2003. Byzantine Corinth: Avraméa and Kyrkou 1988; Sanders 2002 (EHB). Ottoman Korintos or Kordos: Beldiceanu and Beldiceanu-Steinherr 1986; MacKay 1968. Modern Greek nomos of the Corinthia: Miliarakis 1886; Kordoses 1981. 10