pettegrew_diolkos and emporium

Working Draft – Do Not Circulate without Permission

“The Diolkos and the Emporium: How a Land Bridge Framed the Commercial Economy of Roman Corinth”

For S. J. Friesen, S. James, and D.N. Showalter (eds.)Corinth in Contrast: Studies in Inequality

© 2011 David K. Pettegrew

I. Introduction

In a gathering devoted to the theme of Corinthian wealth and inequality, it is fitting to

turn our attention to the territory that ancient writers regularly adopted in explaining the

wealth and power of the Greek and Roman city.1 Thucydides was the first to pin Corinthian

wealth on the city’s situation on the Isthmus and its commercial facility (1.13.5). When the

Greeks developed navies, he noted, the Corinthians built a fleet, suppressed piracy, and

provided a trade mart making their city wealthy and powerful. Thucydides’ particular

interpretation that explained Corinthian wealth in terms of its bridge and focal points for

commerce, was accepted, expanded, and repeated by writers of the Greek and Roman eras.2

Corinth ended antiquity as a maritime city associated with an isthmus that fostered commerce,

prosperity, and power.3

In the 18th and 19th century, when Corinth became the subject of historical study,

territory was again drawn up to make sense of the city. Scholars drawing on ancient texts

remarked on two factors in particular that influenced the city’s historical fortunes.4 They noted

first and foremost that the commercial facilities of the isthmus and harbors created markets

that generated revenues in the form of duties on imports and exports, and profits through

trade. And second, they pointed to the commercial flow of ships and cargoes over a trans-

isthmus portage road called the diolkos that created revenues for the city through traffic and

services, transit duties, and transport fees.5 In the one view, a commercial emporium made the 1 I am grateful to the organizers for the invitation to participate in the 2010 conference in San Antonio, and to the others in attendance who raised important questions, comments, and suggestions for improving the paper. 2 E.g., Strabo 8.20; Ael. Arist. Or. 27; Favorinus [Dio Chrys.] 37.8 and 36.3 See, for example, John Chrys. Hom. 1 Corinthians, Preface 1-2; Libanius Decl. 25.2.46.4 Chandler 1776, 240; Dodwell 1819, 191; Lemprière and Anthon 1831, 408; Curtius 1852, 521, 539, 545-546, 596; Curtius 1868, 270-274; Wyse 1865, 326-327.5 In light of conflicting ancient texts, scholars were divided about whether Corinthian territory was fertile or barren and did not regularly point to agriculture or natural resources when explaining the city’s wealth. For an early discussion of this matter, see Blegen 1920, 8-13.

1


Isthmus a market for merchants arriving from east and west; in the other, a portage road called

the diolkos functioned as a shipping lane and made the Isthmus a thoroughfare for maritime

traffic between Italy and Asia. Both of these arguments were already present in one form or

another when the first archaeologists began work in the Corinthia at the turn of the last

century, and both were quickly absorbed into scholarship related to Paul and the Corinthian

epistles.6 Each has reappeared in more recent scholarly discussions of the social and economic

background to the ancient city including St. Paul’s problematic community.7 These arguments

for the diolkos and the emporium have, in short, existed independently of the archaeological

evidence and constantly structured interpretations of the city.

My goal in this paper is to reconsider each of the explanations about the commercial

facility of the Isthmus in light of the extant textual evidence. As I shall argue, the second of

these scenarios (the thoroughfare thesis) has no basis in ancient texts while the first (the

commercial emporium) is well evident in an array of textual evidence. The ancients had little

conception of the Isthmus as an actively used commercial thoroughfare but they did view it

consistently as a commercial destination and market place for the exchange and redistribution

of goods. In the conclusion of this paper, I will offer some thoughts on the implications of an

emporium and marketplace for addressing the economy of Roman Corinth, the social

opportunities, and forms of inequality. The present study aims to show how revisiting the

evidence of classical literature can contribute to new historical pictures of Roman Corinth.8

II. The Diolkos of Corinth and the Trans-Shipment Thesis

At the center of the shipping lane thesis lies the diolkos of Corinth. Scholars today use the term

to refer to the paved limestone portage road that runs 8 kilometers across the narrowest part

6 E.g., Davies 1877, 165-166; Farrar 1879, 555-556; Linton 1881, 3-4.7 See, for example, Wiseman 1979, 438-447; Engels 1990, 59; Hafemann 2000, 22-25; Murphy-O’Connor 2002, 61-62; Horrell and Adams 2004, 1-8.8 It is important to note that this paper reexamines the existing data of literary sources at the expense of archaeological evidence. My lack of attention to archaeological evidence is a deliberate one, made in part for practical reasons (i.e., the lack of space), and in part on principle. Archaeologists working in the Corinthia have frequently constructed interpretations of material culture based on a straightforward and literal reading of the textual evidence, or have simply used the material culture to reinforce views constructed from the texts. In the case of the Isthmus, scholars have largely misunderstood how ancient authors understood the commercial facility of the ancient land bridge.

2


of the isthmus.9 This road, which was partially excavated by Nikolaos Verdelis in the late 1950s,

was made of poros slabs 3.5-6.0 m wide and had deep parallel grooves spaced 1.5 meters apart

suggesting rails for moving heavy loads.10 Verdelis argued that the road was constructed by the

tyrant Periander in the late 7th century BC, subsequently refurbished after the late 5th century

B.C.E., and used repeatedly throughout antiquity.11

Since the investigation of the portage road in the 20th century, archaeologists, historians,

and New Testament scholars have highlighted the place of the diolkos in explanations of the

city’s economy. The view commonly held today is that the isthmus functioned as a

thoroughfare for long-distance commercial traffic that profited the city through transport fees

and transit tolls. Ships arriving in the small harbor of Schoinos at Kalamaki Bay, or at Poseidonia

in the Corinthian Gulf were set on carts and ferried over the bridge where they continued their

journeys to destinations further afield. In another version of the portage thesis, cargoes were

unloaded from ships on one end of the diolkos and carted overland and restacked on sailing

vessels in the opposite gulf. In both variants, the diolkos formed a bridge in long-distance

shipping lanes connecting Italy and Asia that created revenues and wealth for the city. In some

renditions of the argument, merchants could cross the isthmus with ships or cargo within the

span of only a few hours and continue on their way.12

The weakness of this interpretation of the diolkos as a portage road regularly used for

commercial purposes is the paucity of ancient literary passages: eight historical accounts of

military galleys crossing the isthmus, three vague passages that seem to suggest ship carting

occurred generally, and the ancient reputation of the isthmus for facilitating commerce. A

closer examination of these texts, in fact, argues against a major operation of portaging ships or

divisible cargoes, and suggests that trans-isthmus shipping occurred probably for specific

purposes and on a limited scale that had little consequence for generating Corinthian wealth

and inequality.

9 For overviews of the archaeology of the road, see Verdelis 1956-1960; 1966a and 1966b; Raepsaet 1993; and Papafotiou 2007. A recent discussion of the modern debates about the diolkos is available in Pettegrew 2011b.10 Lewis 2001.11 Verdelis’ only English summary of his argument is found in a brief article in 1957 in the Illustrated London News.12 See, for example, Davies 1877, 165-166.

3


Despite the importance of the diolkos for modern scholarship, ancient writers recorded

no historical memory of a physical road across the Isthmus used for portaging ships or cargoes.

The one ancient writer, Pseudo-Skylax, who does refer to a road across the isthmus, does not

connect it to portaging episodes or name it as the “diolkos.”13 The several writers who

reference ship dragging across the land bridge (see below) remember the action, not the road

itself. The only ancient writer to apply the term “diolkos” to the Corinthia (Strabo) applies it to

a land strip—“the narrowest part of the Corinthian Isthmus”—and not a physical road.14

Strangely, then, no ancient author describes a physical road called diolkos. By contrast, two

other trans-isthmus monuments—the Hexamilion wall and Nero’s aborted canal—were

mentioned multiple times in discussions of Corinthian territory. If a fortification wall and canal

had literary fame through the end of antiquity, why was there no comparable memory of the

“largest trackway in ancient times,” as one scholar titled the road?15

Scholars have long recognized the lack of evidence for a portage road or major

operation,16 but typically dismissed the problem as reflecting the character of surviving sources

biased against a mundane economic matter like commercial portaging. There were, after all,

eight recorded episodes of ship dragging between the 5th century BC and the 9th century AD,

which seemed to provide clear evidence for multiple independent uses of the road.17 These

episodes, scholars had argued, represented the most visible instances of a regular undercurrent

of ship portaging that included commercial as well as military vessels. But when read more

carefully, all of the texts detailing specific instances of carting ships across the Corinthian

Isthmus acknowledge or assume that it was an extraordinary tactical maneuver. Transferring

ships was never an ordinary operation but represented a brilliant stratagem that required some

explanation from the narrator.18

13 Pseudo-Skylax, in the late fourth century B.C.E., notes (Periplus 40.4) an ancient roadway across the narrowest part of the isthmus, but he does not name it or associate it with portaging.14 Cf. Strabo 8.2.1, 8.6.4, and 8.6.22.15 W. Werner, “The Largest Ship Trackway in Ancient Times: the Diolkos of the Isthmus of Corinth, Greece, and Early Attempts to Build a Canal,” in International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 26 (1997), 98-119.16 See Fowler 1932, 49-51.17 The episodes occurred in 412 BC, 220 BC, 217 BC, 172 BC, 30 BC, 872 AD, and an unknown date in the Hellenistic era. For full citations and links to texts, see http://corinthianmatters.com/the-diolkos/the-text/ 18 For a fuller consideration of the literary nature of portaging episodes, see Pettegrew 2011a and 2011b.

4

http://corinthianmatters.com/the-diolkos/the-text/


In most cases, the writers explain why portaging occurred. Thucydides, for example,

describes transferring ships as a stealth naval offense that the Peloponnesians launched against

Athens when weakened by war. In the first instance, in 428 BC, the Peloponnesians prepared

the roadway in response to a Mytilinean plea to attack Athens while weak and recovering from

the plague and Spartan raids; the portage apparently never occurred.19 In 412, the

Peloponnesians portaged ships to take advantage of the Athenians severely weakened from the

disastrous Sicilian expedition.20 Polybius’ description of Demetrius of Pharos in 220 likewise

characterizes the transfer of ships for the purpose of aiding the Macedonians and catching the

Aetolians by surprise in the Corinthian Gulf.21 Polybius links Philip V’s transfer of ships in 217

with his reputation for ambitious undertakings and aspirations for world domination.22 Livy

describes the transfer of King Eumenes’ ships in haste after a failed assassination attempt at

Delphi in 172 BC.23 And Cassius Dio has Octavian transfer his ships across the Isthmus because

it was winter and the sea was too choppy to sail around Malea; the sneak move and rapid sail

catch Mark Antony and Cleopatra completely off guard.24 In all of these cases, the historians

represent portaging events as covert, hasty, decisive, and brilliant stratagems carried out in the

context of exceptional military circumstance or emergencies. In none of these accounts does

the general transfer ships simply to get to the other side; rather, commanders who drag their

fleets are effecting strategic maneuvers.

In a similar vein, the textual sources frequently explain how portaging occurred by

noting the complexity, expense, or dangers of the crossing. The Peloponnesians, Thucydides

says (3.15-16), “set to work zealously” on the preparations of the road in 428. Demetrius

transferred over his fleet in 220 only after the Macedonians agreed to front the expense of the

operation.25 When Philip V came to the isthmus three years later, Polybius notes that Philip

was not able to move his entire fleet across but only the small undecked ships; the rest had to

sail around Cape Malea.26 The extraordinary nature of ship portaging is most explicit, though, in

19 Thuc. 3.15-16.20 Thuc. 8.7-10.21 Polyb. 4.19.7-9.22 Cf. Polyb. 5.101.4 and 5.102.1.23 Livy 42.16.24 Cassius Dio 51.5. 25 Polyb. 4.19.7-9. 26 Polyb. 5.101.

5


the famous inscription of Marcus Antonius, the paternal grandfather of the triumvir who fought

Octavian at Actium.27 As proconsul, Marcus Antonius had ships transferred across the isthmus

in 102/101 BC and then had the deed commemorated as epic achievement. As Gebhard and

Dickie have argued (2003), the verses even adopt the language of athletic accomplishment.

In sum, all of these passages highlight the extraordinary nature of ship transfers.

Instances of ship portaging occur almost entirely in ancient historical narratives because the

transfer of military fleets represented heroic, dramatic, and sensational achievement

highlighting strategic action of famous kings, generals, and emperors. In their function as

stratagems, they brought attention to the person or group accomplishing the event.

What, though, of the three authors (Aristophanes, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder) who

make comments that seem to suggest ship carting occurred regularly and more generally in

antiquity? While these authors have often been read as indicating quotidian ship hauling, it is

easier in fact to read them as evidence for the same remarkable military episodes described

above. Aristophanes, for example, makes one of his characters say, “You’ve got an Isthmus

Tramway running there, mate; you’re shuttling your prick this way and that more incessantly

than the Corinthians!”28 Since the 10th century after Christ, the strange line was read in light of

the historical episodes noted above—as a reference to the dragging of ships over the Corinthian

Isthmus.29 But this does not mean, as modern scholars have often argued or assumed, that

Aristophanes had in mind the constant operation of drawing commercial cargo ships over the

Corinthian Isthmus. He is rather alluding to the transfer of military vessels in the context of the

Peloponnesian War, and probably making reference to the portage event that occurred the

year before the production of the play (411 BC) when the Peloponnesians drew a fleet of 21

ships over the isthmus. As that event nearly caught the Athenians off guard and resulted in a

significant and memorable skirmish in the Saronic Gulf, it would have been on the minds of the

Athenians the year of the play’s production.30

27 Corinth VIII.2 no. 1, published in Taylor and West 1928, and West 1931, 1-4, and subsequently improved in CIL 12.2 no. 2662 and Dow 1951. For discussion of this inscription, see Gebhard and Dickie 2003, 272-77.28 Aristophanes Thesm. 647-648, translated by Sommerstein 1994, 81.29 Suda, isthmos.30 Sommerstein 1994, 196.

6


The passages from Strabo and Pliny can also be read convincingly as summative

allusions to the famous military stratagems of ancient history. When Strabo describes the

diolkos as the place “where ships are transferred overland,”31 he is not commenting on a

portage operation of the late 1st century BC started immediately after the colony’s

refoundation but is noting for his readers the strip of land where the famous portages had

occurred in ancient history. And when Pliny the Elder suggests in the later 1st century AD that

smaller ships were drawn over the isthmus on trolleys instead of sailing around Cape Malea, he

is not making a contemporary observation but is summing up an historical tradition of famous

ship crossing episodes that included Philip V’s transfer of small ships in 217 BC.32 Strabo and

Pliny mention portaging because of its importance within the historical narratives that were

famous in their own day, especially Thucydides and Polybius. They are secondary and

derivative sources for ancient feats of dragging fleets, not primary and contemporary accounts

of a regular portage operation in the Roman period.

There is, in fact, no clear positive textual evidence that commercial ships or military

galleys were regularly pulled over the Isthmus to get to the other side because the ancients saw

the conveyance of ships overland as extraordinary action.33 In none of our ancient accounts,

though, does anyone transfer ships simply to get to the other side. Ship dragging was rather

extraordinary action. It was extraordinary in the most basic sense because military and

merchants ships were ordinarily designed for sailing in water, not for moving long distances

over dry ground via wheeled carts. It was extraordinary in a specifically regional sense in that it

did not represent the normal way that ships made their way across Greece in antiquity, which

was always to sail around the Peloponnese.34 And it was extraordinary as a logistical feat that

required a tremendous investment of material resources and traction power.35 A Greek trireme

was some 35 meters long, 5 meters wide, and nearly 4 m high, weighing, when dry and without

31 Strabo 8.2.1.32 Cf. Polyb. 5.101 and Pliny NH 4.9-10.33 For a fuller discussion of the extraordinary nature of dragging fleets, see Pettegrew 2011b.34 In contrast with the handful of instances of portaging ships across the Corinthian Isthmus in military contexts, there are dozens of relevant Greek and Latin passages recording voyages, both mythical and real, of military galleys and merchant ships around the southern coast of Greece. E.g., Hymn to Pythian Apollo, 388-439; Hdt. 7.168; Alciphron Letters of Fishermen 10; Arrian An. 2.1.2; Diod. Sic. 11.15.1; 11.84; 16.62; Dion. Hal. 1.72.2-3; Heliodorus Aeth. 4.16.7.1.35 See Raepsaet 1993, 2008; Lewis 2001; Pettegrew 2011b.

7


its movable equipment or crews, about 25 tons, or 50,000 pounds;36 for some modern

perspective, this is about the same height and weight of a tractor-trailer truck, but double the

length and width. The typical coastal trading vessels of the Hellenistic and Roman era were

often smaller than the trireme but carried loads weighing 20-70 tonnes, while long-distance

freighters were significantly wider and commonly transported cargoes of 100 tonnes or more.37

Transferring one of these vessels by wheeled cart over a ridge 85 meters above sea level,

through an average grade of 2%, would have required hundreds of men and created

considerable risk of damage to the ship and harm to the crew. While it was theoretically

possible to transfer small military galleys and merchant vessels over the Corinthian isthmus,

ancient writers believed for good reason that its occurrence was extraordinary.

In short, it was always theoretically possible to transfer small military galleys and

merchant vessels over the Corinthian isthmus, but ancient writers accept for good reason that

its occurrence was in some sense extraordinary. The infrastructure necessary for the operation,

the difficulty involved, the potential risk of damage to the vessels in the crossing, and the cost

of the portage must have worked against the development of the large-scale commercial

operation commonly envisioned by Corinthian scholars. The kind of merchant ship that could

be transferred over the isthmus most easily—the small coastal vessel—was not engaged in the

sort of long distance interregional trade that a portage road would have facilitated. And the

sort of ship that had most to benefit from being transported overland—the larger, long-distant

freighters—were too heavy to cart across.

The overland movement of ships in antiquity was, rather, the domain of giant

personalities, conceptually linked to (semi)-mythical individuals or capable generals and

admirals like Jason and the Argonauts, Semiramis, King Xerxes, the tyrant Dionysius I, Alexander

the Great, Hannibal, Demetrius of Pharos, Philip V, Octavian, Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and

Trajan.38 The clear conception in ancient literature is that only extraordinary historical and

mythical personalities (or states) possessed the wherewithal to make large sea-born vessels

36 These figures for weight based on Morrison and Coates 1989, 20, 68; Morrison, Coates, and Rankov 2000, 277.37 For the size and weight of merchant ships, see Casson 1971, 160-163, n 17, n36, 169-173, 189-190; Houston 1988. 38 For references and discussion, see Casson 1971, 136; MacDonald 1986, 192; Raepsaet 1993, 249-250; Papafotiou 2007, 157-170; Pettegrew 2011b.

8


cross over dry land. Dragging ships represented remarkable and fame-producing stratagem,

and the Isthmus of Corinth represented the most dramatic stage for accomplishing this brilliant

naval ploy.

Scholars recognizing the logistical difficulties of ship portaging have long put forward an

alternative interpretation of the diolkos road.39 If it was difficult to transport commercial

vessels, it would have been possible to unload and transship their cargoes apart from the ships.

Since this alternate thesis is not based on ancient textual sources, and our aim is to discuss the

arguments made on the basis of texts, we will not discuss it at length here. But we can briefly

summarize the major problems against the view which have been explored more fully

elsewhere.40 The archaeological evidence of ceramic distributions does not support the notion

of consistent overland transshipment of cargoes; the eastern and western sides of the isthmus

often show, respectively, eastern and western orientations in trade.41 Logistically, the diolkos

lacks the necessary harbor facilities on the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs to accommodate a

major overland shipping business.42 Not only are there no harbor installations, moles, or broad

quays, but there are no warehouses, hostels, restaurants, and settlements—in short, none of

the facilities found at serious Greek and Roman harbors.43 Transshipment would have required

considerable time: several days of unloading, moving, and reloading, not the few hours

sometimes envisioned.44 The operation would also have depended on an enormous supply of

bovines as hundreds of ox-drawn carts were needed for each ship. Finally, the costs to the

merchant would have been enormous: harbor taxes, cargo duties, expenses of porters, drivers,

and oxen or mules. Could a merchant have counted on profiting from his cargo at inflated

costs?

There is no question, of course, that goods could be and were carted across the isthmus

in antiquity either fully or in part.45 Such transfers, however, do not add up to the kind of major

39 MacDonald 1986.40 Pettegrew 2011b.41 For a fuller discussion of the Roman era, see Pettegrew 2011b with references. 42 Sanders 1996.43 For useful overviews of built harbors, see Casson 1971, 361-370; Shaw 1972; Blackman 1982, 2008. It is true that small-scale coastal traders did not necessarily require well-built facilities to unload goods—a simple beach or wooden quay would sometimes do just fine (Houston 1988; Hohlfelder and Vann 2000)—but a road designed to facilitate a major shipping business would have required some serious infrastructure. 44 Pomey and Tchernia 1978; Rickman 1985, 112, 114 n57.45 See chapter by S. James, this volume.

9


portage operation envisioned by modern scholars. While the archaeological evidence is beyond

the scope of this paper, the imported Roman pottery distributed across the isthmus does

suggest that the region functioned more as a terminus to eastward and westward commercial

flows than a conduit.46 As for the purpose of the diolkos road itself, it was apparently built and

used originally for the interests of the Corinthian state, including the seasonal movement of

heavy building materials like timber and cut stone quarried from the remote parts of Corinthian

territory or the Aegean, and for the defense of the state, facilitating communications and

occasionally moving military galleys from one gulf to another.47

III. The Emporium in Ancient Conception

If the diolkos road did not contribute greatly to Corinth’s commercial facility, how then

did the isthmus make Corinth wealthy? Here, ancient writers were unanimous: Corinth had a

major emporium, a trading center on the isthmus that concentrated maritime and terrestrial

traffic via land and sea. Thucydides was largely responsible for this interpretation of the city in

arguing (1.13.5) that the control of an emporium since ancient days had brought revenues and

power. Others followed. Corinth was called wealthy, Strabo explained (8.6.20), not “because

of its commerce” as one translator put it, but because of its emporium, which facilitated the

exchange of goods between Italy and Asia.48 Aelius Aristides characterizes the Corinthia as a

kind of agora and meeting space common to all Greeks.49 Libanius, the greatest Greek orator of

the 4th century AD, describes Corinth as the common emporium of Greece.50 And his famous

student John Chrysostom, in the preface to his commentary on St. Paul’s first epistle to the

Corinthians, explains the Corinthian community’s strife in terms of the wealth and pride

resulting from the city’s commercial foundation on the Isthmus.51

46 Pettegrew 2011b.47 MacDonald 1986; Pettegrew 2011b.48 The Loeb version of Strabo’s Geography mistranslates the phrase Ὁ δὲ Κόρινθος ἀφνειὸς μὲν λέγεται διὰ τὸ ἐμπόριον as “Corinth is called ‘wealthy’ because of its commerce.” As this translation has been promulgated through two popular books on Roman Corinth (Engels 1990 and Murphy-O’Connor 2002), scholars have not fully understood Strabo’s specific point: Corinth was wealthy because of its trading station.49 Ael. Arist. Isthmian Oration 23. See De Ligt 1993, 101-102.50 Libanius, Decl. 25.2.46.51 In epistulam 1 ad Corinthios.

10


What did the ancient concept of emporium entail? First and foremost, the Greek word

ἐμπόριον denoted a place of commerce situated in a convenient location for travelers and

traders. The term was used consistently from classical times to denote a “mart” or “trading-

center,” a settlement or part of a settlement where maritime traffic and commercial flows

concentrated.52 These nodes of heightened connectivity were sometimes maritime cities but

more frequently substantial harbors situated on the sea or the mouths of rivers with easy

access to trading flows.53 Emporia are so common to discussions of world geography and

periplous (“voyages around”) in the Early Roman era precisely because so many are associated

with ports.54 Strabo, for example, who names some 48 different emporia in his geography, uses

the term for populous and highly-trafficked trading centers and ports that facilitated the

exchange of products for peoples or regions separated from one another by long distances.55

Secondly, the concept emporium denoted the nature of trade and the kinds of goods

distributed. Emporia were centers of wholesale trade of imported and exported merchandise

in and between regions. In some cases, emporia functioned as regional ports for the exchange

of inland products with goods imported by sea, or as trading centers for neighboring tribes.56

Strabo, for example, notes the tribe of the Ligures in the mountainous Alps who export timber,

hides, flocks, and honey to an emporium at Genna in exchange for oil and Italian wine (since

their own wine was so bitter!).57 Other emporia functioned as entrepôts for the trade of

52 Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon. Definitions and discussion are numerous: Rougé 1966, 108; Casson 1971, 365-370; Bresson and Rouillard 1993, including Casevitz 1993, 10, Étienne 1993, 30-34, Rouillard 1993, 46; and Counillon 1993; Frayn 1993, 10, 15-16; Hansen 1997, 2006; Petropoulos 2005; Rosenfeld and Menirav 2005, 16-17, 29-31. 53 Casevitz 1993; Rouillard 1993; Counillon 1993. Emporia are more commonly the harbors of substantial cities than maritime cities themselves. Livy frequently uses the term emporia for the harbors of cities as for example, Cynus of the city Opus in Locris (28.6.12), Creusa the port of the city Thespia in Boeotia (36.21.5). However, an emporion was not always a port, and a port not always an emporion. Xen. Hell. 5.2.16 and Plut. Fab. Max. 17.3 juxtapose but do not conflate the two terms limena (harbor) and emporion. Moreover, inland emporia disconnected from waterways did exist even if they were not as common: Dion. Hal. 7.20.2 distinguishes between inland and maritime emporia; and Livy describes (38.18.12-15) Gordion in Crete as an inland emporium, but has to explain that it was “visited and frequented more than is usually the case with an inland city” (Loeb translation). 54 Between the 1st century BC and 2nd century AD, over 70% of references to the Greek word derive from geographical and navigational literature. Figure based on a TLG count of ἐμπόριον. Some 149 of 203 occurrences of the term in the TLG during these early Roman centuries come from the Geographies of Strabo and Ptolemy, and the Periplus Maris Erythraei. The Greek word passes into Latin as emporium but its use is rare, appearing only 29 times in the enormous corpus of classical texts preserved in the PHI Latin literature database. Cf. Counillon 1993. 55 Cf. Étienne 1993; Rouillard 1993.56 E.g., Strabo 3.4.6 (New Carthage); 5.1.8 (Aquileia); 11.2.3, 11.2.16, 11.2.17 (Tanais, Dioscurias, and Phasis on the Black Sea); 11.2.16 (Dioscurias). 57 Strabo 4.6.2.

11


materials imported from regions separated from one another by long distances: classical

Athens in the Aegean, Delos and Corinth for trade between Italy and Asia, and Apamea in Syria

for goods from Italy and Greece.58 The sorts of goods that geographers like Strabo note were

exchanged at these emporia included food stuffs (grain, olive oil, wine, honey), construction

material (timber, wax, pitch), animals and products (cattle, hides), slaves, plants (silphium),

clothing, and other merchandise.59 Pliny the Elder describes the emporium of Adulis on the Red

Sea where slaves, apes, tortoise shells, and ivory and hides from hippopotami and rhinoceros

were brought in large quantity and traded.60 In fact, these ancient lists of merchandise traded

at emporia are not meant to be comprehensive but represent the most important, unique, or

exotic forms of commodities;61 local agricultural products, especially grain, wine, and olive oil

would have been the standard imports and exports for much of the Mediterranean.

Emporia were conceptually linked with traders and travelers, whose great number and

concentration were thought to generate wealth and abundance.62 Strabo notes that Corinth,

Comana, Ephesus, Delos, and Alexandria were all made wealthy by the traders that passed

through the harbors.63 From where did the wealth come? The ancients highlighted revenues

from the duties on goods imported and exported through the ports,64 a fact that encouraged

both state and local civic bodies were to invest in harbor facilities that would attract

merchants.65 The emporium also created wealth through employment of a wide variety of

traders and service workers; Dio Chrysostom, for example, explains the wealth of the town of

Celaena in Phrygia as a result of the periodic markets when the provincial governor visited.66

Greek and Roman writers also describe the wealth of trading centers in terms of the abundance 58 Athens: Isoc. Paneg. 42; Corinth: Strabo 8.6.20; Apamea: Strabo 12.8.15; Delos: Strabo 10.5.4; 14.5.2; Paus. 8.33.2. Aegina (Strabo 8.6.16) and Ephesus (Strabo 14.1.24) would also fit this pattern. Interestingly, Strabo seems to associate the creation of emporia at Corinth and Aegina partly a result of the poverty of the soil in those places: cf. 8.6.16 and 8.6.20-23. 59 See footnotes above. For silphium, see Strabo 17.3.20.60 Pliny NH 6.173.61 Rouillard 1993.62 Etienne 1993, 30-34; Rouillard 1993.63 See, respectively, Strabo 8.6.20; 12.3.36; 14.1.24; 14.5.2; and 17.1.13. For additional examples of the association of port, traders, and wealth, Cf. Polyb. 10.1.9; Diod. Sic. 2.11.3; Livy 39.25.9; Dio Chrys. Or. 32.36.10.64 Purcell 2005. As one example, Polyb. 30.31.10-12 notes the crippling consequences that the tax-free port of Delos had on the revenues of the port of Rhodes. Cf. Ar. Econ. 1346a.65 Morley 2007b, 55-60.66 Dio Chrysostom 35.14-16, who notes that the market created work for peddlers, porters, artisans, and prostitutes. “For whenever the greatest throng of people comes together, there necessarily we find money in greatest abundance, and it stands to reason that the place should thrive.”

12


of goods that the port brings about. Isocrates describes the Piraeus as an emporium in the

center of Greece that brought rare merchandise to Athens from all over the world, addressing

the problem of regional deficits and surpluses.67

Finally, emporia had since the days of Plato also been regarded in negative terms. The

consistent philosophical critique was that despite all their advantages for cities, harbors

fostered lust for wealth, encouraged deceit through exchange, corrupted the civic fortitude and

loyalties of the inhabitants, and led citizens away from good occupations like agriculture.68

Aristotle, for example, recognizes the value of ports in meeting deficiencies in goods and foods,

but recommends keeping the emporia at safe distance from the town center.69 Athenaeus,

citing Theopompus, describes the detrimental and corrupting consequences of the Byzantinians

and Chalcedonians spending too much time in the emporium on the waterfront in the midst of

their luxuries.70 One could also note here Juvenal’s satirical quip at the “scented sons of

Corinth” and the “unwarlike Rhodians,” two cities made effeminate by excessive luxury

resulting from their trading centers.71 As centers of exchange, these centers were also

problematic in introducing foreigners into the region and mixing the citizen populations with

foreigners.72 Emporia were for this reason restricted ideally to the harbors, or districts within

the harbors where the foreign populations could be closely supervised by officials in their

trading business away from the polis center.73 Piraeus in Athens with its metic and foreign

trading population provides a good example of this “world apart:”74 wares imported by sea

were displayed right on the water in a district known as the Deigma, the “sample market” or

“bazaar”, for immediate purchase.75

Corinth is typical of the pattern outlined above. In regard to its situation, ancient

writers regarded the city’s two major harbors as centers of wholesale trade in the region.

67 Isocrates Paneg. 41-42.68 See Cristofori 2001, with sources; Morley 2007b, 79-89, on trade and morality.69 Arist. Pol. 1327a.70 Athenaeus 12.526d-e, citing Theopompus.71 Juvenal Sat. 8.112-16.72 e.g., Demosthenes 35.2. On the “mixed” and foreign populations of harbors and emporia, see discussion in Etienne 1993, 30-34; Cristofori 2001; Blackman 2008, 653-654.73 Arist. Pol. 1327a. See Cristofori 2001, Möller 2007, 368, 373-374.74 von Reden 1995.75 Garland 1987, 83-95; Xen. Hell. 5.1.21; Dem. 35.29; 50.24. These kinds of spaces are also known elsewhere. See, for instance, the Deigma in Aen. Tac. 30.2; Polyb. 5.88.

13


Thucydides says (1.13.5) that in his own day, Corinth furnished an emporium for maritime trade

in both directions—an observation highlighting the harbor settlements of Kenchreai and

Lechaion (see below). Strabo, at least, interpreted Thucydides in this way, associating the

emporium specifically with the two harbors (8.6.20). Livy refers to Kenchreai as an emporium

(32.17.3), and other Roman descriptions of Kenchreai highlight the constant flow of commercial

traffic in and out of that port.76 Lechaion too must have been a trading depot although there

are fewer explicit ancient testimonies about the harbor and settlement there. The pan-Hellenic

sanctuary site of Isthmia, situated on the principal artery in and out of the Peloponnese, was

also recognized as a major center of trade and meeting point between east and west,77 but

Thucydides’ apparent reference to it as an emporium seems to be exceptional.78 From the

Classical to Roman era, Isthmia was mainly the site of a biennial fair, described variously as

panegyris and mercatus, which was, in this sense, quite different.79

While we do not have space here to deal with the archaeological evidence at length, we

can briefly note that a range of archaeological work at Lechaion and Kenchreai over the last 50

years has demonstrated that Lechaion and Kenchreai were substantial ports throughout the

Roman era well equipped for large-scale trade. Lechaion was located only 3 km from the city,

built as an artificial installation in the sandy beach at the point where the cardo maximus from

the Roman colony intersected the shore. The harbor works at Lechaion that are visible in the

coastline today represent the most dramatic physical vestiges of a harbor built in the mid to

late 1st century AD,80 which was clearly an impressive undertaking and major development of

76 Cf. Apul. Met. 10.35; Favorinus 37.8.77 Livy 33.32; Aelius Aristides Isthmian Or. 23.78 Thucydides refers to Isthmia as an emporium when he notes (1.13.5) that in former times the Corinthians held an emporium on the major land route in and out of the Peloponnese for trade between those living inside and outside of the Peloponnese. The site of Isthmia was situated at the narrowest part of the isthmus on the primary road between Megara and Corinth. Thucydides notes that in later times (in his own day) after the Corinthians had developed its navy, the city possessed an emporium in respect to “both”: καὶ ἐμπόριον παρέχοντες ἀμφότερα δυνατὴν ἔσχον χρημάτων προσόδῳ τὴν πόλιν Scholars often translate this as a reference to control of “both land and sea,” which might imply that there was a trading center at Isthmia in its own day. It may be better, though, to interpret the “both” as a reference to an emporium on both shore of the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs since Thucydides contrasts the trade of former times (by land) with that of present times (by sea). This, anyway, was how Strabo read Thucydides (8.6.20) when he called Corinth wealthy on account of its emporium, lying on the isthmus and in command of two harbors leading in two directions. See Casevitz 1993, 17-18, for further discussion; Salmon 1984, 133-136, on the untrustworthiness of Thucydides on this point.79 For the panegyris and mercatus, see, respectively, Ael. Arist. Isthmian Oration 23; Livy 33.32; and Polyb. 18.44.3, 18.46.1. On the commercial properties of Isthmia, see De Ligt 1993, 101-102.80 For this overview, see Rothaus 1995.

14


the landscape. The coastal lagoon was drained away and an extensive inner harbor of 10 ha

was excavated to create several interconnected basins connected to the gulf by a long and

narrow channel (150 m x 12 m wide) lined with cut blocks. Three mounds rising as high as 15

masl at the entrance to the inner harbor indicate the volume of gravel and sand moved during

the construction and subsequent dredging; two stone structures of Roman date on one of these

mounds probably represent ancient lighthouses. The Roman builders at Lechaion also

constructed two rectangular outer quays with protective moles that projected into the seas and

created an additional 5 ha of shelter from waves and currents. The inner and outer harbors

together provided up to 15 ha of sheltered area, making it a very substantial constructed

harbor indeed, in the same league as, say, Sebastos (Caesarea Maritima) with its 20 ha basin.81

A settlement surrounded Lechaion but we know very little about its extent or size.

Kenchreai was the city’s eastern port that lay 10 km east of the city in one of the natural

coves of the Saronic Gulf.82 The Roman harbor is located in a natural indentation of the coast

where a small bay is defined by a pair of promontories that project the coast seaward at the

north and south; artificial breakwaters and moles now submerged extend the promontories to

create a sheltered cove of 3 ha with a depth up to 25 m.83 The investigations of Kenchreai in

the 1960s revealed in great detail the physical remains and plan of the harbor itself, which was

developed in the course of the 1st and 2nd century AD and had phases of refurbishment as late

as the 7th century. Limited excavations on the inner quay of the harbor uncovered warehouses,

commercial buildings, and shops that were constructed sometime between the late 1st c. BC

and 1st c AD.84 Excavations on the north side of the harbor brought to light stores (tabernae), an

open square and stoa (1st century AD), a mole constructed of earth and rubble (1st century AD),

and a Roman villa used throughout the Roman period.85 The south pier produced a similar

array of commercial buildings and warehouses (early 1st century AD) and even piscinae (fish

tanks) that originated in the later 1st century AD, as well as was a later Roman nymphaeum

(post-2nd century) that produced over 120 glass panels of opus sectile still packed in their

81 Raban et al. 2009.82 See publications in Kenchreai, Eastern Port of Corinth series; Hohlfelder 1985. For a recent summary and overview of Roman Kenchreai, see Rife 2010.83 Scranton, Shaw, and Ibrahim 1978, 14-17. 84 Ibid, 36-38.85 Scranton, Shaw, and Ibrahim 1978, 17-22; Rothaus 2000, 66-69.

15


wooden shipping crates and located in the building of the 4th century AD.86 A very large town

surrounded the harbor proper in the Roman era.

This brief overview of Kenchreai and Lechaion highlights both harbors as fully equipped

centers for wholesale trading. What is important to note is that ancient writers did not regard

the urban center at Corinth itself as the emporium or market center for wholesale trade, but

Corinth rather controlled the trade marts located in its harbors. Corinth had substantial market

spaces, of course, as Williams has shown in his survey of the different forum and macella

excavated in the urban center,87 which would have retailed products of the countryside (e.g.,

meat) for purchase by city dwellers. In other Roman cities, such macella and fora were

permanent building spaces for retailing specialty food products like grain, vegetables, meat,

and fish—the sort of expensive goods available to people with resources.88 Corinth town also

had a variety of stalls and taverns for retailing crafts and specialty products like pottery, textiles,

and furniture, as well as high-frequency periodic markets for the sale of basic provisions, the

sorts of market spaces found throughout the Roman Mediterranean.89 But it is important to

note that these macella, nundinae, and urban shops and stalls were primarily retail spaces that

constituted different sorts of market places than we find in Corinth’s ports, and there is no

reason to think that surpluses produced in the countryside would have necessarily filtered

through urban markets.90

When writers describe Corinth as having an emporium, they are also explaining the

nature of trade in the region. Strabo, who notes that the emporium facilitated trade between

Italy and Asia,91 is not referring to cargoes being shipped in bulk across the Isthmus in westward

and eastward shipping flows to be sold elsewhere. He is rather representing the harbors of the

isthmus as the sites of marketing and economic connection where traders concentrate. In

Strabo’s conception, merchants from the east did not need to travel all the way to Italy to

86 Scranton, Shaw, and Ibrahim 1978, 23-35, 43. 87 Williams 1993.88 De Ruyt 1983; Frayn 1993, 7-9, 19-20, 56-73, 101-116, 159.89 On high-frequency retail markets like macella, fora, agorai, and nundinae in the Roman Mediterranean, see Frayn 1993; De Ligt 1993, especially 106-154; Morley 2007b, 79-81. Alciphron comments snidely on the cheap fruits and bread sold at a market (agora) in Corinth’s Kraneion district: Alciphron Letters of Parasites 3.60.90 See Paterson 1998; Morley 2007a, 580-587, for different scenarios for the distribution of agricultural goods for local consumption and trade. 91 Strabo 8.20.

16


exchange their wares but could simply unload at Kenchreai; merchants from the west did not

sail around the Peloponnese but could put in at Lechaion. The Isthmus and the harbors formed

centralized trading depots and meeting points between east and west, places for exchange and

the redistribution of goods.92 Our texts actually reveal nothing about where the goods end up

after being exchanged on the isthmus, let alone by what mechanism they move from the point

of distribution. Some goods apparently did trickle across the isthmus, as we noted earlier,

perhaps through the agency of individual traders making contracted runs in luxury items from

Asia to Italy, but there is no evidence that ancient writers imagined a large-scale portage

operation over the land bridge. The predominant and consistent view in the ancient sources is

that the isthmus was a meeting place and entrepôt;93 the means of distribution of goods is left

unexplained.

Finally, the recognition of Corinth’s emporium explains its association in ancient

literature with great concentrations of people.94 Some travelers are described as passing

through the region in route between Rome and Athens, or cities in Asia Minor; disembarking at

Lechaion or Kenchreai, they walked across the Isthmus to the opposite harbor and caught a

ship to their destination.95 But many came to the Corinthia for specific purposes, whether it be

to tour the sites of old Greece (like Pausanias) or attend the biennial games at Isthmia (like

Aelius Aristides). In these cases, the Isthmus functioned not as a commercial thoroughfare

where merchants and goods were simply passing through but a destination in its own right for

cultural and economic activity. In ancient conception, these concentrations of travelers and

visitors produced revenues for the city and also contributed to its immoral character.

IV. Corinthian Economy and the Question of Inequality

We can turn in this concluding discussion to the question of the economy of Roman

Corinth. Recognizing that ancient writers regarded the emporium as the primary commercial

92 Ael. Ar. Or. 46.22-27.93 The ancients, of course, recognized the potential benefit of a trade route across the isthmus: in Ps.-Lucian’s Nero 636, an imaginary dialogue defends Nero’s action to cut the canal of Corinth based on the potential results of creating commerce and saving the trader a journey around Cape Malea. This reinforces the idea that the ancients did not conceive of the isthmus as actually facilitating commercial flows. 94 Livy 33.32; Paus. 2.1.7-2.2.2; Dio Chrys. Or. 9.4.95 Propertius Elegies 3.21.1-24; Flavius Philostratus, VS 2.552; VA 7.10.

17


basis for the city’s wealth provides insight into how the Corinthian Isthmus generated wealth

and created economic inequality. Scholars have often highlighted the urban center itself as the

center of trade in the region and urban markets as the mechanism for the redistribution of

goods to rural dwellers and visitors to the city center.96 While there were certainly different

kinds of markets in Corinth town, the emporium places the harbors at the center of Corinth’s

commercial economy. Kenchreai and Lechaion, at least, were the places of large-scale trade in

the region.

Viewed in one light, harbors fostered an environment of economy activity and created

opportunities through a wide range of productive and commercial activities in both the

countryside and town: money lenders and merchants negotiating loans, merchants buying up

craft in the town for exporting abroad, land owners seeking markets for their surplus olive oil

and wine, and retailers and peddlers redistributing imported goods in the city’s more

specialized markets, fora, and fairs. As such, Kenchreai and Lechaion created the economic

space for business for a wide range of individuals linked to trade:97 wholesaler dealers,

financiers, ship owners, traders, landowners, middle men, retailers, craft specialist, and sailors

and rowers, among many others.

For merchants, emporia created the right condition for dramatic profiting through trade

in goods produced both locally and abroad—the sort of “rags to riches” story described in

another paper in this volume.98 In the Early Roman era, anecdotes still circulated about wealthy

Corinthians of the former Greek city, like Moerichus the millionaire who owned an entire fleet

of merchant vessels,99 and Demaratus, who had grown wealthy by making cargo runs between

Lechaion and ports in southern Italy.100 In the 4th century AD, Libanius tells of a detestable

dealer in fish pickle named Heliodorus who, in the course of his trade came to Corinth, sat in on

law proceedings, mastered oratory, and eventually earned a killing between his legal activities

and his trade in fish sauce.101 Such anecdotes reflect the ancient conception that long-distance

trade provided the means of generating spectacular profits and upward social mobility, and

96 One prominent example is Engels 1990.97 Paterson 1998.98 See Millis, this volume.99 Lucian D. Mort. 21.1.2.100 Dion. Hal. 3.46.3-5.101 Libanius Or. 62.46.

18


that harbors were the outlet for profit-making. The reality, of course, is that most people who

were tied to commercial activity in any way were low-status individuals not typically made

wealthy through the process.102 Ancient markets provided less a means for generating

spectacular wealth than a place to make enough profit to make a living.

Nonetheless, Corinth’s harbors created numerous many opportunities to make a living.

The initial construction of the harbor facilities, along with occasional refurbishments, required

many hundreds of laborers who could operate cranes, complete masonry, excavate the basins,

and dredge the mouths.103 The construction of the monumental buildings at the harbors—the

warehouses, temples, and churches—fostered needs for architects, carpenters, porters, and a

myriad of unskilled workmen.104 The numerous private apartments, villas, houses in the

districts surrounding both Lechaion and Kenchreai required a supply of construction workers

over the long Roman era.

The commercial activities occurring during sailing season likewise employed an sizable

body of workers at the sea front.105 Thousands of people were needed to manage the arrival of

ships and movement of goods at the quays and storehouses: stevedores and porters, custom

officials and clerks, inspectors, crane operators, lightermen, shipwrights, ballast handlers, and

divers and dredgers. Transferring goods from farm estates to harbors and from harbors to

towns demanded numerous muleteers and wagon drivers. And the services provided to

arriving merchants, sailors, and passengers put to work retailers, shopkeepers, tavern and bar

owners, innkeepers, craftsmen, and prostitutes. In the varied economic activities that occurred

at harbors, there was a large demand for seasonal laborers both skilled and unskilled.106

Viewed in another light, however, Kenchreai and Lechaion inscribed a series of striking

contrasts in the landscape as the principal economic activity (wholesale trade) reflected the

interests of the wealthy and powerful. The individuals who benefitted most from exporting

goods through the harbors were not peasant farmers, who found markets for their small

102 See Reed 2003, especially, who argues that most maritime traders (emporoi) in classical Athens were poor, low status, and foreign. Cf. Morley 2007b, 88.103 Rickman 1985; Oleson 1988.104 See Brunt 1980 for a discussion of this issue in the context of Rome.105 Cf. Rougé 1966, 162-64; Casson 1971, 366-370; Oleson 1988, 147.106 For Ostia and Puteoli, we know from epigraphic evidence that many harbor specialists were organized into collegia of divers, ballast men, porters, and dredgers, among others, but the evidence from other Italian ports does not indicate that this was necessarily typical: see Houston 1980.

19


surpluses in the retail spaces of town and countryside,107 but land-owning elite, who undertook

trade directly or through dependents by selling their produce to itinerant merchants or

outfitting their own ships.108 The elite individually or collectively (through the civic council)

financed the construction of the buildings at the ports, maintained harbor facilities, and

administered the commerce and duties on exported or imported goods.109 The Bacchiadae in

old Corinth, Strabo believed, grew wealthy from the duties on the emporion.110 With funds for

purchasing, the elite benefited also from merchandise imported for consumption.111

The contrasts between landed elite and landless laborers was physically visible in the

architecture adorning the marine seafront at the harbors. Beyond the quays and warehouses

(funded by elite and the city council), the monumental public architecture of temples, churches,

and monuments bespoke the munificence of individuals. The waterfront properties of both

Kenchreai and Lechaion included ornate seaside villas of Roman date. The apparent

permanency of these buildings and habitations can be contrasted with the essentially

ephemeral character of seasonal employment of the laborers at the harbors. The “motley

throng” of seasonal workers of every stripe,112 the peddlers and retailers, foreign merchants

and sailors, indeed, even beggars,113 were individuals without real social and economic security

(land), who always depended in their livelihood on the consistency and fairness of the

employer.114

In conclusion, this reconsideration of the textual sources provides no automatic key to

answering all our questions about Corinth’s economy, but it has cast doubt on notions of a

large-scale portage operation in light of what the ancients understood as the basis for 107 De Ligt 1993, 106-154; Morley 2007a, 580-587.108 On elite attitudes to and involvement in trade, see D’Arms 1980; Paterson 1998, 158; Morley 2007a, 580-587; Morley 2007b, 85-86.109 See Houston 1980 for the Italian context; Rickman 1988, 264-265. The development of the harbor of Lechaion in the 1st century may have been partially funded by the emperors, but locals would have paid for maintenance, refurbishments, and new construction. As Purcell has noted (2005, 204), “In both the emporion and the regime of taxes on mobility, we are dealing with the structures with which the powerful manage the consequences of the Mediterranean environment.”110 Strabo 8.6.20; Purcell 2005, 209.111 Morley 2007b.112 Conzelmann 1975, 12.113 Markets generally were places where individuals with resources at all might await handouts. Alciphron, a sophist of the late second century AD, found one Corinthian provision market near Kraneion to be the site of gross inequality and poverty. Alciphron Ep. 3.24.1; Alciphron Letters of Parasites 3.60. For Corinth as market & source of supplies: Xen. Hell. 7.2.17.114 Brunt 1990, 90-91.

20


Corinthian wealth, its emporium. In ancient conception, Corinthian prosperity was not a result

of a major overland shipping operation across its Isthmus but of the wholesale market activity

and profit making at its harbors. The concentration of commercial flows at the twin harbors

created tremendous economic opportunity for past populations but also fostered the same

inequity that was so characteristic of ancient society generally. Today, one can still see at

Kenchreai and Lechaion the visible contrast between the wealthy few, who are responsible for

the remains of commercial facilities, public buildings, and private residences, and the invisible

workmen, porters, retailers, and sailors who were another dynamic force that brought to life

the harbors for six to eight months every year.

V. Bibliography

Blackman, D.J., “Sea Transport, Part 2: Harbors,” in John Peter Oleson (ed), The Oxford

Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World, Oxford 2008, 638-670.

--- “Ancient harbours in the Mediterranean,” in International Journal of Nautical Archaeology

and Underwater Exploration, 11.2 (1982): 79-104, 11.3: 185-211.

Blegen, C., “Corinth in Prehistoric Times,” in AJA 24 (1920), 1-13.

Bresson, A., and P. Rouillard (eds.), L’Emporion, Paris 1993.

Brunt, “Free Labour and public Works at Rome,” in JRS 70 (1980), 81-100.

Casevitz, M., “Emporion: Emplois Classiques et Histoire du mot,” in Bresson and Rouillard (eds.),

L’Emporion, Paris 1993, pp. 9-22.

Casson, L., Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World, Princeton 1971.

---“Unemployment: the building trade and Suetonius Vesp. 18,” in BASP 15 (1978), 43-51.

Chandler, R. Travels in Greece, or an account of a tour made at the expense of the society of

Dilettanti, Oxford 1776.

Conzelmann, H., 1 Corinthians: A commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Translated

by James W. Leitch, Philadelphia 1975: Fortress Press.

Counillon, P. “L’Emporion des Géographes Greces,” in Bresson and Rouillard (eds.), L’Emporion,

Paris 1993, pp. 47-57.

21


Cook, R.M., “A Further Note on the Diolkos,” in J.H. Betts, J.T. Hooker and J.R. Green (eds.),

Studies in Honour of T.B.L. Webster, Vol. 1, Bristol 1986, 65-68.

Cristofori, A., “The maritime city in the Graeco-Roman perception: Carthage and

Alexandria: two emblematic examples,” in L. Francois and A. K. Isaacs (eds.), The

Sea in European History, Pisa 2001, 1-24.

Curtius, E., Peloponnesos; eine historisch-geographische Beschreibung der Halbinsel, Gotha

1851-52.

---The History of Greece, English Translation, London 1868.

Davies, G.S., St. Paul in Greece, London 1877.

D’Arms, J.H., “ ,” in D’Arms and Kopff (eds.), The Seaborne Commerce of Ancient Rome:

Studies in Archaeology and History, American Academy in Rome 1980, pp. 77-89.

De Ligt, L., Fairs and Markets in the Roman Empire: Economic and Social Aspects of Periodic

Trade in a Pre-Industrial Society, Amsterdam 1993.

De Ruyt, C., Macellum: marché alimentaire des Romains, Louvain-la-Neuve 1983.

Dodwell, E. A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece, During the Years 1801, 1805,

and 1806. Vol. 2, London 1819.

Dow, S. “The Latin Elegiacs of ca. 101 B.C.,” in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 60 (1951),

81-96.

Engels, D., Roman Corinth. An Alternative Model for the Ancient City, Chicago 1990.

Étienne, R. “L’Emporion chez Strabon: A. Les Emporia Strabioniens: Inventaire, Hiérarchies et

Mécanismes Commerciaux,” in Bresson and Rouillard (eds.), L’Emporion, Paris 1993, pp. 23-

34.

Farrar, F.W., The Life and Work of St. Paul, New York 1879.

Fowler, H.N., “I. Corinth and the Corinthia,” in H.N. Fowler and R. Stillwell, Corinth, Vol. I:

Introduction: Topography & Architecture, Cambridge, MA 1932, 18-114.

Frayn, Joan M., Markets and Fairs in Roman Italy: Their Social and Economic Importance from

the Second Century BC to the Third Century AD, Oxford 1993.

Garland, R., The Piraeus: From the Fifth to the First Century B.C., Ithaca, NY, 1987.

22


Gebhard, E.R. and M.W. Dickie, “The View from the Isthmus, ca. 200 to 44 B.C.,” in Corinth XX,

The Centenary: 1896-1996, Princeton 2003, 261-278.

Hafemann, S.J., 2 Corinthians: The NIV Application Commentary, from biblical text – to

contemporary life, Grand Rapids, MI, 2000.

Hansen, M.H., “ ,” in G.R. Tsetskhladze (ed.), Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies

and Other Settlements Overseas. Volume 1, Leiden 2006, pp.

--- “Emporion. A study of the use and meaning of the term in the archaic and classical periods,”

in T.H. Nielsen (ed.), Yet More Studies on the Ancient Greek Polis, Stuttgart 1997, pp. 83-

105.

Hohlfelder, R.L. and R.L. Vann, “Cabotage at Aperlae in Ancient Lycia,” in The International

Journal of Nautical Archaeology 29 (2000), 126-135.

Hohlfelder, R.L., “The Building of the Roman Harbour at Kenchreai: Old Technology in a New

Era,” in A. Raban (ed.), Harbour Archaeology: Proceedings of the First International

Workshop on Ancient Mediterranean Harbours, Caesarea Maritima, 24-26.6.83, BAR

International Series 257, Oxford 1985, pp. 81-86.

Horrell, D.G., and E. Adams, “Introduction: The Scholarly Quest for Paul’s Church at Corinth: A

critical Survey,” in Adams and Horrell (eds.), Christianity at Corinth: The Quest for the

Pauline Church, Louisville 2004, 1-47.

Houston, G.W., “Ports in Perspective: Some Comparative Materials on Roman Merchant Ships

and Ports,” in AJA 92.4 (1988), 553-564.

--- “The Administration of Italian Seaports during the First Three Centuries of the Roman

Empire,” in Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Vol. 36, The Seaborne Commerce of

Ancient Rome, Rome 1980, 157-171.

Lemprière, J. and C. Anthon, A Classical Dictionary, Third Edition, New York 1831.

Lewis, M.J.T. (2001) “Railways in the Greek and Roman World.” In A. Guy and J. Rees, eds., Early

Railways. A Selection of Papers from the First International Early Railways Conference: 8-19.

London.

Linton, H., The First (second) Epistle to the Corinthians, with notes and appendix, London 1881.

MacDonald, B.R. (1986) “The Diolkos.” JHS 106: 191-95.

23


Meiggs, R., Roman Ostia, Second Edition, Oxford 1973.

Möller, A., “Classical Greece: Distribution,” in Scheidel, Morris, and Saller (eds.), The Cambridge

Economic History of the Greco-Roman world, Cambridge 2007, 362-384.

Morley, N., “The Early Roman Empire: Distribution,” in Scheidel, Morris, and Saller (eds.), The

Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman world, Cambridge 2007a, 570-591.

Morley, N., Trade in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge 2007b.

Morrison, J.S. and J.F. Coates, An Athenian Trireme Reconstructed: the British Sea Trials of

Olympias, 1987, B.A.R. Oxford 1989.

Morrison, J.S., J.F. Coates, and N.B. Rankov, The Athenian Trireme: the History and

Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship, Second Edition, Cambridge 2000.

Murphy-O’Connor, J., St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology, 3rd edition, Collegeville, MN,

2002

Oleson, J. P., “The technology of Roman harbors,” In International Journal of Nautical

Archaeology and Underwater Exploration 17.2 (1988), 147-157.

Papafotiou, A.E. Ο δίολκος στον ισθμό της Κορίνθου, Corinth 2007.

Paterson, J., “Trade and Traders in the Roman World: Scale, Structure and Organization,” in

Helen Parkins and Christoper Smith (eds.), Trade, Traders and the Ancient City, London

1998, 149-167.

Petropoulos, E.K., Hellenic Colonization in Euxeinos Pontos. Penetration, Early Establishment

and the Problem of the "Emporion" Revisited. BAR International Series 1394, Oxford 2005:

Archaeopress.

Pettegrew, D.K., “Niketas Ooryphas Drags his Fleet: Crossing the Corinthian Isthmus in 872 AD,”

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, San

Antonio, 2011a.

--- “The Diolkos and the Commercial Facility of the Isthmus of Corinth,” in AJA 115.4 (2011b),

forthcoming.

Pomey, P., and A. Tchernia, “Le tonnage maximum des navires de commerce romains,” in

Archaeonautica 2 (1978).

24


Purcell, N., “The Ancient Mediterranean: The View from the Customs House,” in W.V. Harris

(ed.), Rethinking the Mediterranean, Oxford 2005, 200-232.

Raban, A., M. Artzy, B. Goodman, and Z. Gal, The Harbour of Sebastos (Caesarea Maritima) in its

Roman Mediterranean Context, BAR Intnl. S1930 2009.

Raepsaet, G., “Land Transport, Part 2: Riding, Harnesses, and Vehicles,” in J.P. Oleson (ed.), The

Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World, Oxford 2008, 580-

605.

--- (1993) “Le Diolkos de l’Isthme à Corinthe: son Tracé, son Fonctionnement.” BCH 117: 233-

256.

Reed, C.M., Maritime Traders in the Ancient Greek World, Cambridge 2003.

Rickman, G. E., “Towards a Study of Roman Ports,” in A. Raban (ed.), Harbour

Archaeology, BAR 257, London 1985, 105-114.

--- “The archaeology and history of Roman ports.” International Journal of Nautical

Archaeology and Underwater Exploration 17 (1988): 257-67.

Rife, J. L., “Religion and Society at Roman Kenchreai,” in S. Friesen, D. Schowalter, and

J. Walters (eds.), Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society,

Leiden 2010.

Rosenfeld, Ben-Zion, and J. Menirav, Markets and Marketing in Roman Palestine,

Leiden 2005.

Rothaus, R. M., Corinth, the First City of Greece: an Urban History of Late Antique Cult

and Religion, Leiden 2000.

--- “Lechaion, Western Port of Corinth: A Preliminary Archaeology and History,” in OJA 14.3 (1995), 293-306.

Rouillard, P. “L’Emporion chez Strabon: B. Les Emporia Strabioniens: Fonctions et Activités,” in Bresson and Rouillard (eds.), L’Emporion, Paris 1993, pp. 35-46.

Rougé, J., Recherches sur l’organisation du commerce maritime en Méditerranée sous l’Empire

Romain, Paris 1966.

Salmon, J.B., Wealthy Corinth: A History of the City to 338 B.C. Oxford 1984.

Sanders, G.D.R., “Portage of Ships Across the Isthmus,” in Tropis IV: 4th International Symposium

on Ship construction in Antiquity, Athens 1996, 423-428.

25


Scranton, R.L., J.W. Shaw, and L. Ibrahim, Kenchreai, Eastern Port of Corinth. Vol. 1. Topography

and Architecture, Leiden 1978.

Shaw, J. W., “Greek and Roman harbourworks.” In George F. Bass, ed., A History of Seafaring

based on Underwater Archaeology: 87-112. London 1972, 87-112.

Sommerstein, Alan H. (ed. and trans.), Thesmophoriazusae, Warminster, England 1994.

Taylor, L.R. and A.B. West, “Latin Elegiacs from Corinth,” in AJA 32.1 (1928), 9-22.

Tompkins, Daniel P., Review of Donald W. Engels, Roman Corinth, in BMCR 1990.

Verdelis, N.M., “Ἀνασκαφή τοῦ Διόλκου,” in Prakt 1962 (1966b), 48-50.

--- “Ἀνασκαφή τοῦ Διόλκου,” in Prakt 1960 (1966a), 136-143.

--- “Ἀρχαιότητες Ἀργολιδοκορινθίας” in ArchDelt 16 (1960 [1962]), 79-82.

--- “Συνέχισις τῆς ἀνασκαφῆς τοῦ Διόλκου,” in ArchEph (1956), Chronika, 1-3.

--- “Die Ausgrabung des Diolkos während der Jahre 1957-1959,” in AthMitt 73 (1958), 140-145.

--- “How the Ancient Greeks Transported Ships over the Isthmus of Corinth; Uncovering the

2550-year-old Diolcos of Periander,” in Illustrated London News (October 19, 1957), 649-

651.

---“Der Diolkos am Isthmos von Korinth,” in AthMitt 71 (1956), 51-59

von Reden, Sitta, “The Piraeus – A World Apart,” in Greece and Rome, Second Series, 42.1

(1995), 24-37.

Werner, W., “The Largest Ship Trackway in Ancient Times: the Diolkos of the Isthmus of Corinth,

Greece, and Early Attempts to Build a Canal,” in International Journal of Nautical

Archaeology 26 (1997), 98-119.

West, A.B. (1931) Corinth VIII.ii: Latin Inscriptions 1896-1926. Princeton.

Wiseman, J., “Corinth and Rome I: 228 B.C.-A.D. 267,” in ANRW II.7.1 (1979).

Wyse, Sir Thomas, An Excursion in the Peloponnesos in the Year 1858, London 1865.

26

pettegrew_diolkos and emporium

Documents

roman city

ancient city

commercial emporium

commercial thoroughfare

maritime city

commercial facility

city wealthy

commercial destination