Corinth - what we know from history..... which is to say without the bible bullshit story.
In 146 BC the ancient Greek city of Corinth was captured, sacked, burned and leveled by Lucius Mummius on orders of the Senate. This ended the illusion of Greek independence which the Romans had fostered for 50 years. Tired of their endless squabbling and treachery the Senate sent a message to all of Greece. Basically that message was: "Fuck you, we're in charge. If you doubt it, look at where Corinth used to be!"
The site remained vacant until 44 BC when Gaius Julius Caesar decided that Corinth ( and Carthage - which had gotten the same treatment in the same year) were simply too valuable sites to be left vacant. He determined to set up colonies there but of course the plans could not have been too far advanced as Caesar was murdered in March of 44.
From then to 31 BC the region was wracked by the civil wars between (first) Antony/Octavian v Cassius/Brutus and slightly later between Octavian/Agrippa v Antony/Cleopatra. Greece was a prime battleground in both wars a situation certain to slow down growth.
Finally by 30 BC things had settled down to the Pax Romana and in 27 Octavian, now Augustus, revised the provincial roster making Achaea ( including Corinth ) a senatorial province meaning that the senate got to appoint the officials who would rob the province blind. Still, Greece slowly recovered. Under Augustus the theaters of military action shifted to the borders and for that reason there is not a lot of history written about Corinth at this time. Archaeology is a different story and we'll get to that in a moment.
One thing we know is that the original colony was not a rousing success. In 67 AD, Nero determined to dig a canal through the Isthmus to facilitate ship traffic. Titus Flavius Vespasianus sent him 6,000 slaves that he had taken as a result of his successful campaign in Galilee against Josephus' jewish rebel army to do the work. A year or so later when Nero died his successor, Galba, decided the project was too expensive and scrapped it. Presumably given the longevity of slaves doing manual labor a minimal percentage would have still been alive and could have been re-purposed to other tasks. But these are slaves.... not wealthy merchants!
Eventually, the aforementioned Vespasian was the winner in the struggle called The Year of the Four Emperors and one of the things he decided to do was re-found the colony at Corinth.
http://corinth.sas.upenn.edu/vesp.html
So it seems that far from being the thriving community that xtians love to postulate, mid-first century Corinth was something of a flop. However, Vespasian's re-founding in the 70's seems to have worked. Of course, that is a little too late to save the pauline fairy tale.
But it gets worse. Because c 145 the Greek geographer Pausanias wrote his Description of Greece and Volume II deals with Corinth. Alas, even in the mid 2d century he fails to mention jews or xtians despite literally wandering around and recording all sorts of shrines visible in the city.
So here you have the dilemma. The descriptions of Corinth contained in the paul tales do not match what we find on the ground from archaeology nor from the writings of Pausanias. We do know that Corinth finally did begin growing into a decent sized city after Vespasian gave it an infusion of new colonists. But here is the problem, Danny. And I'd really like you to think it over.
On the one hand we have hard evidence and on the other we have xtian propaganda. Guess which I consider more valuable?
In 146 BC the ancient Greek city of Corinth was captured, sacked, burned and leveled by Lucius Mummius on orders of the Senate. This ended the illusion of Greek independence which the Romans had fostered for 50 years. Tired of their endless squabbling and treachery the Senate sent a message to all of Greece. Basically that message was: "Fuck you, we're in charge. If you doubt it, look at where Corinth used to be!"
The site remained vacant until 44 BC when Gaius Julius Caesar decided that Corinth ( and Carthage - which had gotten the same treatment in the same year) were simply too valuable sites to be left vacant. He determined to set up colonies there but of course the plans could not have been too far advanced as Caesar was murdered in March of 44.
From then to 31 BC the region was wracked by the civil wars between (first) Antony/Octavian v Cassius/Brutus and slightly later between Octavian/Agrippa v Antony/Cleopatra. Greece was a prime battleground in both wars a situation certain to slow down growth.
Finally by 30 BC things had settled down to the Pax Romana and in 27 Octavian, now Augustus, revised the provincial roster making Achaea ( including Corinth ) a senatorial province meaning that the senate got to appoint the officials who would rob the province blind. Still, Greece slowly recovered. Under Augustus the theaters of military action shifted to the borders and for that reason there is not a lot of history written about Corinth at this time. Archaeology is a different story and we'll get to that in a moment.
One thing we know is that the original colony was not a rousing success. In 67 AD, Nero determined to dig a canal through the Isthmus to facilitate ship traffic. Titus Flavius Vespasianus sent him 6,000 slaves that he had taken as a result of his successful campaign in Galilee against Josephus' jewish rebel army to do the work. A year or so later when Nero died his successor, Galba, decided the project was too expensive and scrapped it. Presumably given the longevity of slaves doing manual labor a minimal percentage would have still been alive and could have been re-purposed to other tasks. But these are slaves.... not wealthy merchants!
Eventually, the aforementioned Vespasian was the winner in the struggle called The Year of the Four Emperors and one of the things he decided to do was re-found the colony at Corinth.
http://corinth.sas.upenn.edu/vesp.html
Quote:A comparison of the Caesarian and the Flavian planning systems seems to indicate that the Caesarian plan for the urban area of Corinth was reduced in size in the latter plan. Evidence on both the east and west sides of the city suggest that there was a reduction in the size of the Caesarian colony in the first century A.D. This reduced form shows some correspondence with what has been identified as the Late Roman city (Fig. 17). Apparently, some of the land at the eastern and western extremities of what had been originally planned, as well as some land in the southern urban area, was not being utilized and therefore was reallocated for agricultural use. The city as planned for in the Caesarian colony appears to have been reduced by about 40 percent. One implication of this contraction is that the population of the original Roman colony never became as large as originally anticipated.
So it seems that far from being the thriving community that xtians love to postulate, mid-first century Corinth was something of a flop. However, Vespasian's re-founding in the 70's seems to have worked. Of course, that is a little too late to save the pauline fairy tale.
But it gets worse. Because c 145 the Greek geographer Pausanias wrote his Description of Greece and Volume II deals with Corinth. Alas, even in the mid 2d century he fails to mention jews or xtians despite literally wandering around and recording all sorts of shrines visible in the city.
So here you have the dilemma. The descriptions of Corinth contained in the paul tales do not match what we find on the ground from archaeology nor from the writings of Pausanias. We do know that Corinth finally did begin growing into a decent sized city after Vespasian gave it an infusion of new colonists. But here is the problem, Danny. And I'd really like you to think it over.
On the one hand we have hard evidence and on the other we have xtian propaganda. Guess which I consider more valuable?
