18
July 2025
Today
I have a trip to Corinth, and then to Sounion in the afternoon. I was alone, as
Silvia wanted to walk around Athens especially to the Acropolis, and Kiyasha
wanted to do more shopping and just walking around.
First
stop (again) – the Corinth Canal. There is something strangely humbling about
standing on the bridge above the Corinth Canal, between the Aegean and Ionian
Seas. It’s not its size, though the vertical walls of limestone drop away so
sharply they almost make you dizzy – but its boldness. A manmade wound in the
land, dug through centuries of dreaming and delay. Periander imagined it in
ancient times, Nero tried to begin it with spade and spectacle, and finally,
long after emperors had turned to dust, 19th century engineers
completed the cut. Today, as ships creep slowly through the impossibly narrow
passage, you feel the old ambition still pulsing there: to connect worlds, to
force nature to yield to purpose.
And
then we were on the road again to Corinth. On the way, we passed the ruins of
an ancient Christian basilica, which had originally stood as a temple dedicated
to Isis, the Egyptian goddess. Nearby, remnants of a medieval wall could still
be seen – once part of a fortification built to protect the narrow isthmus of
Corinth. The landscape was dotted with pine groves, once considered sacred to
Poseidon and prized for shipbuilding, their tall, resin-scented trees swaying
gently in the sea breeze.
A
short drive away lies Ancient
Corinth,
scattered in sun and silence across a dry plain beneath the brooding heights of
Acrocorinth, one of the largest and oldest
fortresses in the Peloponnese. It was one of the greatest powers of ancient
Greece, continuously inhabited from Neolithic to Byzantine times and founded
important colonies like Kerkyra (Corfu) and Syracuse. Its imposing walls belong
almost entirely to the medieval period. The fortress was connected with the
history of Leo Sgouros, said to have committed suicide by jumping on horseback
from the walls in 1210 in order to avoid surrendering to the Franks, who held
the fortress until 1460, when it passed into the control of the Turks.
The
Temple of Apollo rises first into view, stark
and defiant with its seven Doric columns, their edges worn by time yet still
upright, as though refusing to forget the gods. This Temple was never buried,
it stood as always, where it is standing now, some 2,600 years old! I walked
slowly through the ruins, the air buzzing with cicadas and history, my feet
brushing against stone laid by Romans, by Greeks, by slaves and emperors alike.
The craft here is Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. There was also what was left of
the Temple of Hera (wife of Zeus) and remnants of the Temple of Octavia (sister
of Augustus).
The
agora, or marketplace, is vast,
uneven, and alive with absence. In its day, it would have been deafening – merchants
bartering, philosophers disputing, children chasing stray dogs through
colonnades. I paused at the Bema, where the apostle Paul once
stood to address the Corinthians. The judge was Gallius, who acquitted Paul for
allegedly preaching Christianity to the locals. Gallius’ brother was Seneca,
the Roman philosopher who was Nero’s tutor. The ruins are just stones now, but
somehow they hold the shape of speech, of human urgency and divine doubt.
To
my surprise, one of the most unforgettable spots was the public latrine. Smooth benches carved with
tidy keyhole-shaped openings still sit in a row over a trench once flushed with
water. I smiled, imagining the ancient chatter that must have filled that space
– daily gossip, politics, maybe a bit of poetry or scandal, all discussed as
friends shared a communal moment of relief. Civilization, after all, is built
as much on shared bathrooms as on temples.
At
the edge of the site, the path climbs toward the remnants of a stadium and theatre. The stadium is barely visible
now, its contours softened by earth and time, but I imagined the pounding of
feet, the cheers, the pride of competition. You can still see the stone starting blocks, with shallow footprint-shaped grooves carved into them to mark where
runners were to place their feet before a race an ancient version of the starting line (it
used to be that you stood ready to run, not sitting down like nowadays).
Though
the track itself is no longer intact, standing there offers a vivid glimpse
into the athletic traditions of classical Greece, where speed and skill were
celebrated alongside strength and strategy. Here I placed my feet on the marker
just the ancient athletes used to do, and asked the guide to take my picture
while I pretended that I was starting a race. But the monkey made me lose my
poise when right before taking my picture, he commented that “Of course, in
those days, athletes ran naked.”
