Roman Corinth: West Terrace Temples to AD 200

    The Route of Pausanias

    For the actual text, click here.
    For two other theories regarding this route, click here

    The buildings discussed on the Phase Plans Page were all seen by Pausanias when he visited Corinth ca. 155, but he chose only to describe those items which were not thoroughly Roman or Romanized

    Analysis of the find spots of various Tyche-type images allows us to determine that Temple D is the one he describes as Tyche's, while the large circular statue base to the temple's southwest carried the large Parian-marble statue (presumably also of Tyche) that he mentioned.

    Temple K or the Babbius monopteros are the only temples which, following Temple D, might have had a temenos large enough to enclose a number of statues and thus constitute Pausanias' "Pantheon"; however, since both were in the same line-of-sight to Pausanias when he stood in the Forum and looked at that section of the terrace, and since he did not describe an actual building for this sanctuary, there is no easy solution to which one he described as the Pantheon.

    "Hard by" stood the Fountain of Poseidon, which is easily located. But after that, Pausanias ceases to describe the rest of the terrace's temples (perhaps ignoring them due to their Romanitas), and chooses to describe statues only.

    Fortunately, we can deduce from epigraphic and numismatic evidence that temples G and F are dedicated to the Imperial cults and Venus Victrix respectively. Meanwhile, we get the impression of a crowd of statues in the west end of the Forum standing just below the terrace, from which Pausanias picks and describes the most remarkable: an Apollo Clarius in bronze, and an Aphrodite by Hermogenes, both of which were produced before the advent of Rome in the Greek mainland.

    Pausanias wraps up his description of this end of the Forum with a description of twin statues to Hermes, one of which has a shrine built for it, which may correspond to the tripartite structure at the west end of the Central Shops, just southeast of Temple F.

    The various buildings are marked out in the "State Plan" graphic (adapted from the one on the Corinth Project Web Site) below.
    West Terrace Temples in Pausanias' time

    To see Scranton's and Williams' take on Pausanias' route, click here.

    Return to discussion and phase plans of West Terrace Temples

    Questions or comments?
    Email me at:

    ekondrat@sas.upenn.edu

    Return to my Home Page

    All graphics (except the "ARGOS" logo) and backgrounds in this site
    Copyright 1998 Eric Kondratieff/Forum Antiquum

    Links may be copied and used subject to any and all
    licensing agreements or copyrights of their originators.

    Last modified 17 April, 1999