place in the world; nor can this protracted notice of its condition and character be justly blamed for its intrusion on this hurried narrative.
"Corinth.—There is scarcely any one of the seats of ancient magnificence and
luxury, that calls up more vivid and powerful associations, than are awakened by
the name of this once opulent and powerful city. Corinth, 'the prow and stern of
Greece,' the emporium of its commerce, the key and bulwark of the Peloponnesus,
was proverbial for its wealth as early as the time of Homer. Its situation was so
advantageous for the inexperienced navigation of early times, that it became of necessity
the center of trade. The first naval battle on record was fought between
Corinth and its colony Corcyra, about 657 B. C. 'Syracuse, the ornament of Sicily,
Corcyra, some time sovran of the seas, Ambracia in Epirus, and several other cities
more or less flourishing, owe their origin to Corinth.' (Trav. of Anarchasis, vol. III.
c. 37.) Thucydides states, that the Corinthian ship-builders first produced galleys
with three benches of oars. The circumnavigation of the peninsula was tedious
and uncertain to a proverb; while at the Isthmus, not only their cargoes, but, if requisite,
the smaller vessels might be transported from sea to sea. By its port of Cenchreae,
it received the rich merchandise of Asia, and by that of Lechaeum, it maintained
intercourse with Italy and Sicily. The Isthmian Games, by the concourse
of people which they attracted at their celebration, contributed not a little to its immense
opulence; and the prodigality of its merchants rendered the place so expensive,
that it became a saying, 'It is not for every one to go to Corinth.' Even after
its barbarous destruction by the Romans, it must have been an extremely magnificent
city. Pausanias mentions in and near the city, a theater, an odeum, a stadium, and
sixteen temples. That of Venus possessed above a thousand female slaves. 'The
women of Corinth are distinguished by their beauty; the men by their love of gain
and pleasure. They ruin their health by convivial debauches, and love with them
is only licentious passion. Venus is their principal deity. . . . The Corinthians,
who performed such illustrious acts of valor in the Persian war, becoming enervated
by pleasure, sunk under the yoke of the Argives; were obliged alternately to
solicit the protection of the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians, and the Thebans; and
are at length reduced to be only the wealthiest, the most effeminate, and the weakest
state in Greece.'" (Anacharsis.) (Mod. Trav. pp. 160, 161.)
The Hebrew stranger, entering without despondency, this new
scene of labor, passed on unnoticed, and looking about for those
with whom he might be bold to communicate, on the score of national
and religious sympathies, he found among those who like
himself were strangers, a Jew, by name Aquilas, who with his
wife Priscilla had lately arrived from Italy, whence they had just
been driven by a vexatious decree of Claudius Caesar, which, on
some groundless accusation, ordered all the Jews to depart from
Rome. Aquilas, though lately a resident in Italy, was originally
from Pontus in the northern part of Asia Minor, not very far from
Paul's native province; and this proximity of origin joined to
another circumstance arising out of it, drew the strangers together,
in this foreign city. In Pontus even at this day is carried on
that same famous manufacture of camlet articles for which Cilicia
was also distinguished and proverbial, and it is therefore perfectly
reasonable to suppose that in that age also, this business was common
in the same region, because the variety of goat which pro-
