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Researches at Isthmia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

The following article embodies the results of researches made by the writer at the supposed site of the Sanctuary of Poseidon at the Isthmus and of the Isthmian games. Two short campaigns of excavation upon a very small scale were made in 1932 and 1933, in the course of which many areas were tested. Mr. H. Megaw has rendered invaluable assistance by making a revised and accurate plan of Justinian's fort (the so-called temenos) and a new plan of the district which includes all the areas in which trials were made; the section dealing with the fortifications (pp. 69–79) is also his work. The writer's thanks are also due to Mr. E. J. A. Kenny, who assisted in the preparation of the western section of the large plan; fig. 9 is based on a large-scale plan also by him. A short notice of the operations undertaken in 1932 appeared in J.H.S. 52, 244, but at least one suggestion made in it has now to be abandoned in the light of the fresh evidence secured in 1933.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1932

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References

page 68 note 1 The following abbreviations have been employed: Monceaux, : Gazette Archéologique, 1884, pp. 273 ff.Google Scholar; Fowler: Corinth, I: Introduction, Topography, Architecture, pp. 59–71.

page 68 note 2 Fig. 7 and PL. 26. Monceaux's plan of the area (reproduced most recently in Guide Bleu 1932) is incorrectly scaled; confusion is worse confounded by the American draughts man (Corinth I p. 61) who reproduces Monceaux's plan, but decuples the scale register; e.g. Monceaux's plan gives the distance from Stadium to Theatre as about 40 m.: ergo, the American version gives 400 m.: hence (?) Fowler, ‘about a quarter of a mile.’ The actual distance is about a furlong.

Note that where places are indicated by letter and number, the references are to Plate 26.

page 68 note 3 II, i. 7.

page 68 note 4 Frazer, , Pausanias, III, ii.Google Scholar

page 69 note 1 Procopius, , De Aed. (ed. Bonn), p. 273.Google Scholar

page 69 note 2 Procopius does not mention the number of φυλακτήρια, but Phrantzes in connection with Manuel Palaeologus's repairs states it as 153 (ed. Bonn, p. 108). Fowler (p. 55), with reason, assumes that they were originally the work of Justinian.

page 69 note 3 E.g. those of 480 B.C. (Herodotus, VII, 71) and 369 B.C. (Diod. XV, 68)

page 69 note 4 E.g. that of Manuel Palaeologus in 1415 (Phrantzes, p. 96).

page 69 note 5 Ancient Corinth, I, pp. 13 ff.

page 69 note 6 Leake, , Travels in the Morea, III, pp. 302 ff.Google Scholar; Curtius, , Peloponnesos, I, p. 14Google Scholar; II, p. 547; Frazer on Pausanias, II, 1. 5.

page 69 note 7 Pp. 275 ff.

page 70 note 1 R.E. s.v. Isthmos.

page 70 note 2 P. 54.

page 70 note 3 ‘What remains is ancient’(p. 62).

page 70 note 4 De Aed. 273, τὸν ἰσθμὸν ὅλον ἐν τῷ ἀσφαλεἴ ἐτειχίσατο, ἑπεὶ αὐτοῦ τὰ πολλὰ κατεπεπτώκει ἤδη.

page 71 note 1 Monceaux's statement that they are bedded without mortar (p. 275), copied by Fowler (p. 62), is certainly false.

page 71 note 2 Not sixteen as stated by Monceaux (p. 359), Schneider (R.E. IX, 2260, Isthmia) and Fowler (p. 67).

page 71 note 3 This has not been indicated on previously published plans. Monceaux, figs. 1 and 2; Fowler, figs. 30 and 32.

page 72 note 1 Well illustrated in Fowler, fig. 31.

page 72 note 2 P. 275. His dating of the arch is not questioned. In the west its general disposition is paralleled in the arch at Fano (A.D. 9–10) and, more exactly, in the Porte de Mars at Reims (1st century A.D.), while its pilaster decoration recalls that of the Porte du Marche at Langres. These arches have been most recently discussed and illustrated by Richmond, , Commemorative Arches and City Gates of the Augustan Age (J.R.S. XXIII, pp. 149 ff.)Google Scholar.

page 74 note 1 Fowler, p. 63.

page 74 note 2 The west flank of the gate has a superficial resemblance to Greek work which perhaps explains its being mistaken for such (Monceaux, p. 279 and Fowler, p. 63). By exposure to the weather the mortar has been washed from the joints, as in other parts of the enclosure, but it remains undisturbed on the interior return of the wall; though the surface is much worn, on one stone at least the characteristic tool-marks are clearly visible.

page 74 note 3 Fowler, p. 63; Monceaux, p. 279.

page 74 note 4 P. 276.

page 74 note 5 P. 62.

page 74 note 6 The position of this bastion 14 is one of several errors on Monceaux's plan which Fowler has not corrected.

page 75 note 1 Fowler, p. 62.

page 76 note 1 Millet, Le Monastère de Daphni, pl. II, whence Wulff, Altchr. u. Byz. Kunst, II, fig. 393.

page 76 note 2 Millet, op. cit. p. 5 and pl. I; this system is confined to the lower courses.

page 76 note 3 Procopius, De Aed. p. 271.

page 76 note 4 L' Afrique Byzantine, part II.

page 76 note 5 Ibid. p. 148 and figs. I and II.

page 76 note 6 Ibid. p. 148.

page 76 note 7 Ibid. p. 154.

page 76 note 8 Ibid. figs. 29 and 30.

page 76 note 9 Ibid. fig. 50.

page 76 note 10 Phrantzes, p. 108; Paschalis, II, p. 254

page 77 note 1 Beyond this point the wall was not accurately measured; it has therefore been represented on the plan by an open line.

page 77 note 2 Krumbacher, Gesch. d. Byz. Litteratur, p. 635.

page 77 note 3 Op. cit. pp. 145 ff.

page 79 note 1 Op. cit. pp. 182 ff.

page 79 note 2 It is probable that they all belonged to the same skyphos. These sherds led to the suggestion in J.H.S. Hi, 244, that they might lie in the easternmost outskirt of a Greek level. This hypothesis, as we see below, was far from being substantiated.

page 79 note 3 Πρακτ. 1903, p. 16.

page 81 note 1 Fig. 6 should here be compared. It shows a section of C, C1, and C2 together with the ‘temenos’ wall, and what was almost certainly the original ground level before the wall was constructed.

page 81 note 2 This information I owe to Mr. Oscar Broneer, who very kindly went through some of the more significant Roman sherds with me.

page 82 note 1 It is not maintained—as will be presently seen—that there was no classical settlement in the district, but that there was never one within the ‘temenos’ wall.

page 83 note 1 Monceaux (followed by Fowler) says that architectural fragments are visible on north, south, and west walls, but none on the east: in point of fact, more are to be seen in the east wall than anywhere else; most are sawn drums of a large Doric building: there is no evidence of its date or original position.

page 83 note 2 The huge quarries whence the bulk of the material was cut are seen just east of Hexamilia.

page 83 note 3 It was perhaps abandoned at the time of the Gothic invasion in the reign of Gallienus, A.D. 262.

page 83 note 4 On the north side of A was found a subterranean channel cut in the hard clay but without any cement lining. It runs in a straight line from behind the Roman theatre (G3) towards a point half-way between bastions 12 and 13 of the fort; the fall is from west to east. At A the bottom is at 5·00 m. below present ground level, 4·75 m. below virgin soil. The channel is 0·62 m. broad, 1·25 m. high and communicated with the surface by means of circular shafts at intervals of approximately 32 m.

page 84 note 1 Loc. cit.

page 85 note 1 P. 70.

page 85 note 2 Fimmen and Fowler.

page 88 note 1 The presence of geometric and protocorinthian sherds establishes that this settlement was founded before the origin of the Isthmian games in the early sixth century.