LECHAION
Corinthia, Greece.
The port of
Corinth on the Corinthian Gulf ca. 3 km N of the ancient city and joined to it by double long walls and a
broad paved avenue. Established by at least the time of
the Kypselid tyrants and a thriving port in the Roman
period, it was one of the largest harbors in Greece, occupying an area of ca. 10 hectares. Two outer harbors protected by moles lay on the shore and communicated with
a spacious inner harbor through a narrow channel bordered by stone jetties. In the middle of the W half of
the inner harbor stands the masonry core of a Roman
monument. The prominent mounds of sand near the
shore were probably heaped up by Roman engineers
when clearing out the inner harbor. At the town of
Lechaion there were ship-sheds (
Xen. Hell. 4.4.12) and
Sanctuaries of Poseidon (
Paus. 2.2.3) and Aphrodite
(Plut.
Mor. 146 D). The site has never been excavated
and our best evidence for its ancient buildings is a coin
of Corinth under Caracalla. A small Classical cemetery
and a Roman villa have been excavated to the S of the
ancient harbor.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Imhoof-Blumer & P. Gardner,
A
Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias (1887) 115, no.
11; J. Paris,
BCH 39 (1915) 5-16
P; K. Lehmann-Hartleben,
Klio Beih. 14 (1923) 53, 148-52; W. Zschietzchmann,
RE Suppl. V, 542-45
P; J. W. Shaw,
AJA 73 (1969)
370-72
MPI.
R. STROUD
