The Chronology of the Ancient Defenses of Acrocorinth: A Reconsideration

Abstract

It is argued in this article: 1) that the rough ancient walls within the post-antique Middle Gate of Acrocorinth, and below the North Bastion, were parts of the retaining walls for a zigzag ramp ascending to the ancient gateway, which always stood more or less on the site of the extant Upper Gate; 2) that there may have been two Hellenistic phases to the extant south tower of the Upper Gate, the first, built entirely of poros ashlars, belonging to the time of Demetrios Poliorketes (with whom Carpenter had associated all the extant remains), the second to the second half of the third century; 3) that the early Hellenistic poros ashlar survives only at the bottom of the flank walls of the tower, the entire west face and the beginning of the flank returns having been rebuilt in hard Acrocorinth limestone, the upper portions of the returns in reused poros blocks; 4) that, as suggested by Scranton, the northwest walls of Acrocorinth may originally have started across the great North Bay from the northeast foot of the northwest cliffs, then ascended to the head of the bay more or less along the line of the footpath leading to the extant North Postern; 5) that the ancient poros wall at the head of the west extremity of the North Bay was not a Late Antique reconstruction, as Carpenter suggested, but rather a part of the early Hellenistic circuit of Demetrios, and that this stretch of wall has remained in situ ever since it was built; and 6) that the ancient gate or postern in the North Bay was always more or less on the site of the extant North Postern.