Corinth the Erotopolis
by Akira Kato
April 15, 2001

Corinth the Erotopolis

      In his seventies, Diogenes hobbled with a cane in the crowded agora. Wearing a soiled, worn-out tribon—a wrapper around his slender body—made of coarse dark-colored wool, he appeared like an aged philosopher. Originally, the national dress of Spartan men, the tribon had become a favored garment adopted by conservative, pro-Spartan men as well as philosophers.
      Corinth snuggled at the foot of Acro-Corinth—the 1800-foot-high citadel. Diogenes stopped for a breath and watched the massive Temple of Apollo, one of the oldest in Greece, which reminded him of the golden age of Periander, under whose rein, during sixth century, B.C., Corinth had become a great power. Its trade had flourished.
      The government remained oligarchical, with the well-fed, pleasure-loving merchants showing little interest in the ideals of political democracy, while the growth of the democratic Athenian empire aroused their jealousy. Consequently, Corinth associated itself with Sparta and emerged with considerable benefit from the Peloponnesian War.
      Built upon a raised platform and enclosed within a rectangle of monolithic pillars, the Temple of Apollo turned into a cornerstone of this merchant city.
      Diogenes strolled toward the central open space of the agora paved with large pebbles, bordered on the south by a magnificent two-storey building—the stoa, whose outer colonnade consisted of seventy-one columns. It contained shops, small temples, and taverns, where merchants discussed market prices and local politics.
      Soon, Diogenes noticed a middle-aged, richly-clad woman who knelt with her head to the ground before a holy image in one of the small temples. The old man approached her and asked, “Are you not afraid?”
      Disturbed by the senile intruder, the woman, with a grimace, gazed up at the aged man. “Don’t you see? I’m praying.”
      As the woman frowned at his frail body, Diogenes looked the woman in the face with his piercing eyes—far from senile. At first, the woman regarded him as a demented beggar. She even gestured to drive him away as if to brush off a horsefly. Then she sensed something of a dignity, and studied him from head to toe.
      “Ma’am, I can see you praying, but don’t you realize?—you’re in so indecent an attitude.”
      “Me? Indecent? How dare!” The woman glared at him.
      “Yes.” The old man pointed around at other small temples. “You see, some gods may be behind you. For every place is full of them.”
      With a cynical smile, Diogenes strolled away as the woman watched him, dumbfounded.
      The inhabitants of Corinth tended to be mariners, who had founded the colonies of Syracuse and Corcyra (Corfu) in the seventh century B.C. Their naval enterprise assured the city’s commercial pre-eminence, its wealth being increased by the fertile coastal plain with olive groves that extended from the base of Acro-Corinth to the foothills of Sicyon, the so-called town of cucumbers. Wealth promoted luxury, and the Corinthians acquired the reputation of being the most licentious people in Greece.

With Aphrodite as patron goddess, the marketplace abounded with prostitutes—often women of refined accomplishments who dedicated to the art of venal love with religious devotion.

      In fact the most of them turned out priestesses in the temple of Aphrodite. Prostitution in Corinth, like pederasty throughout Greece, became an accepted way of life.
      In this city lived Lais, the renowned courtesan, whose bosom appeared so perfect that painters from all over Greece came to Corinth to draw its divine form.
      Indeed, Corinth had become a center of painters and craftsmen. Some shops at the agora sold various terra-cotta vases—kraters, amphorae, and other ceramics. Up to the sixth century B.C., Corinthian potters—mainly interested in the export trade, unlike those of Attica—had exported large quantities of ceramics to Etruria (modern Tuscany in Western Italy). In spite of the mass production, the quality of their products remained high until the middle of the sixth century B.C. when the Athenians captured the principal markets. The designs became larger and coarser with more lavish use of reddish-purple paint and rosettes. Floral motifs became popular.
     
      Born in Sinope—a colonial port town on the southern coast of the Black Sea—in 412 B.C., Diogenes had become a banker. Miletus, southernmost of the Ionian twelve mega city-states, had grown into the richest city of the Greek world during the sixth century B.C., and Sinope became one of Miletus’ colonies.
      Unfortunately, Diogenes had gone bankrupt. Since then, he had adopted a beggar’s life, and wandered around, wearing a threadbare garb and carrying a gnarled staff. For a time he had made his home in a cask in the court of the temple of Cybele at Athens. He envied the simple life of animals, and tried to imitate it. He slept on the ground and ate what he could find wherever he went.
      Diogenes refused to recognize laws, but he injured no one, announcing himself, long before the Stoics, a citizen of the world or kosmopolite. He traveled leisurely and lived for some years in Syracuse. On one of his journeys he became captured by pirates, who sold him as a slave to Xeniades of Corinth.
      “Diogenes, what can you do?” asked his master.
      “I can govern men.”
      “Well, anyway, you look like a decent man.”
      So, Xeniades made him tutor of his sons and manager of his household. Diogenes performed his duties quite well.
      “Holy cow! You are like a genius,” said his master. “What on earth did you do before becoming a slave?”
      “I used to be a banker.”
      “Oh, no wonder.”
      “But I went bankrupt.”
      “Well, that’s life, isn’t it?”
      Diogenes continued to live his simple life, so consistently that he became, next to Alexander, the most famous man in Greece as a man of the Cynic philosophy.
      A man who believed in the Cynic philosophy tried to reduce the things of the flesh to bare necessities so that his soul could become as free as possible. Antisthenes took the doctrine literally.
      Aristippus once said, “I possess, but am not possessed.”
      Then Antisthenes said, “I do not possess, in order not to be possessed.”
      Antisthenes had no property, dressed in so ragged a cloak that Socrates twitted him, “I can see your vanity through the holes of your cloak.”
      After Socrates died, Antisthenes resumed his role as teacher. He chose as his lecture center the gymnasium Cynosarges (Dogfish) because he identified himself with the people of low, alien, or illegitimate birth. The name ‘Cynic’ became attached to the school rather from the place than from the creed. Half slave in origin, Antisthenes—dressed like a workman—took no pay for his teaching, and preferred the poor for his pupils. He drove away anyone unwilling to practice poverty and hardship. He refused at first to take Diogenes as a pupil. Diogenes insisted doggedly. Eventually, Antisthenes accepted him. Diogenes made his teacher’s doctrine famous throughout Hellas by literally living his life as a man of poverty.

When Diogenes took a break, sitting under the tree, one stroller in his early thirties recognized Diogenes and approached the old man.

      Wearing an exomis, the man appeared a slave. Pinned at the left shoulder, it left the right shoulder bare. The exomis had become the regular dress for slaves, craftsmen, athletes, hunters, and manual laborers.
      “Sir, can I ask you a question?”
      “Sure.”
      “What is your aim in life?”
      “Happiness,” answered Diogenes.
      The man seemed astounded because the old man appeared far away from happiness.
      “But my happiness,” said the old man, “is to be found not in the pursuit of pleasure but in a simple and natural life, independent as possible of all external aids.”
      “Is it feasible?”
      “Of course.”
      “No happiness in pleasure?”
      “Yes, but only if pleasure results from one’s own labor and effort, and is not followed by remorse.”
      “It seems to me so elusive.”
      “That’s true. It might disappoint you when you capture it. You may more wisely call it an evil than a good.”
      “So how can I achieve my happiness?”
      “A modest and virtuous life is the only road to happiness. Wealth destroys peace. Envious desire, like carnal lust, eats away the soul. Slavery is unjust but doesn't matter.”
      “Why not?”
      “Well, the sage will find it as easy to be happy in bondage as in freedom. You see, only internal freedom counts.”
      “Internal Freedom?”
      “That’s right. You can be free even in slavery. Do you know, the gods gave man an easy existence, but man has complicated it by itching for luxuries.”
      “Sir, do you have much faith in the gods?”
      “Yes, to a certain extent.”
      “A priest of my acquaintance told me,” said the man, “the virtuous will enjoy many good things after death. So I told him—then why do you not die?”
      Diogenes smirked. “I like that.”
      “Sir, what do you think of that?”
      “Well, that might be true. I remember one incident. In Samothrace, some merchants went to sea, but they didn’t return on the scheduled date. They met the violent storm, but survived shipwreck. When the survivor returned and saw the offering at the alter, his wife told him—the offerings would have been much more numerous if you were dead.”
      Both men laughed.
      “Virtue,” said Diogenes, “must be accepted as its own reward and should not depend on the existence or justice of the gods.
      “I wonder if virtue exists in our desire.”
      “Certainly. Desire as little as possible. Drink only water so that you could injure no one.”
      “How about sexual desire?”
      “It’s natural like hunger. But desire as little as possible. You shouldn’t feel ashamed to satisfy your desire, even with a prostitute.”

The Cynic philosophy became part of a “back-to-nature” movement which arose in Athens during the fifth century B.C. as a reaction of maladjustment to a sophisticated civilization.

      Like the Cynic “nature people”, Diogenes tried to eat meat raw because cooking seemed unnatural. The best society, he believed, would be one without artifices or laws.
      After a break, Diogenes stood up. Then another person approached him.
      “Sir, I have a question to ask.”
      The old man studied the youth from head to toe because he dressed like a woman with various accessories. Diogenes disliked richly-clad women, and despised men who behaved like those extravagant snobs. Both stared at each other for a while, then Diogenes said, “I will not answer until you tell me whether you are a boy or a girl.”
      Humiliated, the youth stomped away, swearing like a boisterous, bitter-tongued sailor.
      Stunned, the old man gawked at the youth as the sweet scent of fragrance tickled his nostrils.
      To the east of the gateway lay the most attractive monument—the Fountain of Peirene. The legend said that a grief-stricken lady had turned into a spring because of the unquenchable tears she shed for her son who had been accidentally killed by Artemis—the virgin huntress. Six rectangular chambers, each faced with an arch, contained basins connected with an underground reservoir fed by two different springs. Pindar, the renowned poet, had admired the fountain and described Corinth as ‘the city of Peirene.’ Adorned with successive architectural embellishments from the sixth century B.C., the fountain served as an oasis in the crowded agora.
      When he stepped over to the fountain, Diogenes noticed a small boy throwing a stone at the crowd.
      “Son, what do you think you’re doing?” He looked at the boy with a disapproving gaze.
      “I’m throwing a stone.”
      “I can see that, but why?”
      “’Cause I don’t have anything else to do.”
      Dumbstruck, Diogenes took a sigh. “Where is your father?”
      “I don’t have one.”
      “Of course, you do.”
      “But, I’ve never seen mine.”
      “Where is your mother, then?”
      “Mom is entertaining her guest.”
      “Oh? Your mother is a courtesan?”
      The boy nodded.
      “Son, take care lest you hit your father.”

On his accession Alexander the Great found himself at the head of a tottering empire. The northern tribes in Thrace and Illyria revolted. Aetolia, Acarnania, Phocis, Elis, Argolis renounced their allegiance.

      The Persian King, Artaxerxes III, boasted that he had instigated the killing of Philip—Alexander’s father—and that Persia now had nothing to fear from the immature stripling of twenty who had succeeded to the Macedonian throne.
      When the news of Philip’s death reached Athens, Demosthenes donned a festal garb, placed a garland of flowers on his head, and roared in the Assembly, “Fellow members! Why don’t we give a crown of honor to the assassin Pausanias!”
      Within Macedonia a dozen factions conspired against the young King’s life. Alexander stood up with a decisive energy and ended all internal oppositions. Having arrested and decapitated the chief plotters at home, he marched south into Greece in the spring of 336 B.C.
      Within a few days Alexander reached Thebes. Stunned by the unexpected swiftness and power of the young king, the Greek states hastened to renew their allegiance. Athens sent him a profuse apology, voted him two crowns, and conferred upon him divine honors. Satisfied, Alexander declared that all dictatorships cease in Greece, and decreed that each city should live in freedom according to its own laws.
      The amphictyonic council confirmed Alexander in all the rights and honors that it had given to his father, Philip. Eventually, the delegates from all Greek states—except Sparta—gathered together at Corinth, proclaimed Alexander supreme commander of the Greeks, and promised to contribute men and supplies for the Asiatic campaign.
      After the congress in town, with his generals, Alexander climbed the great rock of Acro-Corinth, which dominated the landscape but fit harmoniously into the complex configuration of land and sea. At the top, he enjoyed a breath-taking view. To the west, in the immediate foreground the fertile strip extended to the wooded hills of Kyllini that rose to the barren peaks, metal-colored under the azure sky. Showing their strangely eroded shapes, the mountains of the Argolid rolled southward. To the east and north lay the two seas, separated by the Isthmus of Corinth. Further to the north, behind the tapering headland of Perachora, extended the placid expanse of the Halcyonic Gulf bounded by Mount Helikon.
      To the northwest sprawled Sicyon—the town of cucumbers, so named because of numerous cucumbers that it grew. Alexander knew that it had become an important artistic center, the site of the earliest school of statuary and painting in Greece. Born here, Lysippus, a prominent sculptor, produced excellent works. Apelles—the most celebrated of Greek painters—came here to acquire a final polish to his style. The city also had become a center of fashion, famous for the taste and skill shown by the weavers and cutters of the flowing garments worn by its inhabitants.
      Surrounded by the shallow moat, the citadel became impregnable with steep slopes. The successive levels of formidable masonry permitted the defenders to annihilate all assailants with plunging fire balls.
      Climbing up along a trough of ground overgrown with spiky shrubs and long grass, the path wound up to the east peak, crowned by the temple of Aphrodite, where the citizens of Corinth worshiped the goddess of love in the most sumptuous manner.

While approaching the temple, Alexander noticed an old man sitting in the sun, reclining against the trunk of a big tree. At first, he thought, an elderly beggar took a rest after wearisome climbing.

      But he sensed something peculiar about the man. Leaving his generals behind, Alexander stepped closer to the old man, who gazed up at the young man with a touch of anger.
      “I am Alexander—the Macedonian king,” said the young ruler.
      The old man studied the young man from toe to head, and then responded with a whiff of dignity. “I am Diogenes—the Dogfish.”
      “Ask of me any favor you choose,” said the king.
      “Oh, yeah?”
      “Yes, anything you want.”
      The old man watched him again carefully, then said. “Just stand out of the sun,”
      “Oh, I’m sorry.” Alexander stepped aside so that the old man could enjoy the warmth of the gleaming sun.
      “Son, tell me what's on your mind”
      “Well ... I'm just wondering if I can govern the whole world.”
      “Then, you’re talking to the wrong person.”
      “I don’t think so.”
      “I’m a bankrupt banker. If you want the whole world, you should talk to the wealthiest merchant in town. He would know how to do it better than I do.”
      “I don’t think so.”
      “Why not?”
      “He’s after money. I’m not.”
      “What are you after?”
      “Happiness.” Alexander smiled like a playful boy.
      “Oh?” Diogenes studied him once more.
      “If I were not Alexander,” said the young warrior, “I would be Diogenes.”
      “Son, I’ll tell you—we’ve got something in common.”
      “What is it?”
      “We are going to die in the same year.”
      “That means, I don’t live long, doesn’t it?”
      “That’s right.”
      “Why?”
      “Because you’re in such a big hurry. How come?”
      “’Cause life is short.”
      “Son, slow it down. You need more thinking. So far, you’re lucky, but it won’t last forever. Haste makes waste.”
      Alexander gave it a thought. “Thank you for your advice. I’ll think it over.”

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If you're interested in the sequel, please read “Corinthians—the Most Licentious People”.