Ακροκόρινθος Audio Guide

Acrocorinth is a steep rock rising about five hundred and seventy-five metres above the plain of Corinth. Its name means Upper Corinth, and the ancient city lay at its northern foot. George Forrest judged it the most impressive acropolis on mainland Greece. The Corinthian tyrants Cypselus and his son Periander first fortified the rock in the seventh and sixth centuries BC. Over time the defences grew into a full acropolis. The only way up is a single winding track, and the town below cannot see it. Its walls and gates are arranged on three levels, and the first gate stands on the lowest. It is a high vaulted arch, with a plain panel set above it. Old accounts say a deep ditch once lay in front of this gate, crossed by a movable bridge. From up here, a raid from central Greece or from the sea could be seen coming.

Photo: Hadrianus · CC BY-SA 4.0

About a hundred metres further up the slope, the path reaches a second vaulted gate. The wall around it is larger than the wall around the first gate. A small window is set high in the tall masonry above the arch. Beyond the gate, the road turns into a broad spiral that climbs the rock. The spiral leads up to the main gate of the citadel on the upper level.

Photo: Hadrianus · CC BY-SA 4.0

The upper citadel was the last of the three lines of defence. A square tower stands beside an arched doorway, and a cobbled path climbs toward it. The Byzantines rebuilt the fortress from about the year 350. Justinian carried out a repair in the sixth century, and more additions followed into the twelfth century. Over time the citadel became the seat of the strategos. He was the military governor of the province of Hellas, and later of the Peloponnese. The walls enclose the whole plateau, which is split into a western and an eastern part. In 1458 Mehmed the Second, called the Conqueror, took the castle from its Byzantine defender, Matthaios Asan.

Photo: George E. Koronaios · CC BY-SA 4.0

After the Ottomans, the Venetians took the castle in 1687. They repaired it and gave it the shape it has today. Some cannon on the rock are attributed to that last Venetian period, under Francesco Morosini. One of them is dated 1670. The cannon lying between two stone walls shows no date, so it cannot be matched with that one. Beyond the walls, hills roll down toward the valley. In 1715 the Ottomans besieged the castle and took it.

Άρτεμις Ντούζου · CC BY-SA 4.0

Standing over the Isthmus of Corinth, the fortress turned back enemies trying to enter the Peloponnese by land. That made the rock a last line of defence in southern Greece, used again and again. In the Hellenistic period, it was one of the Fetters of Greece, three fortresses that kept the Greek city-states under Macedonian control. The others were Demetrias and Chalcis. The Macedonians had repaired and strengthened the walls in the fourth century BC. From one of the rock's higher levels, the view reaches over the Gulf of Patras and the Corinthian Gulf. It also takes in the southern shores of central Greece. Snow-capped mountains rise beyond the water, and towns line the coastal plain below. Farther off, the western Saronic Gulf reaches toward Salamis and Aegina.

Photo: George E. Koronaios · CC BY-SA 4.0

A small stone chapel carries the name Agios Dimitrios. It has a tiled roof and a wooden door, and a rough track leads up to it past a wall of piled stones. Older accounts mention a chapel of the Prophet Elias among the remains on the rock, and it is not clear whether this is that building. The rest of the rock holds ruins of older towers, underground passages, wells, storerooms and cisterns. Many generations of people worked on these structures, building, finishing and repairing them.

Photo: Chris06 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Sultan Ahmed the Third commissioned this mosque, and today it lies mostly in ruins. The Ottoman rule that built this mosque ended in the war of the 1820s. Greek fighters held the castle from 1821. In July 1822 Dramali Pasha retook it without a fight, because its defenders had already left. After his defeat at the Battle of Dervenakia, Dramali came back to Acrocorinth. He died there a few months later, slowly wasting away. A surrender treaty was signed in October 1823. The Ottoman men stayed on until an inventory was made of the goods that would pass to the Greeks. On the feast of Saint Demetrius, the garrison finally withdrew. Three hundred Turkish-Albanian soldiers handed the rock to the Greeks. Sixty women went with them.

Photo: Iolchos07 · CC BY-SA 4.0

The water cistern known today as the Dragonera is, according to the writer Pausanias, the ancient Peirene. The spring lies within the encircling walls of the rock, and it is now called the Upper Peirene. These narrow steps are said to belong to that spring area. They climb between high walls, with a metal railing along one side and daylight showing at the top.

Mark Landon (User:Choliamb) · CC BY 4.0

Asopus, a river god, was searching for his daughter Aegina, whom Zeus had carried off. Sisyphus knew where she was. He would reveal it only if he was given a spring on the rock, and Asopus gave him one, the legend says. A dark, stone-walled chamber has a central pillar, water on the floor, and light falling in from openings above. A secure water supply on a bare rock was no small matter, and it helped the fortress serve as a stronghold that could be counted on.

Photo: Zde · CC BY-SA 4.0

The highest point of the rock once held a temple to Aphrodite, the protector goddess of Corinth. According to one myth, the sun god Helios gave the rock itself to her. The temple was built in the fifth century BC, and it was a relatively small building. Of the goddess's sanctuaries in the city, this one on the summit was the most famous. Inside stood a statue of Aphrodite in armour, holding a shield before herself as a mirror.

Photo: Vanbasten 23 · CC BY-SA 3.0