The ancient Greek temple of goddess Aphrodite is perched on a high rock in the middle of a field close to the city of Corinth, famous for its one thousand sacred prostitutes.
The Acrocorinth is the castle on the summit of the 554-meter-tall hill (1.882 feet) that juts out in the middle of the plain next to the city of Corinth is called. It encloses the foundation of a small building of the seventh century BC on the southeast corner and scattered blocks from a somewhat larger structure of the fifth century BC.
As ancient Greek traveler and geographer Pausanias (110-180 AD) describes, “For those who have gone up onto Acrocorinth there is a temple of Aphrodite. The statues there are of the armed goddess herself, Helios, and Eros holding a bow” (Description of Greece 2.5.1).
Pausanias also mentions Corinthian coins of the Roman period depicting a mountain-top temple containing the statue of a half-naked goddess contemplating herself in a shield, identified as the “Armed Aphrodite”.
According to legend, when Apollo came into conflict with Poseidon for dominance of the Corinth region, the gods decided that Poseidon would dominate the Isthmus and Apollo would dominate Acrocorinth.
A temple was built in Apollo’s honor in the city of Ancient Corinth, which was located at the foot of the rock. Apollo offered the hill to the goddess Aphrodite, for whom Medea built a sanctuary at the top. Slaves and prostitutes flocked there, who were chosen for their beauty and offered themselves as living sacrifices to the goddess. It is estimated that in ancient times more than a thousand sacred prostitutes lived permanently on Acrocorinth.
The temple is associated with sacred prostitution – or temple or cult prostitution – related to ancient Greek goddess of beauty, Aphrodite. It was a form of prostitution in which people dedicated themselves to their deity as a form of religious worship, not for personal monetary gain.
Sacred prostitution or temple prostitution
The concept of sacred or temple prostitution is described by Herodotus, often called “the father of history,” who wrote about it in Histories after traveling to Babylonia:
The foulest Babylonian custom is that which compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of Aphrodite and have intercourse with some stranger once in her life . . . It does not matter what sum the money is; the woman will never refuse, for that would be a sin, the money being by this act made sacred. After their intercourse, having discharged her sacred duty to the goddess, she goes away to her home.
Ancient Greek geographer Strabo wrote about the Temple of Acrocorinth dedicated to goddess Aphrodite:
The Sanctuary of Aphrodite at Corinth was so rich that it had possessed more than a thousand temple slaves (hierodoulai), courtesans (hetairai), whom both men and women used to dedicate to the goddess.
Strabo calls these women temple slaves and courtesans. There is no mention that the female temple slaves or courtesans in Corinth were involved in priestly rituals or sacred rites. They are mentioned in a paragraph which is about the wealth of Corinth, and the purpose of the prostitutes seems to have been to earn even more money with sex for the temple. Note that these women could not simply leave their work. They were slaves, given as gifts to the temple.
The priestly prostitutes of the temples of Aphrodite exercised a strong influence on the economic and political life of the city. In difficult situations, the hierodoulai (literally meaning sacred servants) were obligated to pray collectively for the salvation of the city. It is said that when the Persians of Xerxes descended to enslave Greece, the prostitutes of Corinth gathered at the top of Acrocorinth and prayed together.
After Xerxes’ failure, poet Simonides of Ceos was inspired to write a beautiful epigram dedicated to the prostitutes and to Aphrodite who heard their prayers. The epigram was engraved on a tablet that was placed in the temple of the goddess:
These damsels, in behalf of Greece, and all
Their gallant countrymen, stood nobly forth,
Praying to Aphrodite, the all-powerful goddess;
Nor was the queen of beauty willing ever
To leave the citadel of Greece to fall
Beneath the arrows of the unwarlike Persians.
Acrocorinth
In its heyday, Corinth had more than a thousand prostitutes on the hill of Acrocorinth. It was considered the largest and most organized center of prostitute activity in Greece, giving Corinth the reputation of a debauched city
The pilgrim-client presented himself to the goddess Aphrodite’s healers and was led to the temple to leave his gifts in honor of the goddess. Then he passed into the area where the prostitutes lived. They were strictly selected for their beauty and behavior. In the temples of Aphrodite Pandemos, prostitution was protected by official bodies. The erotic act had nothing to do with market prostitution, but was considered a sacred ritual act of union with the goddess Aphrodite.
Corinth, however, was not the only city with so many prostitutes, who were dedicated to the worship of Aphrodite. Eryx in Sicily, Paphos and Amathus in Cyprus, and the Epizephyrian Locri in Italy were also world centers of prostitution with protected temples of Aphrodite.
The Castle of Acrocorinth has elements from all the historical periods of Greece. It was built by the Corinthians in the 7th century BC with the aim of controlling the surrounding area and was connected to the city by continuous walls. The Macedonians in turn strengthened the perimeter of the walls.
When the Romans dominated the Greek territory, the Acropolis and the city of Corinth were destroyed. A century later, Julius Caesar ordered the castle to be rebuilt with ancient materials. The ruins of an underground Byzantine cistern testify today to the later rule of the Byzantines in the castle, who carried out additional fortification works.
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