The Romans killed all the men and took the women and children into slavery. Corinth was burned and obliterated…
The destruction of Corinth in 146 BC was one of the most dramatic events in the history of the Roman conquest of Greece. Α century later, the city was reborn to become a model Roman colony, yet blended with the Greek cultural heritage.
For centuries, Corinth had been one of the richest and most strategically important cities of the Greek world. Its position on the Isthmus connecting mainland Greece with the Peloponnese gave it enormous commercial and military importance. Yet in the final stages of the Roman conquest of Greece, Corinth became the principal center of resistance of the Achaean League, until it fell at the hands of the Roman general Lucius Mummius and his legions.
The fury of the Romans after the long siege resulted in the city’s sack and complete destruction. The Romans killed all the men and took the women and children into slavery. Corinth was burned and obliterated, left abandoned by its destroyers. However, the city experienced an extraordinary rebirth. In 44 BC Julius Caesar established a Roman colony on the ruins of the old city, creating a new Corinth that would become one of the most prosperous cities of Roman Greece.
The Battle of Corinth
In 146 BC, the Roman commander Consul Lucius Mummius advanced against Corinth with an army of 23,000 infantry and 3,500 cavalry. The Achaean commander Diaeus led 14,000 infantry men an 600 cavalry to defend the city. According to Polybius, a Greek historian who had close connections with Rome, wrote that the Romans initially suffered a surprise attack, but Mummius soon defeated the Achaeans in open battle. The Greek cavalry was quickly dispersed, and a Roman attack on the Achaean infantry’s flank caused the army to collapse. Diaeus fled to Megalopolis, where he killed his wife and then committed suicide. The surviving Achaeans and many Corinthians fled, leaving Corinth largely undefended.
Mummius held this army back for three days suspecting that there were more soldiers in the city waiting and the fleeing Greeks had planned to return and attack the Romans from the rear. When Mummius finally entered Corinth, he ordered its destruction. Pausanias records that “the majority of those found in it were put to the sword,” while women and children were sold into slavery. Polybius, who witnessed the aftermath, offers a particularly powerful description of the sack. He wrote that “the incidents of the capture of Corinth were melancholy,” describing Roman soldiers throwing valuable paintings onto the ground and even playing games on them.
The destruction of Corinth had consequences far beyond the battlefield. The Achaean League was dissolved, Greek political independence was severely restricted, and Rome established effective control over mainland Greece. Modern historian Mary Beard notes that the events of 146 BC were soon regarded as “a turning point,” simultaneously representing the height of Roman military success and raising questions about the increasing brutality of Roman power.
Historian Erich S. Gruen describes the war as “the last futile outburst of Greek resistance to Roman power.” The Battle of Corinth was not merely a Roman military victory. It symbolized the collapse of independent Greek political power and the beginning of a new Roman-dominated order in Greece.
Corinth after the destruction
The Roman victory over the Achaean forces was decisive. Polybius described the catastrophe in deeply emotional terms. He wrote that his 38th book concerned “the consummation of the misfortunes of Greece,” adding that no previous Greek defeat deserved the word “misfortune” more appropriately.
The destruction of the Greek city of Corinth was not merely a military defeat. According to the ancient sources, the city was completely looted of its immense artistic and material treasures and the buildings were burned and leveled to the ground. Polybius was particularly distressed by the treatment of Corinthian art. His account emphasizes the contrast between the extraordinary artistic heritage of the Greek city and the careless behavior of some Roman soldiers. The destruction thus acquired a symbolic significance: one of the great cultural centers of Greece had been overwhelmed by Rome.
Greek geographer and historian Strabo, writing several generations later, offered a somewhat different interpretation. He states that Corinth had sided with Philip of Macedon and that some Corinthians had treated Roman ambassadors with contempt. He consequently presents the Roman attack partly as punishment for Corinthian misconduct. Nevertheless, his description of the physical destruction is stark: “the city itself was razed to the ground by Lucius Mummius.” Strabo also records that the territory of Corinth was largely given to neighboring Sicyon and that Corinth itself remained deserted for a long period. His account demonstrates how the destruction had not simply removed Corinth’s political independence but temporarily eliminated the city as an active civic community.
An abandoned Greek city turns into a colony
The fate of Corinth also illustrates the broader political consequences of the Roman victory. The Achaean League was dismantled, fortifications throughout Greece were destroyed, and Rome imposed a new political order. Historian Pausanias, writing in the second century AD, remembered the transformation clearly. He states that “Corinth is no longer inhabited by any of the old Corinthians, but by colonists sent out by the Romans.” He attributes the city’s destruction to Mummius and adds that it was later re-founded by Caesar. His testimony is especially valuable because it shows that, centuries after the sack, the distinction between the old Greek Corinth and the later Roman colony remained significant.
The archaeological evidence, however, encourages some caution concerning the traditional literary picture of total destruction. Modern scholarship has reassessed the physical evidence for the sack. Charles K. Williams, Nancy Bookidis, Kathleen W. Slane and Stephen Tracy have emphasized the difficulty of identifying archaeological destruction layers that can be securely attributed to the events of 146 BC. Their research combines literary and archaeological evidence in order to reconsider both the destruction and the subsequent re-foundation of the city. A recent scholarly assessment similarly observes that archaeological evidence for the destruction is difficult to identify because later Roman construction and reuse disturbed the earlier remains. Nevertheless, the site appears to have experienced a profound decline after 146 BC, while evidence also suggests some limited activity during the intervening period.
The abandoned Corinth, however, was not simply a forgotten ruin. Its geographical position remained extraordinarily valuable and was central to its rebirth. Rome could afford to destroy Corinth as a political enemy in 146 BC, but the strategic and commercial value of the site made permanent abandonment increasingly impractical.
The rebirth of Corinth
The decisive moment came in 44 BC, when Julius Caesar founded a Roman colony at Corinth. The new settlement became known as Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis. Modern scholarship identifies it as a Caesarian colony whose original population consisted largely of Roman freedmen, later joined by Roman businessmen and other immigrants. Antony Spawforth observes that Corinth was “refounded as a Caesarian colony” and emphasizes the importance of its agricultural organization and later commercial development. The re-foundation therefore represented much more than the physical rebuilding of an old Greek city. It was a new political and social foundation established according to Roman colonial principles.
Strabo provides an important contemporary perspective on this transformation. He says that Corinth had remained deserted “for a long time” before Caesar restored it because of its advantageous position. He also describes the colonists as consisting largely of descendants of freedmen. The new Corinth was consequently ethnically and socially different from the pre-146 Greek polis. Yet the city’s earlier identity was not completely erased. When the new inhabitants cleared the ruins and opened ancient graves, they discovered Corinthian pottery and bronze objects, which were sold at high prices. Strabo remarks that Rome became filled with objects known as Necro-Corinthia. The physical remains of the destroyed Greek city thus became commodities within the cultural economy of the Roman world.
During the following centuries, Roman Corinth developed into one of the most important cities of Greece. Its strategic location enabled it to prosper commercially, while its political status made it an important administrative center. By the late first century AD, it was a flourishing center of commerce, administration, imperial cult, and entertainment. The city’s population became increasingly diverse, and what had begun as a Roman colony gradually acquired a strongly Greek character. Modern scholarship consequently stresses that Roman Corinth should not be viewed simply as an imposed Roman settlement. Over time, Romans, Greeks, freedmen, merchants and other groups participated in the formation of a complex urban society. One recent study describes the population as “ethnically and socially diverse from the very beginning,” while noting that Greek identity eventually became increasingly prominent.
The Roman Corinth
This process makes the rebirth of Corinth particularly significant. The Roman destruction of 146 BC had eliminated the old Corinthian political community, but it had not eliminated the geographical importance or cultural memory of the site. The new colony appropriated the location and eventually also inherited aspects of its predecessor’s reputation. Under Roman rule Corinth once again became wealthy, monumental and internationally connected. Later, Christianity added another layer to its identity: from the time of St Paul, Corinth became an important center of Christianity in Greece.
The history of Corinth is a striking paradox. The Roman sack of 146 BC was an act of conquest designed to demonstrate the dominant power of Rome. Polybius remembered it as one of the greatest “misfortunes of Greece,” while Pausanias, generations later, still described a city inhabited by Roman colonists rather than by the descendants of the ancient Corinthians. Yet the same Roman power that destroyed Corinth eventually recreated it. Caesar’s colony transformed a devastated Greek polis into a Roman imperial city, vibrant and prosperous due to the geographical advantages that had made the ancient city powerful.
Corinth’s story was not simply one of destruction followed by reconstruction. It was a process of political elimination, demographic transformation and cultural rebirth. The Corinth destroyed by Mummius in 146 BC was never literally restored. Instead, a new Roman Corinth arose on the same strategic site, gradually absorbing Greek traditions while developing a distinctly Roman civic identity. Its history demonstrates that conquest could destroy an ancient political order without destroying the urban and geographical forces that made a city important. In this sense, the rebirth of Corinth was one of the clearest examples of how Rome could simultaneously destroy a Greek city and create the conditions for another, profoundly different, form of Corinthian greatness.
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