“At its narrowest, the isthmus is less than four miles wide,” he said. “A young fellow like you, Gordianus, might easily walk from the Gulf of Corinth on the north to the Gulf of Aegina on the south and back again in a single day, with time for a leisurely lunch beside this road, which at the isthmus links the two parts of Greece.”
“The route is certainly popular,” I said. Since leaving Olympia, we were constantly being passed by faster vehicles and travelers on horseback.
“Yes,” said Antipater, “there’s always a great deal of coming and going between the cities of the mainland—Athens, Thebes, and the rest—and the cities of the Peloponnesus, like Sparta and Argos. But the traffic is especially heavy now, and particularly in the easterly direction, since the Games at Olympia have just ended and all the athletes and spectators who poured into the Peloponnesus from the mainland are now heading home again. To do so by land, this is the only route.”
The winding road took a turn to the north, skirting a craggy peak to our left that erupted from the earth like a knuckle of sheer rock. As the road crested a hill, I suddenly saw the Gulf of Corinth straight ahead of us, and at the same time, far away to our right, I had my first glimpse of the Gulf of Aegina, a glimmer of silver beyond a long blue ridge.
“With the two gulfs so close on either side, and this road the only route from west to east, I should think this would be an ideal location for a city,” I said.
I was rather proud of this astute observation, and expected my old tutor to reward me with a smile. Instead, Antipater scowled. “Gordianus! Do you remember nothing of the geography I’ve taught you? Do you not realize where we are?”
I was eighteen, and a man, but Antipater had a way of speaking that made me feel I was a boy again.
He shook his head. “Fifty-four years ago, for the glory of Rome, Lucius Mummius utterly destroyed the city of Corinth and its people. And you, a Roman, don’t even know where Corinth was! Could you even find it on a map?”
“Of course I could,” I protested. “If that’s the Gulf of Corinth, to the north … and this winding road will eventually take us down to the Isthmus of Corinth, over that way … then…” I looked up at the craggy peak to our left. “Do you mean to say that’s Acrocorinth, the fortified mountain above the ancient city?” I squinted. “Now that I look, I do see the ruins of what might have been a line of walls up there. But that means the city must have been right over there, at the foot of that sheer cliff.”
I finally saw what had been in plain sight but invisible to my inattentive gaze—a distant jumble of stones and mounds of earth that were all that remained of the once proud city of Corinth. I felt a stirring of curiosity, but the ruins were a considerable distance from the road, and the late summer day was drawing to a close. The cart and the mules cast long shadows on the tall, dry grass. Antipater leaned forward to speak to the driver.
“Is there a place nearby where we can spend the night?”
The driver turned his head and looked at Antipater as if he were a madman. “Here, so near the ruins? Of course not! The Romans won’t allow so much as a vegetable stand to be built within a mile of the ancient walls, much less an inn. Besides, this place is…”
“Yes?” said Antipater. “Go on.”
“Haunted!” The man lowered his voice to a gruff whisper. “This is as close as I care to come to it. I dread passing by here, every time I make this trip.”
“Nevertheless, it’s my intention to have a closer look at the ruins,” said Antipater.
The driver snapped the reins and urged the mules to go faster. “You’ll be doing so without me, then. I tell you what—up ahead there’s a road that branches off to the left. That will take us down to the waterfront, to the old port of Lechaeum. There’s a Roman garrison there. The soldiers maintain a few of the docks and warehouses, strictly for military use. There’s not much of a town, just a few shops and a brothel that caters to the soldiers, but there’s a small inn with a tavern. You and the young Roman can spend the night there.”
“Where will you sleep?” I said.
“A pile of straw in the stable will be good enough for me,” said the driver.
“After a visit to the brothel, no doubt,” whispered Antipater.
“And tomorrow morning,” the driver went on, “if you’re still bent on visiting the ruins, I’ll drop you off. You can have a look at the place in broad daylight, and then I’ll come back and fetch you before nightfall.”
As the road tilted downward we saw the Gulf of Corinth before us, a broad sheet of gold lit by the westering sun. Eventually, the old port appeared as a silhouette of jumbled roofs against the shimmering water. As we drew nearer, the silhouette resolved into ramshackle structures. The inn was the first building we came to. It was a humble-looking place, but after a long day on the wagon I was glad to see it. No people were about. As the wagon came to a halt, a few dogs lying in the dusty street roused themselves and listlessly wagged their tails, looking worn out by the heat of the day but too hungry to miss an opportunity to beg. The driver shooed them away and went inside to make arrangements for us.
I looked around, but there was not much to see. The place had a melancholy, deserted air. All the nearby buildings had fallen into disrepair. Walls had given way. Roofs had fallen in.
“To think, Lechaeum was once one of the busiest ports in all Greece!” Antipater sighed. “The sister port on the other side of the isthmus is probably just as dilapidated.”
“But if the location is so ideal, why do the Romans not rebuild the ports, and reap the profits?”
“Ask the Roman Senate! It’s because they’re all so jealous of each other, I suspect. None of them is willing to give the authority to rebuild the port to another senator—they can’t stand to see a rival become rich off such a lucrative commission. So nothing is done.”
“But the driver says there’s a Roman garrison.”
“Yes, stationed here not to maintain the port but rather to keep anyone from using it! Because it dared to defy Rome, one of the world’s most beautiful cities was destroyed, and because the conquerors squabble among themselves, the ports of ancient Corinth are left to rot.”
I had never heard Antipater express such vehement disdain for Rome. While I was growing up, he had done his best to teach me Greek and to instill in me an appreciation of Greek culture, but regarding recent history, particularly Rome’s conquest of Greece, he had always been circumspect.
The driver returned with bad news: there was no room at the inn.
“What! But this won’t do,” declared Antipater. “I shall talk to the innkeeper myself.” I helped him dismount from the cart and followed him inside.
The innkeeper was not a local, but a discharged Roman centurion named Gnaeus who had served for years at the Roman garrison before retiring to run the little inn and tavern. He explained that another party had arrived ahead of us and taken all four rooms.
“Every room? Who are these people?” said Antipater, speaking Latin in preference to the innkeeper’s uncouth Greek.
“A group of Roman travelers, just come from Olympia. They say they want to stay here for a while and have a look at the old ruins up the hill. That’s them in the tavern, having some wine and a bite to eat.” The innkeeper nodded toward the adjoining room, from which I heard a murmur of conversation and occasional laughter.
Antipater glared. “‘A look at the old ruins,’ you say? The city had a name, you know: Corinth. Now why don’t you go ask your other guests to double-up, and free a room for us?”
The innkeeper scowled and muttered under his breath: “Crazy old Greek!”
“What did you say?” asked Antipater.
“Yes, repeat what you just said,” I demanded.
The innkeeper took his first good look at me. His eyes settled on the iron ring on my right hand.