In the time of Paul, Athens was a Roman city, though still one of the great artistic and philosophical centers of the world. At a little distance from the acropolis on its northern side, a forum of the Roman period was laid bare in 1891; (see Fig. 272). Possibly this is the market-place in which Paul, during his stay there, reasoned every day with them that met him (Acts 17:17), though of this we cannot be certain, for, while this was a market-place in the Roman period, the older market of the Athenian people lay to the westward of it. To the west of the acropolis lies the old Areopagus, or Mars’ Hill (Fig. 273), from which it was long supposed that Paul made the address recorded in Acts 17:22-31. Ramsay,[319] following Curtius, has made it probable that the address was delivered to the city-fathers of Athens, not because they were putting Paul to a judicial trial, but because they wished to see whether he was to be allowed to teach Christianity, which they took for a new philosophy, in the university of Athens--for Athens itself was a kind of university. It seems probable that the meetings of the city-fathers, who were collectively called the Areopagus (Acts 17:22), were held not on the top of the rock, but in the market-place. The Athenian altar “to an unknown god” is treated in Part II, Chapter XXVII, § 2. =2. Corinth.=--From Athens, Paul went to Corinth, where he spent a year and a half (Acts 18:1, 11). Corinth was one of the old cities of Greece. In Homeric and earlier times it appears to have been subject to Argos. Situated on the isthmus between northern Greece and the Peloponnesus, the sea-trade of Corinth made it an important city. It rose to prominence in the seventh century before Christ. At some early time foreigners from the east, probably Phœnicians, had settled in Corinth and established the worship of the Semitic goddess Astarte on Acro-Corinthus, a hill that rises some five hundred feet above the city. The goddess was here known as Aphrodite,[320] and the debasing character of her worship tended to foster that lack of sensitiveness in matters of social morality with which Paul deals in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. The trade of Corinth made it rich and its riches excited the enmity of Rome. It was accordingly destroyed by the Romans in 146 B. C., but a century later was rebuilt by Julius Cæsar. Ancient Corinth has now entirely vanished. Excavations were begun at Corinth by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 1896 under the direction of the late Prof. Rufus B. Richardson. The work has been carried forward season by season ever since.[321] Although there were no topographical indications to help the excavators at the start, the theater, the Agora or market-place, a Roman street, the road to Lechæum, and the temple of Apollo have been discovered; (Figs. 274, 276).