New Corinth, lying close to the shore of the Gulf, several miles from the ancient western harbour, is a town of hopeful energy and ambition, its railroad station and steamboat quay indicating a potential capacity for growth. Old Corinth, three and a half miles inland, consists of a few poor houses unified into a certain village dignity by a great plane tree that shadows the “public square.” These houses have gathered near the spot to which tourists make their way on foot or by carriage from the seashore town. Before the excavations of the American School were begun in 1896, they came in order to ascend the massive rock of Acrocorinth and to see the remaining monoliths of a Doric temple which antedates the classical period of Greek architecture. The excavations have added sites deserving of close attention, but without effect on the general features of the landscape. Acrocorinth rules the Isthmian plain, and its summit offers an outlook, from Strabo’s time the theme of many panegyrics, over wide-flung country and sea to the mountain crests of Delphi and Arcadia, of Attica and Bœotia. The plateau on the north and east of this acropolis was the site of the ancient city. Apollo’s columns, which saw its greatest power and have withstood its successive blights, alone compete with the impressiveness of the citadel. Seated on the steps of the temple and watching the mists break away from the impatient heights of Acrocorinth, we may recount to ourselves the tale “of Corinth blest, the vestibule of Isthmian Poseidon, nurse of manly splendour.” [Illustration: CORINTH Temple of Apollo, and Acrocorinth ] The diversity of legends concerning the pre-Dorian origin of Corinth illustrates the hospitality of the Greek mind toward incompatible stories. Ephyre, daughter of Ocean, in Homer gave her name to the city. Sisyphus, the son of Æolus, the son of Hellen, was introduced as founder in the effort to trace historical development. The Corinthians themselves set great store by an eponymous hero, Corinthus, the son of Zeus. Their reiteration of this exasperating claim became proverbial among the other Greeks. When the Aristophanic Dionysus arrives in Hades and bids his servant take up the wraps again and carry them inside, Xanthias exclaims:— “Aye, pick ’em up! now there it goes again, They’ve Zeus’s Corinth in ’em, that is plain!” Sisyphus and his descendants owe a long debt to the poets, if posthumous fame be a recompense for vicissitudes. Sisyphus was found by Odysseus in Hades in “strong torment,” pushing a monstrous stone up the hill only to have it roll back again. A great-great-grandson fought among the Lycians on Priam’s side at Troy and, questioned by Diomede of his ancestry, made the famous comparison which betrays the melancholy already lurking in the youth of Hellas:—