special power to Paul's image of the church as the "body" of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12, 15-17).
The temple of Apollo stood on the hill overlooking the Roman city's main forum. It served as a reminder of Corinth's ancient splendor, and was 700 years old by Paul's time, but it was in ruins. At one time a bronze statue of Apollo stood in the temple. To Paul it would have served merely as a sermon illustration of the impotence of the Greek's pagan gods. There were several sanctuaries to Apollo inside the city.
The Ruins At Corinth
The Lechaion Road was "in use until the 10th century A.D. On the site of the excavations only a little more than 100 yards of Lechaion Street have been laid bare. The road was paved with slabs and was some 8 yards wide, with a pavement for pedestrians on both sides. Numerous bases for statues line either side of the road. Pausanias mentions a whole number of statues which he saw in his day (2nd century A.D.): a seated Hermes with a mountain goat, a Poseidon, a Leucothea, Palaemon on a dolphin and Artemis. On both sides of the road there was a Roman stoa with Corinthian columns; there were also little quadrangular shops, 16 of them on the western side. Behind the western stoa the remains of a Greek stoa with an outer row of Doric columns and an inner of Corinthian were found-they were destroyed in the year 146 B.C. The road ended at the agora (forum, market place)." (Meletzis and Papadakis, Corinth, Mycenae, p. 12). Shops and public buildings were on both sides of the Lechaion Road.
The Fountain of Peirene is where ancient Greeks believed winged Pegasus was drinking when he was captured by Bellerophon. "Peirene, the daughter of Achelous, shed so copious tears at the death of her son Cenchrias, who had been accidentally slain by Artemis, that she was metamorphosed into a fountain, or so at least Pausanias tells us (II, 32). There were two fountains named after Peirene, one high up on the Acrocorinth and the other at the foot of the mountain. The water of the upper fountain was channeled to a large basin near the Peirene Fountain which was hewn out of the rock and subdivided into four. It had a total capacity of some 520 cubic yards. In front of the great basin were 3 containers which were always full so that people could draw water from them. The architecture of the Fountain of Peirene was changed several times. During the Greek period it looked like an Ionian stoa. Later, there were 6 narrow entrances to the fountain." (Meletzis and Papadakis, Corinth, Mycenae, p. 12).
"The Agora at Corinth was one of the largest in Greece. A large space, which was 246 yards long from east to west and 140 yards wide, was paved with marble slabs and divided into two level terraces. The Agora of the Greek period, completely redesigned under the Romans in the year 146 A.D., was considerably smaller and paved with large pebble stones." (Meletzis and Papadakis, Corinth, Mycenae, p. 13).
Excavations on the southern edge of the forum have uncovered the marble-faced bema (judgment seat) on which Paul stood to address the Roman proconsul Gallio (Acts 18:12). The bema was a speaker's platform on which the judge sat or stood for the trial of one against whom an accusation had been made.
According to an inscription at Delphi, Gallio was proconsul of Achaia between 51 and 53 A.D. Gallio was the "brother of the philosopher Seneca (Nero's tutor), and uncle of the poet Lucan, the author of the Pharsalia. Seneca speaks of him as amiable and greatly beloved" (Marvin Vincent, Vincent's Word Studies In The New Testament).
"The Jewish religion was a religio licita and they were allowed to make proselytes, but not among Roman citizens. To prove that Paul was acting contrary to Roman law (for Jewish law had no standing with Gallio though the phrase has a double meaning) these Jews had to show that Paul was making converts in ways that violated the Roman regulations on that subject. The accusation as made did not show it nor did they produce any evidence to do it." (A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures In The New Testament).
The theater at Corinth was