Was Corinth Really an Ancient City of Vice?

The claim that the ancient Greek city of Corinth was known in antiquity as a place of unparalleled depravity, vice, and licentiousness has regularly occurred in English-language Bible dictionaries, commentaries, and sermons for a century and a half at least. New works have repeated the claim again and again. Recently, it has even begun to make inroads into popular secular media through, for instance, the new Netflix series The Sandman.

Now, I love a good story about an ancient city of vice and perversion as much as the next person, but, unfortunately, there are at least three major problems with this narrative. The first problem is that Corinth didn’t have a reputation for “sin” or “vice” in general, but rather a very specific reputation for its female hired companions who primarily served an upper-class male clientele.

The second problem is that, while Corinth seems to have had this reputation before the Romans destroyed it in 146 BCE, the evidence for it having had this reputation after the Romans refounded the city in 44 BCE as a colonia under their rule is limited at best. The third and final problem is that Corinth was not unique at all in having a stereotypical association with a certain kind of low or disreputable activity; on the contrary, nearly every city in the ancient Greek world had some kind of disreputable stereotype attached to it.

The modern reputation of Corinth as a city of sin and depravity

The claim that ancient Corinth was a city absolutely replete with all kinds of lust, sin, and depravity has been a favorite one in English-language Bible dictionaries and commentaries for over a century and a half at least. The entry for “Corinth” in the American Tract Society Bible Dictionary, written by William Rand and originally published in 1859, describes the city as follows:

“Corinth thus became one of the most populous and wealthy cities of Greece; but its riches produced pride, ostentation, effeminacy, and all the vices generally consequent on plenty. Lasciviousness, particularly, was not only tolerated, but consecrated here, by the worship of Venus, and the notorious prostitution of numerous attendants devoted to her.”

A Dictionary of the Bible, edited by the English lexicographer William Smith, originally published in 1863, and most commonly known today as “Smith’s Bible Dictionary,” describes the city of Corinth as follows:

“Its wealth was so celebrated as to be proverbial; so were the vice and profligacy of its inhabitants. The worship of Venus where was attended with shameful licentiousness.”

The entry for “Corinth” in the Illustrated Bible Dictionary, compiled by Matthew Easton, published in its first edition in 1893 and most commonly known today as “Easton’s Bible Dictionary,” claims:

“It was noted for its wealth, and for the luxurious and immoral and vicious habits of the people.”

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, originally published in 1915, describes Corinth as “the city of vice par excellence in the Roman world.”

This portrayal of ancient Corinth remains absolutely pervasive even today, in part because Bible dictionaries and commentaries, especially those of the more fundamentalist or Evangelical variety, routinely repeat unfounded claims found in earlier dictionaries and commentaries. You can pick up nearly any modern Bible commentary and the odds are very high that it will describe Corinth in very similar terms to the nineteenth-century dictionaries I have quoted above.

If anything, Corinth’s supposed reputation for depravity and perversion has become even more wildly inflated through its constant repetition in Christian sermons, homilies, and articles. For instance, a religion column by Lyndon Stimeling published in The Lewistown Sentinel on 26 June 2021 declares:

“In Roman times Corinth was a city of wealth, luxury, and immorality. It had no rivals as a city of vice (beastiality [sic], corruption, perversion, and wickedness). Because it was a center of commerce and business, there was no lack of indulgence. Excessive drinking and drunkenness were a normal thing at Corinth.”

This portrayal has even found its way out of the realm of Protestant Bible dictionaries and commentaries and into popular secular media. In August 2022, the streaming company Netflix released the first eleven-episode season of the fantasy drama series The Sandman, based on the comic book of the same name written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics in serial form from 1989 to 1996. One of the characters in the show is a rogue nightmare serial killer with mouths instead of eyes who has escaped from the land of dreams and goes by the moniker “the Corinthian.”

In episode nine “Collectors,” the Corinthian goes to a convention for serial killers. There, at about twenty-nine minutes in, a group of his adoring fans start asking him how he chose his moniker. One of them asks: “I’ve always been curious; is the name Biblical? A reference to Paul?” Another asks: “Or to Corinth—the Roman city of vice?” A third asks: “Or are you just into leather?” Finally, the Corinthian himself replies: “All of the above.”

Leaving aside the fact that the description of Corinth as a “Roman city” is questionable at best, given that Corinth is geographically located on the Isthmus of Corinth in mainland Greece and remained predominantly culturally Greek throughout its history, even after it was refounded under Roman rule, this scene represents a clear example of the portrayal of Corinth as a notorious city of vice and perversion making its way out of Bible commentaries and sermons and into secular popular culture.

ABOVE: Screenshot from Netflix’s series The Sandman, episode nine (“Collectors”), showing one of the Corinthian’s fans asking him if he chose his name as a reference to Corinth, “the Roman city of vice”

Hetairai in Greek antiquity

Given how absolutely pervasive this conception of ancient Corinth seems to be, let us investigate what historical truth lies behind this modern reputation. In order to do this, first, I must explain some important background information.

The ancient Greek word ἑταίρα (hetaíra), the plural form of which is ἑταῖραι (hetaîrai), literally means “female companion.” Some academic dispute exists over the precise meaning of this word, but the traditional and most widely accepted interpretation holds that the term refers to a class of female hired companions or courtesans who provided companionship and entertainment to mostly upper-class Greek men in exchange for payment.

At the request of their clients, they would sing, dance, play instruments, engage in conversation, and provide sexual services. They would often accompany their clients to symposia or drinking parties, where they would provide entertainment for all the guests.

Greek sources frequently describe hetairai (or at least the famous, successful ones) as witty, highly cultured, and well informed about topics of contemporary political, philosophical, and social discussion. For instance, the Greek writer Athenaios of Naukratis, who flourished in around the late second or early third century CE, dedicates most of Book Thirteen of his Deipnosophistai or Wise Men at Dinner to a discussion of the wise and/or clever sayings of famous hetairai.

It was generally not socially acceptable or permitted for a free Greek citizen woman to become a hetaira. Instead, most or all women who worked as hetairai in antiquity are thought to have been either slaves or free resident foreigners who lacked citizenship in the city where they lived and worked.

Hetairai have been compared to modern Japanese geishas. Unlike modern geishas, however, hetairai were actually sex workers and they frequently (although perhaps not always) provided sexual services to their clients.

ABOVE: Tondo from an Attic red-figure kylix painted by Onesimos dated to c. 490 BCE depicting a hetaira retying her himation after having sex with her client

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing an Attic red-figure bell-krater by the Nikias Painter dating to around 420 BCE or thereabouts, now held in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, depicting a female aulos-player, probably a hetaira, performing for an audience of male banqueters at a symposion or drinking party

Corinth’s reputation in antiquity for its hetairai

Corinth’s advantageous location on the Isthmus of Corinth allowed the city to have two different sea ports—one on either side of the isthmus. This naturally made it major center for maritime trade, receiving ships from both sides of the Peloponnesos.

As a result of this, a large number of sailors and merchants were constantly passing through the city. These men spent considerable time on ships without women and, in many cases, upon coming to port in the city, longed desperately for female companionship and were willing to pay good money in exchange for it. This contributed to increased economic demand for hetairai.

It should therefore come as little surprise that Corinth was renowned in antiquity for its hetairai. The ancient Greek poet Pindaros of Thebes (lived c. 518 – c. 438 BCE) notably describes hetairai of Corinth in his skolion fragment 122, which has been preserved through quotation by Athenaios of Naukratis in his Deipnosophistai or Wise Men at Dinner 13.33.573b–574b.

Athenaios in his introduction to the fragment claims that Pindaros composed it to commemorate the victory of the athlete Xenophon of Corinth in the Olympic Games in 464 BCE and that it describes Xenophon’s dedication of hetairai to the goddess Aphrodite in gratitude for his victory. The Greek text as it has been preserved reads as follows:

“Πολύξεναι νεάνιδες, ἀμφίπολοι
Πειθοῦς ἐν ἀφνειῷ Κορίνθῳ,
αἵ τε τᾶς χλωρᾶς λιβάνου ξανθὰ δάκρη
θυμιᾶτε, πολλάκι ματέρ’ ἐρώτων
οὐρανίαν πτάμεναι
νοήματι πρὸς Ἀφροδίταν,
ὑµῖν ἄνευθ’ ἐπαγορίας ἔπορεν,
ὦ παῖδες, ἐρατειναῖς <ἐν> εὐναῖς
μαλθακᾶς ὥρας ἀπὸ καρπὸν δρέπεσθαι.
σὺν δ’ ἀνάγκᾳ πὰν καλόν.
. . .
ἀλλὰ θαυµάζω, τί µε λέξοντι Ἰσθμοῦ
δεσπόται τοιάνδε μελίφρονος ἀρχὰν
εὑρόμενον σκολίου
ξυνάορον ξυναῖς γυναιξίν.
διδάξαµεν χρυσὸν καθαρᾷ βασάνῳ.
. . .
ὦ Κύπρου δέσποινα, τεὸν δεῦτ’ ἐς ἄλσος
φορβάδων κορᾶν ἀγέλαν ἑκατόγγυι,
ον Ξενοφῶν τελέαις
ἐπάγαγ’ εὐχωλαῖς ἰανθείς.”

This means, in my own translation:

“Young women who welcome many guests, attendants
of Peitho in affluent Corinth,
you who burn the tawny tears of green-yellow incense,
often flying in thought
toward the mother of lusts,
Ouranian Aphrodite,
to you, without blame, she granted,
oh young ones, in delightful embraces,
to pluck the fruit of soft youth.
And with Necessity, everything is beautiful.
. . .
But I wonder what the lords of the Isthmos [i.e., the adult male citizens of Corinth] will say to me
as I am composing this sort of beginning
of a honey-sweet skolion,
accompanying women who are common to all.
We will reveal gold with a purified touchstone.
. . .
Oh mistress of Kypros, toward your precinct here,
the pasturing hundred-limbed girl herd
Xenophon led, delighting in his prayers.”

Scholars have hotly disagreed over the exact correct interpretation of this passage. The traditional interpretation holds that Athenaios’s description of it is correct and that it describes Xenophon as dedicating enslaved hetairai to the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth for them to work as “sacred prostitutes” under the temple’s ownership.

In the past decade and a half, however, scholars, including Barbara Breitenberger in her book Aphrodite and Eros: The Development of Erotic Mythology in Early Greek Poetry and Culture (published in 2007 by Routledge), Stephanie Lynn Budin in her book The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity (published in 2008 by Cambridge University Press) on pages 112–153, and Anne Pippin Burnett in her paper “Servants of Peitho: Pindar fr. 122 S” (published in the journal Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 51 [2011] 49–60) have forcefully pushed back against this interpretation.

These scholars point out that, leaving aside Athenaios’s interpretation, Pindaros’s actual text says nothing that is clearly indicative of any kind of religious dedication. The part about Xenophon leading the girls to the “ἄλσος” or “precinct” of Aphrodite could simply refer to him bringing them to Corinth, since the city was known for its association with Aphrodite and was home to many shrines of the goddess. Additionally, the poem itself is a skolion or sympotic drinking song that would be inappropriate for a solemn religious occasion.

Noting these details, the aforementioned recent scholars therefore interpret the poem as describing Xenophon merely holding a private symposion in Corinth in celebration of his victory, to which he has invited a large number of hetairai to entertain the guests. The scholar Monica S. Cyrino describes this interpretation as the “current scholarly consensus” in her book Aphrodite (published in 2010 by Routledge) on page 42.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing a Roman marble copy of a Greek bust of the poet Pindaros of Thebes from the mid-fifth century BCE, currently held in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples

Writing around a generation or so after Pindaros, the Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes (lived c. 446 – c. 386 BCE) apparently used the Greek deponent verb κορινθιάζομαι (korinthiázomai), which literally means “to Corinthianize” or “to act like a Corinthian,” to mean “to consort with hetairai” in a comedic play titled Kokalos.

Sadly, the Kokalos has not survived to the present day, but, many centuries after Aristophanes wrote the play, the Greek lexicographer Stephanos of Byzantion compiled an ethnological/geographic lexicon titled Ethnika, which includes at 374.5 (370) the following entry for the word κορινθιάζομαι, which cites Aristophanes’s Kokalos as an example of a work that uses the word with the meaning it describes. The entry reads as follows:

“καὶ κορινθιάζομαι τὸ ἑταιρεῖν, ἀπὸ τῶν ἐν Κορίνθῳ ἑταιρῶν, ἢ τὸ μαστροπεύειν. Ἀριστοφάνης ἐν Κωκάλῳ.”

This means, in my own translation:

“And ‘to act like a Corinthian’ is to consort with hetairai, from the hetairai in Corinth, or to seduce. [Citation:] Aristophanes in his Kokalos.”

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing a Roman marble bust of the Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes, dating to the first century CE, based on an earlier Greek original

Writing centuries later, the Greek geographer Strabon of Amaseia (lived c. 64 BCE – c. 24 CE) in his Geographika 8.6.20 describes Corinth’s reputation for its hetairai, claiming that, in former times, the temple of Aphrodite there owned a large number of enslaved women whom they forced to work as hetairai and that these hetairai attracted sailors to come to Corinth and were the source of Corinth’s wealth and population. He writes in the original Greek:

“τό τε τῆς Ἀφροδίτης ἱερὸν οὕτω πλούσιον ὑπῆρξεν ὥστε πλείους ἢ χιλίας ἱεροδούλους ἐκέκτητο ἑταίρας, ἃς ἀνετίθεσαν τῇ θεῷ καὶ ἄνδρες καὶ γυναῖκες. καὶ διὰ ταύτας οὖν πολυωχλεῖτο ἡ πόλις καὶ ἐπλουτίζετο: οἱ γὰρ ναύκληροι ῥᾳδίως ἐξανηλίσκοντο, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἡ παροιμία φησίν “οὐ παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἐς Κόρινθόν ἐσθ᾽ ὁ πλοῦς.” καὶ δὴ καὶ μνημονεύεταί τις ἑταίρα πρὸς τὴν ὀνειδίζουσαν, ὅτι οὐ φιλεργὸς εἴη οὐδ᾽ ἐρίων ἅπτοιτο, εἰπεῖν ‘ἐγὼ μέντοι ἡ τοιαύτη τρεῖς ἤδη καθεῖλον ἱστοὺς ἐν βραχεῖ χρόνῳ τούτῳ.’”

This means, in my own translation:

“The temple of Aphrodite became so wealthy that it acquired more than a thousand hierodoules [i.e., “holy slaves” or temple slaves], hetairai, whom both men and women dedicated to the goddess. And, because of these women, therefore, the city became populous and wealthy. For the shipowners easily squandered their money and, because of this, the proverb says: ‘Not for every man is the voyage to Corinth.’ Indeed also it is recorded that a certain hetaira said to the woman who chastised her that she was not industrious and did not fasten the wool, ‘I, in fact, took down three ἱστοί a short time ago.’”

The Greek word ἱστός, the plural form of which I have left untranslated here, literally means “a thing set upright.” It can refer to a loom for weaving, a ship’s mast, or, in this case, a man’s erect penis.

Notice that absolutely none of the ancient authors who write about Corinth’s reputation say anything whatsoever about the inhabitants of city being lustful, sexually depraved, or immoral in general. They certainly say nothing about bestiality being accepted as normal in Corinth. (I’m genuinely not even sure where Stimeling managed to get that idea.) Instead, all these authors merely describe the city as being known for its hetairai. In this regard, Corinth may be seen as similar to certain large cities in Europe today that are known for having large numbers of sex workers, such as Amsterdam or Paris.

The notion of Corinth as a city of incomparable lust, decadence, and degeneracy is entirely an invention of modern purity-obsessed Christian moralists, who find it impossible to regard the presence of sex workers in a given locale as anything other than a symptom of a generally debased and sinful society.

ABOVE: Illustration from 1584 by the French engraver André Thevet, depicting how he imagined the geographer Strabon of Amaseia might have looked (No one knows what he really looked like.)

Corinth’s destruction in 146 BCE and refounding in 44 BCE

Moving on to the second problem I pointed out in my introduction, all the sources I have quoted that discuss Corinth’s reputation for having large numbers of hetairai only apply for the older incarnation of the city that existed during the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Eras of Greek history.

As I also discuss in this post I made in March 2021 about the brutality of ancient conquest, in 146 BCE, the Romans sacked Corinth, slaughtered all the men, sold all the women and children into slavery, and razed the city itself to the ground. Over a century later, in 44 BCE, they refounded the city on the same site as a colonia under their rule.

There is little-to-no evidence to suggest that this later, Roman-founded iteration of Corinth ever held the same reputation for hetairai that the older Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Corinth did. You’ll notice that Strabon writes about Corinth’s famous hetairai in the past tense; that’s because he’s talking about the older, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic version of the city, not the version of the city that existed in his own time.

This matters because, as it happens, the later, Roman-founded iteration of Corinth is the one that existed in the first century CE when the apostle Paul wrote his epistles to the church at Corinth that are now included in the New Testament. In other words, by Paul’s time, Corinth’s reputation for its many hetairai was already a matter of antiquarian curiosity.

ABOVE: The Sack of Corinth, painted in 1870 by the English painter Thomas Allen, depicting the infamous Roman destruction of Corinth in 146 BCE

Corinth’s lack of uniqueness in its ancient reputation

Finally, moving on to the third problem I noted in my introduction, the stereotypical association of Corinth with prostitution was not even unique; virtually every city in the ancient Greek world was stereotypically associated with some specific kind of behavior that the Greeks thought of as low or disreputable.

As I discuss in this post I wrote in January 2021, Greek authors regularly stereotype the Spartans as having a preference for anal sex over vaginal sex. Aristophanes makes extended use of this stereotype for comedic purposes in his comedy Lysistrata, which was first performed in Athens in 411 BCE.

Near the end of the play, an Athenian delegate and a Spartan delegate are arranging a peace treaty between the two poleis. As part of the treaty, they are divvying up who will receive which territories on a map, which they describe in terms of a woman’s body. The Spartan insists on having the site of Pylos, which he describes as the woman’s anus, and the Athenian agrees to let him have it if the Spartan lets him have the site of Echinous, which he describes as the woman’s vagina. The conversation in lines 1162–1170 of the play reads as follows in the original Greek:

Λάκων: ἁμές γε λῶμες, αἴ τις ἁμὶν τὤγκυκλον
λῇ τοῦτ᾽ ἀποδόμεν.

Λυσιστράτη: ποῖον ὦ τᾶν;

Λάκων: τὰν Πύλον,
ἇσπερ πάλαι δεόμεθα καὶ βλιμάττομες.

Ἀθηναῖος: μὰ τὸν Ποσειδῶ τοῦτο μέν γ᾽ οὐ δράσετε.

Λυσιστράτη: ἄφετ᾽ ὦγάθ᾽ αὐτοῖς.

Ἀθηναῖος: κᾆτα τίνα κινήσομεν;

Λυσιστράτη: ἕτερόν γ᾽ ἀπαιτεῖτ᾽ ἀντὶ τούτου χωρίον.

Ἀθηναῖος: τὸ δεῖνα τοίνυν παράδοθ᾽ ἡμῖν τουτονὶ
πρώτιστα τὸν Ἐχινοῦντα καὶ τὸν Μηλιᾶ
κόλπον τὸν ὄπισθεν καὶ τὰ Μεγαρικὰ σκέλη.

This means, in my own translation:

Spartan: “For our part, we’ll hold, as long as you cede to us this little hole you hold here.”

Lysistrata: “Which one, sir?”

Spartan: “Pylos, which we’ve been desperately wanting and feeling for so long.”

Athenian: “By Poseidon, no! You won’t be claiming that one!”

Lysistrata: “Give it to them, good man!”

Athenian: “But then what will we play with?”

Lysistrata: “At least demand a different place instead of this.”

Athenian: “Hmm… well then, first, hand over to us the vulva Echinous, and the buttocks Melia, and the Megarian thighs.”

A lexicon of words used in ancient Greek texts compiled by the medieval Greek scholar Photios (lived c. 810 – 893 CE) attests (at p. 192.12) the word κυσολάκων (kysolákōn), which literally means “ass-Spartan.” Photios’s entry states that the word comes from the fact that having anal intercourse is considered the Spartan style. The same entry also uses the verb λακωνίζειν (lakōnízein), which literally means “to Spartanize” or “to act like a Spartan,” to mean “to have anal sex.”

Similarly, as I discuss in this post I wrote in August 2021, the ancient Greeks stereotypically associated fellatio (i.e., the act of performing a blow job) with the women of the island of Lesbos. Aristophanes uses the verb λεσβιάζω (lesbiázō), which literally means “to Lesbianize” or “to act like a Lesbian,” to mean “to perform a blowjob” in his comedy The Wasps, line 1346. A scholion, or ancient scholarly commentary, on the line claims that the word had this meaning because the women of Lesbos were said to have invented blow jobs.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing the town of Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesbos, which, if ancient authors are to be believed, was supposedly the place to go if one wanted a blowjob

A whole plethora of other verbs associating the inhabitants of various cities and parts of Greece with various low or disreputable activities are also attested. For instance, the verb κρητίζειν (lit. “to Kretanize” or “to act like a Kretan”) is used to mean “to lie habitually,” since Kretans were stereotyped as prodigious liars. The verb φοινικίζειν (lit. “to Phoenicianize” or “to act like a Phoenician”) is used to mean “to perform cunnilingus on a woman who is menstruating.” The verb σιφνιάζειν (lit. “to Siphnianize” or “to act like a Siphnian”) is used to mean “to finger someone’s asshole.”

The verb σολοικίζειν (lit. “to Soloi-ize” or “to act like a person from Soloi in Kilikia”) is used to mean “to speak with improper grammar,” since the other Greeks regarded the people of Soloi as speaking a half-barbarous and corrupted form of Greek. (This is the source of the English noun solecism.)

Corinth wasn’t even the only ancient Greek locale that was known specifically for its hetairai; the island of Samos notably had a similar reputation. The Athenian comic playwright Menandros (lived c. 342 – c. 290 BCE) wrote a comedy titled Samia, which means The Girl from Samos, in which the titular character is a Samian hetaira named Chrysis.

As I discuss in this post I made in July 2021 and this post I made in February 2022, the erotic writer Philainis, who is most likely a literary persona rather than a historic individual, but who was apparently believed in antiquity to have lived in around the fourth century BCE or thereabouts and been the author of a notorious sex manual, a few fragments of which have survived, is said to have been from the island of Samos as well.

Thus, even if we are to interpret Corinth’s reputation for hetairai as evidence that the city’s inhabitants were generally immoral and debased, then they were certainly far from unique in the ancient Greek world in this regard.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing Samos town, the present-day capital of the island of Samos, as it looked in 2009