Chapters
The war between Rome and the Achaean League, waged from 148 to 146 BCE and ending in the complete subjugation of the Greek states to the Roman Republic, was also a personal tragedy for one of the most influential cities in the history of Hellas – Corinth. Why, of all the cities of the League, was Corinth the one that had to pay the ultimate price?
The last stand
The defeat at Scarpheia (146 BCE) and the death of the Greek strategos Critolaus effectively sealed the fate of the Achaean League. Some member cities — Elis and Messene among them — chose to surrender and seek Roman clemency. Others, however, gathered behind Diaeus of Megalopolis and refused to give up the fight.
As the Roman consul Lucius Mummius swept through Thebes and steadily brought the League’s cities to heel, Diaeus was busy purging anyone who dared advocate for peace with Rome. Meanwhile, what remained of the League’s army fell back to the Isthmus of Corinth — a strategically vital chokepoint and the last barrier standing between the Romans and the Peloponnese, where most of the still-resisting Greek cities held out.
The Republic’s army arrived in the vicinity of the Isthmus with roughly two legions, supported by various auxiliary units recruited in Italy as well as allied contingents from Crete and Pergamon — around 23,000 infantry and 3,500 cavalry in total, though the exact size of the allied forces remains unknown.
The Achaeans mustered some 14,600 men, 600 of them cavalry, encamped somewhere between Corinth and the narrowest point of the Isthmus. Of the infantry, around 12,000 were former slaves, hastily pressed into service to make up for the League’s mounting losses.
The Romans were in no hurry to force a decisive engagement. After establishing their main camp, they dispatched smaller auxiliary detachments to set up forward outposts from which they could keep a close watch on the Greek position.
The soldiers manning these outposts soon made for easy prey. The Achaeans had apparently lulled Roman vigilance with a deliberately theatrical display of debauchery in their own camp, convincing their opponents that they posed no immediate threat. Under cover of darkness, the Greeks crept forward and struck — with bloody results.
The attack was eventually beaten back by a relief force personally led by Mummius from the main camp, but the damage to Roman confidence was done. Greek morale soared, and the following day Diaeus resolved to meet the enemy in open battle.
Looking at the Isthmus of Corinth today, one sees a relatively flat landscape of meadows and fields, broken up by the occasional tree. It was on much the same kind of open ground that the Greek and Roman infantry clashed in a hard-fought struggle. The Greeks had no intention of yielding, and the Romans too strong to lose. The cavalry told a different story — so overwhelming was the Roman numerical advantage that the Achaean horsemen turned and fled before a single blow had been struck.
The battle was decided by a flanking attack carried out by a force of roughly a thousand legionaries. Made possible by the earlier rout of the Greek cavalry, it sent panic rippling through the Achaean ranks, and the army dissolved into flight. Some of the fugitives took shelter behind the walls of nearby Corinth, but no serious defence was organised. The commander himself, Diaeus, fled to his home city of Megalopolis, where he killed his wife and then took his own life.
Destruction
Shattered by defeat, most of the surviving population and soldiers abandoned the city, scattering into the interior of the Peloponnese. They were able to do so because the Romans had not thrown a siege cordon around Corinth — there had been no siege at all. The city had opened its gates of its own accord, yet the victors were in no hurry to enter.
Suspecting a trap, they waited three days before finally marching in. What followed was described by ancient chroniclers without exception as massacre and annihilation. The men were put to the sword; women and children were sold into slavery. The legionaries looted, burned and destroyed priceless monuments and works of art. The only exception was the statues of Philopoemen of Megalopolis — out of respect for the first Greek ally of the Republic, these were left untouched.
Most of what survived the sack was shipped off to Italy, where it played no small part in spreading Greek culture among both the Roman people and its aristocracy. Lucius Mummius, reportedly pressured into ordering the city’s destruction, kept none of the plunder for himself — though he became notorious for a remarkable act of ignorance: he warned the sailors tasked with transporting the treasures across the sea that if any were lost, they would be required to replace them. The destruction of Corinth proved a windfall for Roman merchants, who absorbed most of the trade the city had once commanded — and it is they who are sometimes said to have pushed Mummius towards his fateful decision.
Epilogue
The sack of Corinth brought an end to the freedom of Hellas, which would not take up arms against Rome again for several more decades. The city itself lay virtually abandoned for the next hundred years, until Julius Caesar founded the colony of Laus Iulia Corinthiensis on its ruins in 44 BCE — yet Corinth never again reclaimed its former power and standing in the Greek world.
