Date

Circa 1910

The first evidence of monumental stone architecture is a sanctuary of Apollo erected ca. 680 BCE at the centre of the city. The temple of the sanctuary had no peristyle but did have a tiled, hipped roof. Between 580 and 540 BCE it was replaced by a temple (now ruined) in the developed Doric style. The new building had pronaos, cella, treasury, or possibly adyton, opisthodomos and an exterior colonnade of 6 monolithic columns at the ends, 15 columns along each side. Architectural refinements include corner contraction of the columns and an upward curve of the stylobate towards the midpoint of each side. The Temple of Apollo was reused by the Romans but drastically altered. Sometime between the refounding of Corinth (44 BCE) and the reign of Claudius (AD 41-54) the Archaic Temple of Apollo had its interior columns removed and may have had its front façade changed from east to west.