Lechaion
The port of Corinth on the Corinthian Gulf ca. 3 km N of the ancient city and joined to it by double long walls and a broad paved avenue. Established by at least the time of the Kypselid tyrants and a thriving port in the Roman period, it was one of the largest harbors in Greece, occupying an area of ca. 10 hectares. Two outer harbors protected by moles lay on the shore and communicated with a spacious inner harbor through a narrow channel bordered by stone jetties. In the middle of the W half of the inner harbor stands the masonry core of a Roman monument. The prominent mounds of sand near the shore were probably heaped up by Roman engineers when clearing out the inner harbor. At the town of Lechaion there were ship-sheds (Xen. Hell. 4.4.12) and Sanctuaries of Poseidon (Paus. 2.2.3) and Aphrodite (Plut. Mor. 146 D). The site has never been excavated and our best evidence for its ancient buildings is a coin of Corinth under Caracalla. A small Classical cemetery and a Roman villa have been excavated to the S of the ancient harbor.
BIBLIOGRAPHYF. Imhoof-Blumer & P. Gardner, A Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias (1887) 115, no. 11; J. Paris, BCH 39 (1915) 5-16P; K. Lehmann-Hartleben, Klio Beih. 14 (1923) 53, 148-52; W. Zschietzchmann, RE Suppl. V, 542-45P; J. W. Shaw, AJA 73 (1969) 370-72MPI.
R. STROUD