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Athens Aegina
Akrocorinth Arkadia Cape Sounion Corinth Delphi Epidavros Epirus (Pindos)
Florina Ioannina
Kalavryta Karpenisi Kastoria Mani Monemvasia Meteora
Mycenae
Myconos Mystras
Nafpaktos Nafplion
Naxos Nemea Olympia Olympus
Orchomenos Paros Pelion
Pelion Villages Pylos
Santorini
Sparta
Tiryns
Thessalonica
Vassai Vergina/Aegae Zagorohoria

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The steep rock of the
Acrocorinth rises to the south-west of ancient Corinth,
surmounted by the fortress, also called the Acrocorinth, which
was the fortified citadel of ancient and medieval Corinth and the
most important fortification work in the area from antiquity
until the Greek War of Independence in
1821.
It is 575 m. high and its walls are a total of almost 2.000 m. in
length.
The ascent to Acrocorinth
Akrocorinthos, is facilitated by a road which climbs to a point near the lowest
gate on the W side. This commanding site was fortified in ancient times and its
defenses were maintained and developed during the Byzantine, Frankish, Turkish
and Venetian periods. After a moat (alt. 380 m -1247 ft) constructed by the
Venetians follow the first
gate, built in the Frankish period (14th,c.) and the first wall 15th c. then come the second and third
walls (Byzantine: on the the right, in front of the third gate, a hellenistic
tower). Within the fortress we follow a path running NE to the
remains of a mosque (16th c.) and then turn S until we join a path leading up to
the eastern summit, on which there once stood the famous Temple of Aphrodite,
worshipped here after the Eastern fashion (views of the hills of the
Pelloponnese and of Isthmos).
Courses of roughly dressed
polygonal masonry allow us to suppose that the
Acrocorinth was
fortified as early as the time of the Kypselid
tyranny (late 7th c. early 6th c. BC). The surviving parts of the
ancient fortifications, however, which are at many points beneath
the medieval enceinte, belong mainly to the 4th c. BC. In 146 BC,
Mummius destroyed the fortifications of the
lower city and the acropolis. The destroyed sections were
subsequently reconstructed from the same ancient material in Late
Roman times.
During the Middle
Ages, the Acrocorinth was of prime importance for the defense of
the entire Peloponnese, and held out against the attacks of the
barbarians. The Byzantines sporadically repaired the walls,
especially after hostile raids (by the Slavs, Normans and others), and
added new fortifications on the west side of the fortress. In
1210, after a five-year siege, the Acrocorinth was captured by
Otto
de la Roche and Geoffroy I Villehardouin,
and was incorporated in the Frankish principate of Achaea.In
the middle of this century, William Villehardouin extended the
fortifications of the fortress, to be followed in this by the
Angevin prince John Gravina at the beginning of
the 14th c.
In 1358 the
Acrocorinth passed to the Florentine banker Niccolo
Acciajuoli, and in 1394 to Theodoros I
Palaiologos despot of Mystras. Apart
from a brief occupation by the Knights of Rhodes from
1400-1404, the fortress remained in Byzantine hands until
1458, when it was captured by the Ottoman Turks. The Venetians
made themselves masters of the Acrocornth from 1687 to 1715,
after which it reverted once more to the Turks, until the
Greek Uprising of 1821. The approach to the fortress is
from the west side. The walls have an irregular shape, which was
dictated by the form of the terrain and remained the same in
general terms from the Classical period to modern times. Three
successive zones of fortifications, with three imposing gateways,
lead to the interior of the fortress. The fact that the same
material was used for extensions or repairs to the walls
frequently makes it difficult to distinguish the building phases
or assign a date to them.
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