nias says that most of the important monuments of the city
were either on or near the agora; and secondly because, beginning with
the agora, he mentions, sometimes with a brief description, the
principal monuments in order along three of the principal thoroughfares
radiating from it. In the first year's work twenty-one trial trenches
were dug in the hope of finding a clue to its position. Somewhat less
than a quarter of a mile to the N.W. of the temple, set back into the
edge of the upper terrace, there was found, under 20 ft. of soil, a
ruined Roman theatre built upon the ruins of a Greek theatre. This
theatre was, according to Pausanias, on the street leading from the
agora towards Sicyon, and so to the west of the agora. Another trench
dug across the deep indentation to the E. of the temple revealed a broad
limestone pavement leading from the very northern edge of the city up
through the indentation, in the direction of Acro-Corinth. It required
little sagacity to identify it with the street mentioned by Pausanias as
leading from the agora towards Lechaeum. It was practically certain that
by following up this pavement to its point of intersection with the road
from Sicyon the agora would be discovered.

[Illustration: CORINTH showing sites of excavations]

The limestone pavement, with long porches on either side, was found to
stop at the foot of a marble staircase of thirty-four steps of Byzantine
construction, underneath which appeared a Roman arrangement of the two
flights with a platform halfway up. The top flight led up to the
propylaea. The remains of the propylaea above ground are few; but the
foundations are massive and well laid, at the end of the upper terrace
where it is farthest worn back. These foundations are clearly those of a
Roman triumphal arch, which perhaps took the name "propylaea" from an
ancient Greek structure on the same spot. This arch appears on Roman
coins from Augustus to Commodus; according to Pausanias it bore two
four-horse chariots, one driven by Helios and the other by Phaethon, his
son, all in gilded bronze.

Although a considerable part of the agora has been excavated, none of
the statues which Pausanias saw in it have been discovered. On the upper
(S.) side are excellent foundations of a long porch. On the N. side,
stretching westward from the propylaea, are two porches of different
periods. The older one, which still existed in Roman times, was backed
up against the temple hill,