Sack of Corinth (146 BC): Rome Destroys the Achaean League

The sack of Corinth in 146 BC was the destruction of one of the richest cities in Greece by a Roman army under the consul Lucius Mummius. It ended the brief Achaean War between Rome and the Achaean League, a federation of Greek cities in the Peloponnese. Coming in the same year as the destruction of Carthage, it marked the end of real Greek independence and the beginning of direct Roman rule in Greece.

Background

Corinth controlled the narrow isthmus linking the Peloponnese to central Greece, with harbours on both the Corinthian and Saronic gulfs. It had been a major trading city for centuries and had founded colonies such as Syracuse, described in Founding of Syracuse (733 BC). By the 2nd century BC it was the leading member of the Achaean League.

Rome had become the dominant power in Greece after defeating the kings of Macedon. After the Battle of Pydna (168 BC), the Romans dismantled the Macedonian kingdom and took around 1,000 prominent Achaeans to Italy as hostages, among them the historian Polybius. After a revolt led by Andriscus, who claimed to be a son of the last king, was crushed in 148 BC, Macedonia came under a Roman governor and was organised as a province.

Causes of the Achaean War

The immediate trigger was a long dispute between the Achaean League and Sparta, which had been forced into the league and repeatedly tried to leave. Sparta appealed to Rome. In 147 BC a Roman embassy led by Lucius Aurelius Orestes announced that Sparta, Corinth, Argos and other cities should be detached from the league. In Corinth, crowds attacked Spartans in the city and the Roman envoys were treated with hostility.

A second embassy offered milder terms, but the league’s leaders, especially the general Critolaus and his successor Diaeus, chose confrontation. Polybius, who was hostile to them, blamed demagogues and popular anger; modern historians also stress Roman pressure and the league’s fear of being broken up. In spring 146 BC the league declared war on Sparta, which Rome treated as war on itself.

The campaign of 146 BC

Critolaus marched north towards central Greece. Quintus Caecilius Metellus, the Roman commander in Macedonia, intercepted and defeated him near Scarpheia in Locris. Critolaus disappeared during or after the battle and was never seen again.

Diaeus took command and raised a new army, freeing and arming several thousand slaves. The consul Lucius Mummius arrived with fresh legions and took over from Metellus. At Leucopetra on the Isthmus, in late summer or autumn 146 BC, the Roman army defeated the Achaeans decisively. Diaeus fled to Megalopolis, where he killed his wife and then took poison.

The sack and destruction

Most of the defenders and many inhabitants fled Corinth after the defeat. Mummius waited briefly, apparently suspecting an ambush, before entering the open city. According to Pausanias and other ancient writers, the Romans killed most of the men who remained and sold the women and children into slavery. The city was then plundered and burned, and its walls were pulled down.

Corinth’s famous art collections were packed up and shipped to Rome and to towns across Italy. Polybius, who was in Greece at the time, described (in a passage preserved by the geographer Strabo) Roman soldiers playing dice on famous paintings thrown on the ground. The Roman historian Velleius Paterculus tells a story that Mummius, knowing little of art, warned the shippers that any lost works would have to be replaced with new ones, which became proverbial for Roman philistinism.

Key people

Lucius Mummius was one of the two consuls of 146 BC, a “new man” without consular ancestors. After the war he stayed in Greece with a commission of ten senators to settle its affairs. He dedicated spoils at Olympia and other Greek sanctuaries, and in Rome built a temple to Hercules Victor whose surviving dedication records that he returned to Rome after capturing Achaea and destroying Corinth.

Quintus Caecilius Metellus had already crushed Andriscus in Macedonia, earning the surname Macedonicus. He tried to negotiate with the Achaeans before Mummius arrived, and after his victory at Scarpheia he hoped to finish the war himself.

Critolaus and Diaeus were successive generals (strategoi) of the Achaean League. Both pursued war with Sparta and resistance to Rome, and both died in 146 BC. Our view of them comes largely from Polybius, who regarded them as reckless.

Polybius of Megalopolis, a former hostage in Rome and friend of Scipio Aemilianus, witnessed the destruction of Carthage and arrived in Greece soon after Corinth fell. He helped explain the new Roman arrangements to the Greek cities, which honoured him with statues, and his Histories are our most important source for the period, although the books covering 146 BC survive only in fragments.

Consequences

The Achaean League and other federations were dissolved, though harmless local versions were later allowed again. Cities that had fought Rome lost their walls and some land, and Greece south of Macedonia came under the supervision of the Roman governor of Macedonia. In 27 BC Augustus made it the separate province of Achaea.

Mummius celebrated a triumph in Rome and took the surname Achaicus. The same year saw the destruction of Carthage, told in Third Punic War (149-146 BC). For later writers, 146 BC became a symbolic turning point when Rome, no longer facing serious rivals, began to rule rather than merely dominate the Mediterranean.

Caesar’s colony, Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis, grew into the capital of Roman Achaea and a busy cosmopolitan city, where the apostle Paul later preached. Most of the ruins visitors see at Ancient Corinth today belong to this Roman city, with the archaic Temple of Apollo as a rare survivor from the Greek period.

Myths and facts

Myth: Corinth stood completely empty for a century. Ancient writers stress total destruction, but excavations by the American School of Classical Studies show that some people continued to live and work among the ruins, and some buildings, including the Temple of Apollo, stayed standing.

Myth: Corinthian bronze was created in the fire. Pliny the Elder reports a story that this prized alloy was formed when gold, silver and copper melted together as the city burned. Corinthian bronze was in fact a deliberate alloy made by craftsmen.

By the numbers

Ancient sources give no reliable total for the number of Corinthians killed or enslaved, and modern estimates vary widely.

Timeline

• 168 BC: Rome defeats Macedon at Pydna; about 1,000 Achaeans are taken to Italy as hostages.
• 148 BC: Macedonia comes under a Roman governor after Andriscus’ revolt.
• 147 BC: Roman envoys demand that Sparta, Corinth and other cities leave the Achaean League.
• 146 BC, spring: The Achaean League goes to war with Sparta and Rome.
• 146 BC: Metellus defeats Critolaus near Scarpheia.
• 146 BC, late summer or autumn: Mummius defeats Diaeus at Leucopetra and sacks Corinth.
• 44 BC: Julius Caesar founds a Roman colony at Corinth.
• 27 BC: Augustus creates the province of Achaea.

Why it matters

The sack of Corinth ended centuries of independent Greek city-states and leagues. Together with the fall of Carthage it showed Rome’s willingness to destroy whole cities to impose its will, and it brought a flood of Greek art and culture into Rome.