The Southeast Building, the Twin Basilicas, the Mosaic House

Book excerpt: This volume discusses the important, mainly Roman, buildings at the east end of the Corinthian Agora; the Julian Basilica and the Southeast Building, the South Basilica (immediately behind the South Stoa), and the Mosaic House adjoining it. The Southeast Building is described first in its present state, and then as it must have looked in its two main periods of use, soon after 44 B.C. and in the second quarter of the 1st century A.D. It was probably known in ancient times as the Tabularium or Library of Corinth. The adjoining Julian Basilica was, with the South Basilica, built about A.D. 40; the interior colonnades of both were rebuilt in marble in the Hadrianic period. These basilicas have a cryptoporticus on the ground floor and on the main floor an interior colonnade supporting a clerestory and three exedras. Detailed descriptions of each building are followed by a reconstruction of the pair and by a comparative discussion of floor plans. Finally, the Mosaic House is discussed and analysis of the mosaics date it about 200 A.D.