description whether the adyton was part of the temple or a different structure altogether. Near where the temple of Palaimon should have been according to Pausanias, excavators found the foundations of an earlier stadium, as well as the concrete foundation of a Roman building. An earlier cult place for Melikertes was probably located somewhere in this area, but all remains were obliterated during the destruction of Corinth by Mummius (146 BC). Elizabeth Gebhard has tentatively identified an area located immediately to the south of the temple of Poseidon as a temenos for Melikertes, dating from the classical period.3 The earliest remains, however, that can be directly linked with Melikertes are from two sacrificial pits from the 1st century AD filled with animal bones, pottery, and lamps of a unique shape unknown anywhere else in Greece. The Palaimonion was rebuilt in the Roman period, and the temple as it stood in the second century AD has been reconstructed from the few remains found and from representations on coins from the Isthmus and Corinth. The reconstructed temple has eleven columns, with an opening leading to a passageway under the temple. From the foundations, the height of the passage can be estimated at about 1 m 90, high enough to allow a person to stand upright. The passage was completely underground, and a bend in the tunnel would have prevented light to penetrate inside the underground chamber. What about the cult, then, and the lament that is both “initiatory and inspired?” Philostratos is not our only source for this aspect of the ritual. Plutarch also mentions the cult in his life of Theseus:

ABSTRACT

This people sacrificing at the Isthmus, that would be the people of Corinth, and the king of the people here is, I think, Sisyphos himself; this is the sacred precinct (temenos) of Poseidon, which resounds gently with the sea, for the leaves of the pine trees sing in this way, and this, my boy, is what it means: Ino, after she threw herself into the sea, became Leukothea and one of the circle of the Nereids; as for her son, the earth will benefit from the baby (brephos) Palaimon. Already he puts into port on the well-disposed dolphin, and the dolphin carrying the sleeping child spreads his back, slipping through the calm sea noiselessly, so that the child may not be waken from his sleep. And with him approaching, an adyton breaks forth out of the earth split apart by Poseidon, who, it seems to me, is announcing the child’s sailing-in to Sisyphos here, and also that he should sacrifice (thuein) to the child. And Sisyphos sacrifices this black bull here, having dragged him away from the herd of Poseidon. The logos of the sacrifice and the attire worn by those sacrificing as well as the offerings, my boy, and the slaving must be kept faz the secret rites of Palaimon. For the loeos is holv4 and altogether secret, since Sisyphos the wise himself deified it [o usv oPy Trie 8uqick Aoyoc kou ii tgov Buo&vtcov so8ric Kai Tg E vaviauaT a. go iraT, Kai t o cKDaTTsiv ec x a to u TTaAaiuovoc cxttokeioQco 5 o v ia —asuvoc v a o o Aovoc Kai Koiaibij onroBsToc (x t aTTo0EicbaavTos ai/Tov Sioucpou to u aocpou]. That Sisyphos is wise is indeed shown by the thoughtfulness of his appearance. As for the face of Poseidon, if he were about to break the Gyrean rocks or the Thessalian mountains, he would certainly have been depicted as terrible and such as someone striking a blow, but since he is receiving him as a guest so that he might keep him in his land,

4 Euripides uses same word when he describes Medea establishing a semnen kai tele ritual.