Acrocorinth

Acrocorinth is the great rock that looms over the plain where ancient Corinth once stood, a natural acropolis used as a fortress from antiquity. Its final form owes much to Frankish, Turkish and Venetian rebuilding, but the heaviest fortification work belongs to the Middle Byzantine period. The summit rises to 574 metres, commanding the routes from the Isthmus into the Peloponnese, with views over the Corinthian and Argolic Gulfs and a network of towers stretching towards Arcadia. Myth credits Sisyphus with securing its water supply, while a temple to Aphrodite once crowned the peak. Fortified by the tyrants of Corinth in the seventh century BC, it was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, restored by Julius Caesar, and repaired under Justinian. In 1205 Leon Sgouros held it against the Franks until his suicide in 1208; it fell in 1209 or 1210. Later it passed to the Duchy of Athens, the Acciaiuoli, the Hospitallers, the Byzantines of Mystras, and finally to Mehmed II in 1458, with Venetian repairs in 1657 completing its walls.