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lishments lead us to believe that they were designed for the use of some
religious or semireligious organization whose ritual included a cult meal.
There was an actors' guild, whose members worshiped Dionysos, and
we know that this organization, which was widespread in Hellenistic
times, also functioned at Isthmia. It is natural to suppose that the caves
were intended to serve some such organization.
We have so far moved in the periphery of the religious sphere at Isthmia;
the chief deities were Poseidon, with his entourage, and Melikertes-Palaimon,
whose mother Ino-Leukothea had a statue set up
in the temple dedicated to her son.
The worship of Poseidon we can trace back to the eighth century
B.C. From that time we find pottery in significant concentration, both
within the temple area and among the debris used as fill to level out
the ground toward the north and east of the temple. The first temple,
of which we have any knowledge seems to have been built not long after
700 B.C. It stood on the same spot as the later fifth century temple,
and its foundations have all but disappeared. We know from the contents
of the debris thrown into the guilies that this temple was destroyed
by fire not long after the battle of Salamis. When the fire broke out
the building was filled to crowding with votive gifts to Poseidon. Among
the more conspicuous of these, I can mention several bronze figurines
of bulls, one small gold bull, two horses' heads of superb workmanship,
many fragments of shield straps and shield rims, and a large number
of bronze helmets, well over a hundred; as well as spearheads, arrow
points, and various kinds of metal tools. Two very fine amphoras
from the end of the sixth century B.C. are of a type used as prizes in
the Panathenaic Games of Athens. One of these had been brought
home by a Corinthian contestant by the name of Damon, who dedicated
the prize of his victory to the local deity Poseidon. Conspicuous
among the votive objects is a collection of some 125 silver coins,
most of them found within the temple itself. With few exceptions they
are coins of Corinth and Aegina: a very few Argive, Boeotian and Asia
Minor pieces were mixed with them. For all the claim of the Athenians
to preferential status at the Isthmian Games, not a single Athenian
coin came from the collection. Startling perhaps to our modern conception
of religious practices is the discovery that several of the silver
coins are ancient forgeries. We need not speculate on the probability
of the owners' knowledge of this fraud, committed in the name of religion;
the spurious coins may have been in circulation for some time
before they were brought as thank offerings to the god. From the wealth
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