Page - 95 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

6 Water in Early ChristianRitual: BaptismandBaptisteries inCorinth 95 Fig. 3:Corinth, themainbasilicas, 6th centuryAD. LR: LateRoman. Some of these churches, the basilicas of Lechaion, Skutela and Kraneion, were connected to baptismal buildings83 (Fig.4), which localised baptismnow in the sacred area of the basilicas andtransferredtheChristianinitiationritual intoafixedarchitecturalstructure.84Thebaptister- iesbuilt adjacent to thebasilicas,butnot integrated into them, interpretedbaptisminanarchi- tecturalwayas a rite depassage from thenon-Christian to theChristianworld. The Lechaion basilica near the harbour, probably built in themid-6th century AD,85 was one of the largest basilicas of the time and possibly the seat of the archbishop. From the 1st to the 6thcenturies AD, Christianity in Corinth had spread considerably, especially after the Constantinian shift, but the basilica’s size does not just reflect the growing numbers of Chris- tians, but imperial policy, too.86 The basilica demonstrated the power of Christianity – now 83 Ristow 1998, 155no.247,mentions apiscinabelonging to the churchonAcrocorinth,whichmight havehada baptistery, too. 84 Fürst 2008, 170–192, gives anoverviewof architectural formsanddecorationof late antiquebaptisteries. 85 Pallas 1990,774,dates thebuildingprocessbetweenAD450–457andAD518–525 (repairs). Sanders 2005,440, suggests the restorationprocessdates to afterAD525. 86 Caraher2014, 148. 151draws thisconclusion fromthesize, styleandqualityof theLechaionbasilica; cf.Brandt 2011, 1588.