On Grief
Judith Butler and Claudia Rankine investigate grief as political, asking who is grievable. Corinth was characterized as a city of grief because of its destruction by the Roman general Mummius, an even that was also a political grief. This chapter investigates how grief was memorialized in the city. For example, Corinth's Fountain of Glauke recalled Medea’s murder of her children. Evidence from Roman Corinth also indicates higher than average child mortality. These become contexts for understanding a Corinthian practice of baptism on behalf of the dead. Allying with the dead can be a political choice and response to oppressive power. The Corinthian ekklēsia, itself a political term of assembly, may have been transformed from death to life in their new statuses in Christ, and would reasonably have wanted to connect not only with the death of Jesus, but also to bring present transformation to their (many) dead.