Why did the ancient people work and sweat so hard?
Ancient people worked and sweated so hard to appease their gods and goddesses, particularly by building temples such as a temple to a female goddess in Corinth. This slave labor was not for libraries or education but for worship, and it reflected the whole ancient world, where whatever they could do was devoted to appeasing deities.
Les explains that the building material had to be moved by slave labor and umpteen hours of hard work. It was not to build a beautiful library or a campus or place of education, but a temple to a female goddess. That is all they lived for: whatever they could work and sweat and do to somehow appease their gods and goddesses. This was not just Corinth; it was the whole ancient world. Along with the worship of these goddesses was gross immorality, which was part and parcel of their everyday experience, from the common people all the way to the top. Later, Paul says such were some of the Corinthians, but now they were washed, and God's grace is always greater if the individual wants to partake of it.