Note 342 — Chapter I · GENERAL GEOGRAPHY AND LIMITS OF GREECE.
Reading edition
Pliny, H. N. iv. 5, about the Isthmus of Corinth: “Lechææ hinc, Cenchreæ illinc, angustiarum termini, longo et ancipiti navium ambitu (i. e. round Cape Malea), quas magnitudo plaustris transvehi prohibet: quam ob causam perfodere navigabili alveo angustias eas tentavere Demetrius rex, dictator Cæsar, Caius princeps, Domitius Nero,—infausto (ut omnium exitu patuit) incepto.”
The διολκὸς, less than four miles across, where ships were drawn across, if their size permitted, stretched from Lechæum on the Corinthian gulf, to Schœnus, a little eastward of Cenchreæ, on the Saronic gulf (Strabo, viii. p. 330). Strabo (viii. p. 335) reckons the breadth of the διολκὸς at forty stadia (about 4¾ English miles); the reality, according to Leake, is 3½ English miles (Travels in Morea, vol. iii. ch. xxix. p. 297).