Note 780 — Chapter XXIII · GRECIAN COLONIES IN AND NEAR EPIRUS.
Reading edition
About Leukas, see Strabo, x, p. 452; Skylax, p. 34; Steph. Byz. v. Ἐπιλευκάδιοι.
Strabo seems to ascribe the cutting through of the isthmus to the original colonists. But Thucydidês speaks of this isthmus in the plainest manner (iii, 81), and of the Corinthian ships of war as being transported across it. The Dioryktos, or intervening factitious canal, was always shallow, only deep enough for boats, so that ships of war had still to be carried across by hand or machinery (Polyb. v, 5): both Plutarch (De Serâ Num. Vind. p. 552) and Pliny treat Leukadia as having again become a peninsula, from the accumulation of sand (H. N. iv, 1): compare Livy, xxxiii, 17.
Mannert (Geograph. der Gr. und Röm. part viii, b. 1, p. 72) accepts the statement of Strabo, and thinks that the Dioryktos had already been dug before the time of Thucydidês. But it seems more reasonable to suppose that Strabo was misinformed as to the date, and that the cut took place at some time between the age of Thucydidês and that of Skylax.
Boeckh (ad Corp. Inscriptt. Gr. t. i, p. 58) and W. C. Müller (De Corcyræor Republicâ, Götting. 1835, p. 18) agree with Mannert.