Note 642 — Chapter LXXV · FROM THE REBUILDING OF THE LONG WALLS OF ATHENS TO THE PEACE OF ANTALKIDAS.

Xenoph. Agesil. ii, 17. ἀναπετάσας τῆς Πελοποννήσου τὰς πύλας, etc.

Respecting the Long Walls of Corinth, as part of a line of defence which barred ingress to, or egress from, Peloponnesus,—Colonel Leake remarks,—“The narrative of Xenophon shows the great importance of the Corinthian Long Walls in time of war. They completed a line of fortification from the summit of the Acro-Corinthus to the sea, and thus intercepted the most direct and easy communication from the Isthmus into Peloponnesus. For the rugged mountain, which borders the southern side of the Isthmian plain, has only two passes,—one, by the opening on the eastern side of Acro-Corinthus, which obliged an enemy to pass under the eastern side of Corinth, and was, moreover, defended by a particular kind of fortification, as some remains of walls still testify,—the other, along the shore at Cenchreiæ, which was also a fortified place in the hands of the Corinthians. Hence the importance of the pass of Cenchreiæ, in all operations between the Peloponnesians, and an enemy without the Isthmus.” (Leake, Travels in Morea, vol. iii, ch. xxviii, p. 254).

Compare Plutarch, Aratus, c. 16; and the operations of Epaminondas as described by Diodorus, xv, 68.