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).
[343] The north wind, the Etesian wind of the ancients, blows strong in the Ægean nearly the whole summer, and with especially dangerous violence at three points,—under Karystos, the southern cape of Eubœa, near Cape Malea, and in the narrow strait between the islands of Tenos, Mykonos, and Dêlos (Ross, Reisen auf den Griechischen Inseln, vol. i. p. 20). See also Colonel Leake’s account of the terror of the Greek boatman, from the gales and currents round Mount Athos: the canal cut by Xerxes through the isthmus was justified by sound reasons (Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iii. c. 24, p. 145).
[344] The Periplus of Skylax enumerates every section of the Greek name, with the insignificant exceptions noticed in the text, as partaking of the line of coast; it even mentions Arcadia (c. 45), because at that time Lepreum had shaken off the supremacy of Elis, and was confederated with the Arcadians (about 360 B. C.): Lepreum possessed about twelve miles of coast, which therefore count as Arcadian.
[345] Cicero (De Republicâ, ii. 2-4, in the Fragments of that lost treatise, ed. Maii) notices emphatically both the general maritime accessibility of Grecian towns, and the effects of that circumstance on Grecian character: “Quod de Corintho dixi, id haud scio an liceat de cunctâ Græciâ verissime dicere. Nam et ipsa Peloponnesus fere tota in mari est: nec prætor Phliuntios ulli sunt, quorum agri non contingant mare: et extra Peloponnesum Ænianes et Dores et Dolopes soli absunt a mari. Quid dicam insulas Græciæ, quæ fluctibus cinctæ natant pæne ipsæ simul cum civitatium institutis et moribus? Atque hæc quidem, ut supra dixi, veteris sunt Græciæ. Coloniarum vero quæ est deducta a Graiis in Asiam, Thraciam, Italiam, Siciliam, Africam, præter unam Magnesiam, quam unda non alluat? Ita barbarorum agris quasi adtexta quædam videtur ora esse Græciæ.”
Compare Cicero, Epistol. ad Attic. vi. 2, with the reference to Dikæarchus, who agreed to a great extent in Plato’s objections against a maritime site (De Legg. iv. p. 705; also, Aristot. Politic. vii. 5-6). The sea (says Plato) is indeed a salt and bitter neighbor (μάλα γε μὴν ὄντως ἁλμυρὸν καὶ πικρὸν γειτόνημα), though convenient for purposes of daily use.
[346] Hekatæus, Fragm. Ἀρκαδικὸν δεῖπνον ... μάζας καὶ ὕεια κρέα. Herodot. i. 66. Βαλανηφάγοι ἄνδρες. Theocrit. Id. vii. 106.—
Κἢν μὲν ταῦθ᾽ ἑρδῇς, ὦ Πᾶν φίλε, μή τί τυ παῖδες
Ἀρκαδικοὶ σκίλλαισιν ὑπὸ πλευράς τε καὶ ὤμους
Τανίκα μαστίσδοιεν ὅτε κρέα τυτθὰ παρείη·
Εἰ δ᾽ ἄλλως νεύσαις κατὰ μὲν χρόα πάντ᾽ ὀνύχεσσι