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.
[781] Skymn. Chius, 458; Thucyd. i, 55; Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 24.
[782] Thucyd. i, 46; Strabo, x, p. 452. Before 220 B. C., the temple of Apollo Aktius, which in the time of Thucydidês belonged to Anaktorium, had come to belong to the Akarnanians; it seems, also, that the town itself had been merged in the Akarnanian league, for Polybius does not mention it separately (Polyb. iv, 63).
[783] Thucyd. iii, 94, 95, 115.
[784] Thucyd. i, 24-26.
[785] The rhetor Aristeidês pays a similar compliment to Kyzikus, in his Panegyrical Address at that city,—the god Apollo had founded it personally and directly himself, not through any human œkist, as was the case with other colonies (Aristeidês, Λόγος περὶ Κυζίκου, Or. xvi, p. 414; vol. i, p, 384, Dindorf).
[786] Thucyd. i, 24. ἐγένετο μεγάλη καὶ πολυάνθρωπος; Strabo, vii, p. 316, viii, p. 357; Steph. Byz. v. Ἀπολλωνία; Plutarch, De Serâ Numin. Vind. p. 553; Pausan. v, 22, 2.
Respecting the plain near the site of the ancient Apollonia, Colonel Leake observes: “The cultivation of this noble plain, capable of supplying grain to all Illyria and Epirus, with an abundance of other productions, is confined to a few patches of maize near the villages,” (Travels in Northern Greece, vol. i, ch. vii, p. 367.) Compare c. ii, p. 70.
The country surrounding Durazzo (the ancient Epidamnus) is described by another excellent observer as highly attractive, though now unhealthy. See the valuable topographical work, “Albanien, Rumelien, und die Oesterreichisch-montenegrinische Gränze,” von Dr. Joseph Müller (Prag. 1844), p. 62.