[2483] This is a mistake. It is only forty miles in length. From Lieut. Smith (Journal of Royal Geogr. Soc. vol. vii. p. 65) we learn that its average breadth is about four miles; consequently Pliny’s statement as to its circumference must be greatly exaggerated. Juvenal, Sat. x. l. 174, mentions the story of the canal as a specimen of Greek falsehood; but distinct traces have survived, to be seen by modern travellers, all the way from the Gulf of Monte Santo to the Bay of Erso in the Gulf of Contessa, except about 200 yards in the middle, which has been probably filled up.
[2484] Or Acrothoüm. Pliny, with Strabo and Mela, errs in thinking that it stood on the mountain. It stood on the peninsula only, probably on the site of the modern Lavra.
[2485] Or the ‘Heaven City,’ from its elevated position. It was founded by Alexarchus, brother of Cassander, king of Macedon.
[2486] Probably on the west side of the peninsula, south of Thyssus.
[2487] Or “long-lived.”
[2488] Now Erisso; on the east side of the Isthmus, about a mile and a half from the canal of Xerxes. There are ruins here of a large mole.
[2489] A little to the north of the Isthmus now called Stavro. It was the birth-place of Aristotle the philosopher, commonly called the Stagirite, and was, in consequence, restored by Philip, by whom it had been destroyed; or, as Pliny says in B. vii. c. 30, by Alexander the Great.
[2490] The name of the central one of the three peninsulas projecting from Chalcidice. The poets use the word Sithonius frequently as signifying ‘Thracian.’
[2491] Possibly not the same as the Heraclea Sintica previously mentioned.
[2492] Now called Pollina, south of Lake Bolbe, on the road from Thessalonica to Amphipolis.