ISTHMUS OF CORINTH. 



347 



miles in widtli ; it consisted as in otlier Greek tbrtifications of" a 

 stone wall with square towers in the intervals between them. On 

 the east side of the isthmus for a considerable distance in front of the 

 wall, tlie ground appears low* and swampy, as if an excavation had 

 been begun at some remote period to admit the sea water, and thus 

 strengthen the position. We read in Herodotus that the Pelopon- 

 nesians after the battle of Thermopylse took post at the isthmus, and 

 having destroyed the Sriroiiiaii way, they built a wall across the 

 isthmus. From their critical situation, under a dread of an irruption 

 from the barbarians into the Peloponnesus, it may be concluded, as 

 indeed Herodotus mentions, that the Greeks would lose no time in 

 completing their fortifications ; they used all sorts of materials, stones, 

 bricks, timber, baskets filled with earth, rather temporary expedients, 

 than the means of erecting a solid and permanent barrier. What 

 date must we then affix to the remains of the present wallf across the 

 isthmus ? — Immediately in front of Corinth are the vestiges of some 

 modern field works, constructed by the Venetians for the defence of 

 the pass into the Morea ; on the west side they are terminated by a 

 square redoubt on the Corinthian gulph near Lechaeum, one of the 

 ancient ports of the city ; on the east there was no necessity to con- 

 tinue these works to the shore, on account of a hiffh and difficult 

 mountain between Corinth and the sea. In front of the town is a 

 modern village called by the modern Greeks Hexamilia, the isthmus 



* Des Mouceaux, who travelled in 1668, says, that in some parts it would have been 

 necessary to dig the canal to the depth of fifteen toises, " et presque partout de dix, a 

 I'exception des deux extremite's, on Ic terrein se baisse vers la marine." The remains of 

 this work will be pointed out by Mr. Hawkins in his account of the survey of the isthmus ; 

 he was occupied two days in measuring it. 



f The wall built across the isthmus by the Greeks when tlicy were alarmed by the Per- 

 sian invasion, reached from Lechaeum to Ccnchreaj, a distance of five miles, as we learn 

 from Strabo, Pliny, Agathemcrus, and Diod. S. (See Wesseling in D. S. t. i. p. 416'.) 

 This was in a different spot from that observed by Col. S. The wall he notices is more 

 to the north, and in a narrower part. Manuel Palajologus fortified the istlimus; the wall 

 was forced by Murat the Second, and was raised again by the Venetians in \S96. — See 

 D'Anville I'Empire Tare. pp. 33. 116. 



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