[341] Xenophon, De Vectigal. c. 1; Ephor. Frag. 67, ed. Marx; Stephan. Byz. Βοιωτία. [342] Pliny, H. N. iv. 5, about the Isthmus of Corinth: “Lechææ hinc, Cenchreæ illinc, angustiarum termini, longo et ancipiti navium ambitu (_i. e._ round Cape Malea), quas _magnitudo plaustris transvehi prohibet_: quam ob causam perfodere navigabili alveo angustias eas tentavere Demetrius rex, dictator Cæsar, Caius princeps, Domitius Nero,—infausto (ut omnium exitu patuit) incepto.” 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). It will thus appear that there was no part of Greece proper which could be considered as out of reach of the sea, while most parts of it were convenient and easy of access: in fact, the Arcadians were the only large section of the Hellenic name, (we may add the Doric, Tetrapolis, and the mountaineers along the chain of Pindus and Tymphrêstus,) who were altogether without a seaport.[344] But Greece proper constituted only a fraction of the entire Hellenic world, during the historical age: there were the numerous islands, and still more numerous continental colonies, all located as independent intruders on distinct points of the coast,[345] in the Euxine, the Ægean, the Mediterranean, and the Adriatic; and distant from each other by the space which separates Trebizond from Marseilles. All these various cities were comprised in the name Hellas, which implied no geographical continuity: all prided themselves on Hellenic blood, name, religion, and mythical ancestry. As the only communication between them was maritime, so the sea, important, even if we look to Greece proper exclusively, was the sole channel for transmitting ideas and improvements, as well as for maintaining sympathies—social, political, religious, and literary—throughout these outlying members of the Hellenic aggregate.