July 13: Travel Month

Ships were the Greeks’ favourite means of transport, as roads were few and dangerous. So it had always been a dream to create a passage through the Corinthian isthmus and connect the Ionian and Aegean Sea. This would avoid the journey around the Peloponnesos. Periander of Corinth (7th cent. B.C.), one of the “seven wise men” of ancient Greece, came up with the design of a land crossing or “diolkos” (“portage machine”). Ships would be unloaded at the port, than put on the “olkos” (a long vehicle) and pulled by slaves over a trackway of 8 km long, after which they were reloaded to continue their journey. It was ingenious and it was time saving, even to the point where “fast as the Isthmus crossing” became a standing expression.  But why not just dig a canal? Well, because the oracle vetoed it: “If Zeus wanted the Peloponnese to be an island, he would have made it so.” Since then, Zeus must have had a change of heart, because in the 19th century, a canal was finally completed and the Peloponnese is now in fact an island.

Diolkos, Western End, Corinth, Greece

Greek ship, rim of a krater, Old Archeological Museum of Fira, Santorini, Greece

Did you know?

• The playwright Aristophanes uses the expression “fast as an Isthmus crossing” in his comedy “Women at the Thesmophoria”.

• About the “Seven wise men (or seven sages) of Greece”: cfr. “The Delphic Commandments”.

• About the oracle of Delphi: cfr. “The third Eye” and “The Dolphin Oracle”.

• The emperor Nero actually began the construction of a Corinthian canal in 67 AD, but the project stopped after his death. Later, the idea rose multiple times, but construction only really started in 1881 and the canal finally opened in 1893.