The Corinth Canal and the Diolkos

The Isthmus of Greece is a strip of land just six kilometers wide, connecting what otherwise would be a 180x150 kilometer island to the mainland. The Greeks realized well over two millennia ago that a canal would eliminate the time and danger of a 700-kilometer sea voyage around the Peloponnese. A canal was completed in 1883, but it was obsolete as soon as it opened, and it continues to need…