Southern Greece consists of a body of land called the Peloponnese, which is connected to the rest of Greece by a narrow isthmus, the Isthmus of Corinth, near the ancient city of Corinth. Corinth was a major center of trade and culture in ancient Greece, at times exceeding the influence of Athens and Sparta. If a ship wanted to go to a port city east of the Peloponnese, it had to go all the way around the Peloponnese.
This was a 195 mile journey, and exposed the ship to dangerous coastal rocks and weather. It would be much shorter to cut across the Isthmus of Corinth, but of course this was not possible. This would take a canal, which would be a huge undertaking.
In the mid sixth century BC, Periander, the ruler of Corinth, did the next best thing to building a canal. He built a road paved with stone from one side of the isthmus to the other, called the Diolkos. There were two deep gooves carved into the stone of the road, and a vehicle called the olkos was built to travel over the road. The olkos was on wheels, and was large enough to carry an entire ship, without cargo. Loaded with the ship, the olkos would be towed across the 4 mile wide Isthmus of Corinth to the other side. If a ship was too big for the overland journey, its cargo would be transported from a ship on one side to a waiting ship on the other side.
The Diolkos was 10 meters wide at the harbor, and narrowed to 3 to 4 meters wide in places on its route. The Diolkos and the olkos, though repaired and restored many times, were used until the 9th century AD, for a useful life of 1500 years. Enough revenue was generated by operation of the Diolkos that taxation of the residents was abolished.
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