Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/422

 406 HISTORY OF GREECE. the Korkyrceans seem to have been the principals, in that of the two former, they were only auxiliaries ; and it probably did not suit their policy to favor the establishment of any new colony on the intermediate coast opposite to their own island, be- tween the promontory and the gulf above mentioned. Leukas, Anaktorium, and Ambrakia are all referred to the agency of Kypselus the Corinthian, and the tranquillity which Aristotle ascribes to his reign may be in part ascribed to the new homes thus provided for poor or discontented Corinthian citizens. Leukas was situated near the modern Santa Maura : the present island was originally a peninsula, and continued to be so until the time of Thucydides ; but in the succeeding half-century, the Leukadians cut through the isthmus, and erected a bridge across the narrow strait connecting them with the main-land. It had been once an Akarnanian settlement, named Epileukadii, the in- habitants of which falling into civil dissension, invited one thousand Corinthian settlers to join them. The new-comers choosing their opportunity for attack, slew or expelled those who had invited them, made themselves masters of the place with its lands, and converted it from an Akarnanian village into a Grecian town.' Anaktorium was situated a short distance within the mouth of the Arnbrakian gulf, founded, like Leukas, upon Akarnanian soil, and with a mixture of Akarnanian inhabitants, by colonists 1 About Leukas, see Strabo, x, p. 452 ; Skylax, p. 34 ; Steph. Byz. v> Strabo seems to ascribe the cutting through of the isthmus to the original colonists. But Thucydides speaks of this isthmus in the plainest manner (iii, 81), and of the Corinthian ships of war as being transported across it. The Dioryktos, or intervening factitious canal, was always shallow, only deep enough for boats, so that ships of war had still to be earned across by hand or machinery (Polyb. v, 5): both Plutarch (De SerA Nnm. Vinci, p. 552) and Pliny treat Leukadia as having again become a peninsula, from tho accumulation of sand (H. N. iv, 1) : compare Livy, xxxiii, 17. Mannert (Geograph. der Gr. und Rom. part viii, b. 1, p. 72) accepts the statement of Strabo, and thinks that the Dioryktos had already been dug before the time of Thucydi les. But it seems more reasonable to supposa that Strabo was misinformed as to the date, and that the cut took place at some time between the age of Thncydides and that of Skylax. Bocckh (ad Corp. Inseriptt. Gr. t. i, p. 58) and V. C. Miiller (Dc Coiny 'sor. Republica. Getting 1835, p. 18) agree with Mannert.