The famous Corinth Canal, Greece
connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnesian peninsula from the Greek mainland. The canal is 6.4 kilometers in length and only 21.3 meters wide at its base. Earth cliffs flanking either side of the canal reach a maximum height of 63 meters. Aside from a few modest sized cruise ships, the Corinth Canal is unserviceable to most modern ships.
It was an idea and dream to connect Aegean and Adriatic Seas that dates back over 2000 thousand years. The first to decide to dig the Corinth Canal was Periander, the tyrant of Corinth (602 BCE). Dimitrios Poliorkitis, king of Macedon (c. 300 BCE), was the second, but his engineers insisted that if the seas where connected, the more northerly Adriatic, mistakenly thought to be higher, would flood the more southern Aegean. The same fear also stopped Julius Caesar, Hadrian and Caligula. The most serious try was that of Emperor Nero (67 CE). He had 6,000 slaves for the job. However, he was killed before the work could be completed. The job was finally completed almost 2000 years later in 1893.
