Smaller crafts were hauled across the isthmus through a trackway, called the diolkos.​—See box on page 27.

[Box/​Picture on page 27]

THE DIOLKOS​—SHIPPING ON DRY LAND

Toward the end of the seventh century B.C.E., when plans to build a canal failed, Periander, the ruler of Corinth, built an ingenious means for shipping across the isthmus.a Called the diolkos, meaning “haul-across,” it was a trackway of flagstones with deep grooves fitted with rails of wood that were smeared with fat. Goods from ships docked at one harbor were unloaded, put on wheeled carts, and hauled by slaves over the trackway to the other. Smaller ships, sometimes with cargo aboard, were also hauled across.

[Footnote]