As a result, they concluded, if a canal was dug the island of Aegina would be inundated. Caligula, his successor as the third Roman Emperor, commissioned a study in AD 40 from Egyptian experts who claimed incorrectly that the Corinthian Gulf was higher than the Saronic Gulf.
Three Roman rulers considered the idea but all suffered violent deaths the historian Suetonius tells us that the Roman dictator Julius Caesar considered digging a canal through the isthmus but was assassinated before he could commence the project. The philosopher Apollonius of Tyana prophesied that ill would befall anyone who proposed to dig a Corinthian canal. The Diadoch Demetrius Poliorcetes (336–283 BC) planned to construct a canal as a means to improve his communication lines, but dropped the plan after his surveyors, miscalculating the levels of the adjacent seas, feared heavy floods. The project was abandoned and Periander instead constructed a simpler and less costly overland portage road, named the Diolkosor stone carriageway, along which ships could be towed from one side of the isthmus to the other. Periander’s change of heart is attributed variously to the great expense of the project, a lack of labour or a fear that a canal would have robbed Corinth of its dominant role as an entrepôt for goods. Remnants of the Diolkosstill exist next to the modern canal. The first to propose such an undertaking was the tyrant Periander in the 7th century BC. Several rulers in antiquity dreamed of digging a cutting through the Isthmus.
It is now used mainly for tourist traffic. It was completed in 1893 but, due to the canal’s narrowness, navigational problems and periodic closures to repairlandslides from its steep walls, it failed to attract the level of traffic expected by its operators. Construction finally got under way in 1881 but was hampered by geological and financial problems that bankrupted the original builders. The canal was mooted in classical times and an abortive effort was made to build it in the 1st century AD. It is 6.4 kilometres (4 mi) in length and only 21.4 metres (70 ft) wide at its base, making it impossible for most modern ships. The builders dug the canal through the Isthmus at sea level no locks are employed. It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnesefrom the Greek mainland, thus effectively making the former peninsula an island. The Corinth Canal ( Greek: Διώρυγα της Κορίνθου, Dhioryga tis Korinthou) is a canal that connects the Gulf of Corinthwith the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea.
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