§ 1. Corinth.
The Grecian Peloponnesus is connected with the continent by an isthmus from four to six miles wide. On this isthmus stood the city of Corinth. A rocky eminence, called the Acrocorin- thus, rises from the plain almost perpendicularly, to the height of two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and is suffi- ciently broad at the summit for a town of considerable size. From the top of this abrupt hill the eye reaches towards the east over the expanse of the ^gean sea, with its numerous islands; and westward, towards the Ionian sea, a prospect scarcely less inviting was presented. Looking towards the north, the eye rests on the mountains of Attica on the one hand, and north-eastern Greece on the other. The Acropolis of Athens was clearly visible at a distance of forty-five miles. As early as the days of Homer, Corinth was an important city. Its position made it, in a military point of view, the key of the Peloponnesus ; and its command of a port on two seas, made it the centre of commerce between Asia and Europe. The supremacy enjoyed by one Grecian State after another, had at