Greek boatmen even at the present day refuse to attempt the circumnavigation; and probably any government less apathetic than that of the Turks would at once re-open the old cutting.

The work was one of very little difficulty, the breadth of the isthmus being less than a mile and a half, the material sand and marl, and the greatest height of the natural ground above the level of the sea about fifty feet.

The construction of a canal in such a locality was certainly better than the formation of a ship-groove or Diolcus--the substitute for it proposed by Ferodotus, [PLATE LXI.] not to mention that it is doubtful whether at the time that this cutting was made ship-grooves were known even to the Greeks.
[Illustration: PLATE LXI.] Xerxes, having brought his preparations into a state of forwardness, having completed his canal and his bridge--after one failure with the latter, for which the constructors and the sea were punished--proceeded, in the year B.C.481, along the "Royal Road" from Susa to Sardis, and wintered at the Lydian capital.

His army is said to have accompanied him; but more probably it joined him in the spring, flocking in, contingent after contingent, from the various provinces of his vast Empire.

Forty-nine nations, according to Herodotus, served under his standard; and their contingents made up a grand total of eighteen hundred thousand men.