Book 8
2.1
Now the Peloponnesus is like a leaf of a plane tree in shape,Cp. 2. 1. 30. its length and breadth being almost equal, that is, about fourteen hundred stadia. Its length is reckoned from the west to the east, that is, from ChelonatasCape Chelonatas, opposite the island Zacynthos; now Cape Tornese. through Olympia and Megalopolis to the Isthmus; and its width, from the south towards the north, that is, from MaleaeCape Maleae. through Arcadia to Aegium.The Aegion, or Aegium, of today, though until recent times more generally known by its later name Vostitza. The perimeter, not following the sinuosities of the gulfs, is four thousand stadia, according to Polybius, although Artemidorus adds four hundred more;Polybius counted 8 1/3 stadia to the mile (7. Fr. 56). but following the sinuosities of the gulfs, it is more than five thousand six hundred. The width of the Isthmus at the “Diolcus,”Literally, “Haul-across”; the name of “the narrowest part of the Isthmus” (8. 6. 4.), and probably applied to the road itself. where the ships are hauled overland from one sea to the other, is forty stadia, as I have already said.
