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A Hub City through which a constant stream of travelers passed between the eastern and western halves of the Roman empire, Corinth lies on the isthmus connecting mainland Greece with the Peloponnese. The nearby port of Cenchreae offered safe anchorage to ships avoiding the rough waters around Cape Malea.

A special roadway, called the diolkos was built across the three-mile-wide isthmus in the early sixth century B.C.; grooves in this roadway served as tracks for wooden platforms (holkos in Greek) on which ships were hauled between the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf.