Throughout the ancient period there was a drive to find new exploitable land, either through clearing forests or, more frequently, draining lakes, marshes and flooded plains. The Greeks set their sights on draining Lake Copais, a swampland north of Athens that was flooding fertile land around it as the natural flow of water was blocked due to regular earthquakes. In 325BC an engineer, Crates, sought to solve the problem by supplementing the natural drainage in the area with a long tunnel. The work was halted by the military ambitions of Alexander the Great but resumed centuries later. In 1890 the lake was finally drained and the area is now used for farming.
