Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/695

 CORINTHUS, Elis. (Thac ▼. 17, seq.) But their anger against Spurta sooD cooled down (Thnc v. 48); and shortly afterwards they returned to the Spartan alliance, to which thej remained faithfal till the close of the war. When Athens was obliged to surrender to the Spartans after the battle of Aegospotami, the Co- rinthians and Boeotians urged them to raze the city to the ground. (Xen. Hell ii. 2. § 19.) But after Athens had been effectually humbled, and Sparta began to exercise sovereign^ over the rest of Greece, the Corinthians and other Grecian states came to be jealous of her increasing power. Tithraustes, the satrap of Lydia, detennined to avail himself of this jealousy, in order to stir up a war in Greece against the Spartans, and thus compel them to recall Agesilaus from his victorious career in Asia. Accordingly he sent over Timocrates, the Rhodian, to Greece with the sum of 50 talents, which he was to distribute among the leading men in the Grecian states, and thus excite a war against Sparta, b.c. 395. (Xen. HelL iii. 5. § 2.) Timocrates had no difficulty in executing his commission ; and shortly afterwards the Corinthians united with their old enemies the Athenians as well as with tlie Boeo- tians and Argives in declaring war against Persia. Deputies from these states met at Corinth to take measures for the prosecution of the war, which was hence called the Corinthian war. In the following year, b. c. 394, a battle was fought near Corinth between the allied Greeks and the Lacedaemonians, in which the latter gained the victory (Xen. Heil. iv. 2. § 9, seq.) Later in the same year the Co- rinthians fought a second battle along with the other allies at Coroneia in Boeotia, whither they had nuurched to oppose Agesilaus, who had been recalled from Asia by the Persians, and was now on his march homewards. The Spartans again gained tiie victory, but not without much loss on thdr own side. (Xen. HeU. iv. 3. § 15, seq., Ages, ii. 9. seq.) In B.C. 393 and 392 the war was carried on in the Corinthian territory, the Spartans being posted at Sicym and the allies maintaining a line across the Isthmus from Lechaeum to Cenchreae, with Corinth as the centre. A great part of the fertile plain be- tween Stcyon and Corinth belonged to the latter state ; and the Corinthian proprietors suffered so much from the devastati<» of their lands, that many of them be- came anxious to renew their old alliance with Sparta. A large number of the other Corinthians participated in these feelings, and the leading men in the govern- ment, who were violently opposed to Sparta, became 80 alarmed at the wide-sprcsd disaffection among the citizens, that they introduced a body of Argives into the city during the celebration of the festival of the Kacleia, and massacred numben of the opposite party in tlie market-place and in the theatre. The govern- ment, being now dependent upon Argos, formed a close union with this state, and is said to have even incorporated their Corinthiai territory with that of Argoe, and to have given the name of Argoe to their own dty. But the opposition party at Corinth, which was still numerous, contrived to admit Praxitas, the Lacedaemonian commander at Scyon, within the long walls which connected Corinth with Lechaeum. In the space between the walls, which was of consider- able breadth, and about 1^ mile in length, a battle took place between the Lacedaemonians and the Co- rinthians, who had marched out of the city to dis- lodge theoL The Corinthians, however, were defeated, and this victory was followed by the demolition of a cooaklerable part of the long waUs by Praxitas. The CORINTHUS. 677 Lacedaemonians now marched across the Isthmus^ and captured Sidus and Crcxnmyon. These events happened in B.C. 392. (Xen. HeU. iv. 4. § 1, seq.) The Athenians, feeling that thSir own city was no longer secure from an attack of the Lacedaemonians, marched to Corinth in the following year (B.a 391), and repaired the long walls between Corinth and Lechaeum; but in the course of the same summer AgesiUus and Teleutias not <»ily retook the long walls, but also captured Lechaeum, which was now garrisoned by Lacedaemonian troops. (Xen.iTe/l.iv. ^' §§ l^v 19; T^od. xiv. 86, who erroneously pkces the capture of Lechaeum in the preceding year; see Grote, Hist, of Greece, vol. ix. p. 471, seq.) These successes, however, of the Lacedaem<Miians were checked by the destruction in the next year (b.c. 390) of one of their morae by Iphicrates, the Athe- nian general, with his peltasts or light-armed troops. Shortly afterwards Agesilaus marched back to Sparta; whereupon Iphicrates retook Crommyon, Sidus, Peiraeum and OenoS, which had been garrisoned by Lacedaemonian troops. (Xen. Bell. iv. 5. § 1, seq.) The Corinthians appear to have suffered little fr(»n this time to the end of the war, which was brought to a conclusion by the peace of Antalcidas in b.c. 387. The effect of this peace was the restoration of Corinth to the Lacedaemonian alliance: for as soon as it was concluded, Agesilaus compelled the Aleves to withdraw their troops from the city, and the Co- rinthians to restore the exiles who had been in favour of the Lacedaemonians. Those Corinthians who had taken an active part in the massacre of their fellow- citizens at the festival of the Eucleia fled from Co- rinth, and took refuge, partly at Argos, and partly at Athens. (Xen. BelL v. L § 34; DeoL c. Zepf. p. 473 ) In the war between Thebes and Sparta, which soon afterwards broke out. the Corinthians remained faithful to the latter; but having suffered much from the war, they at length obtained permission from Sparta to conclude a separate peace with the The- bans. (Xen. HelL vii. 4. § 6, seq.) In the swilsequenk events of Grecian history down t»^ the Macedonian period, Corintli took little part The government continued to be oligarchical; and the attempt of Timophanes to make himself tyrant of Corinth was frustrated by his murder by liis own brother Timo- leon, B.C. 344. (Diod. xvi. 65; Plut, Titn. 4; Cornel Nep. Tim. 1 ; Aristot. Polit. v. 5. § 9.) From the time of the battle of Chaeroneia, Cminth was held by the Macedonian kings, who always kept a strong garrison in the important fortress of the Acro- corinthus. In b.c. 243 it was surprised by Aratus, delivered from the garrison of Antigonus Gonatas, and annexed to the Achaean league. (Pol. ii. 43.) But in B.C. 223 Corinth was surrendered by the Achaeans to Antigonus Doson, in order to secure his support against the Aetolians and Cleomenes. (Pol. ii. 52, 54) It continued in the hands of Philip, the suc- cessor of Antigonus Doson; but after the defeat of this monareh at the battle of Cynosoephalae, b.c. 196, C<irinth was declared fiiee by the Romans, and was again united to the Achaean league. The Acro- corinthns, however, as well as Chalcis and Deme- trias, which were regarded as the three fortresses of Greece, were occupied by Roman garrisons. (Pol. zviii. 28, 29; Liv. xxxiii. 31.) When the Achaeans were mad enough to enter into a contest with Rome, Corinth was the seat of government of the Achaean league, and it was here that the Roman ambassadors were maltreated, who xx3