Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/18

 2 HISTORY OF GREECE. tolls u 8 that the first great improvement in ship-b aiding, - - tha construction of the trireme, or ship of war, with a full deck and triple banks for the rowers, was the fruit of Corinthian inge- nuity. It was in the year 703 B. c., that the Corinthian Amei- nokles built four triremes for the Samians, the first which those islanders had ever possessed : the notice of this fact attests as well the importance attached to the new invention, as the humble scale on which the naval force in those early days was equipped. And it is a fact of not less moment, in proof of the maritime vigor of Corinth in the seventh century B. c., that the earliest naval battle known to Thucydides was one which took place be- tween the Corinthians and the Korkyrogans, B. c. GG4J It has already been stated, in the preceding volume, that the line of Herakleid kings in Corinth subsides gradually, through a series of empty names, into the oligarchy denominated Bacchiadtc, or Bacchiads, under whom our first historical knowledge of the city begins. The persons so named were all accounted descend- ants of Herakles, and formed the governing caste in the city ; intermarrying usually among themselves, and choosing from their own number an annual prytanis, or president, for the administra- tion of affairs. Of their internal government Ave have no ac- counts, except the tale respecting Archias the founder of Syra- cuse, 2 one of their number, who had made himself so detested by an act of brutal violence terminating in the death of the beau- tiful youth Akteeon, as to be forced to expatriate. That such a man should have been placed in the distinguished post of oekisi of the colony of Syracuse, gives us no favorable idea of the Bac- chiad oligarchy : we do not, however, know upon what original authority the story depends, nor can we be sure that it is accurately recounted. But Corinth, under their government, was already a powerful commercial and maritime city, as has already be^n stated. Megara, the last Dorian state in this direction eastward, and 1 Thucyd. i, 13. Alexander, jEtolus (Fragm. i, 5, ed. Schneidewin), and the Scholiast au Apollon. Bhod. iv, 1212, seem to connect this act of outrage with thu ex- pulsion of the Bacchiada; from Corinth, which did not take place until lonq afterwards
 * Plutarch, Amator. Narrat. c. 2, p. 772 ; Diodor. Fragm. lib. viii, p. 26.