Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/421

 AMBRAKIA, LEUKAS, AXAKTORIUM. 405 from Corinth was as much the fault of the mother-city as their own. The grounds of the quarrel were, probably, jealousies of trade, especially trade with the Epirotic and Illyrian tribes, wherein both were to a great degree rivals. Safe at home, and industrious in the culture of their fertile island, the Korkyraans were able to furnish wine and oil to the Epirots on the main-land in exchange for the cattle, sheep, hides, and wool of the latter, more easily and cheaply than the Corinthian merchant. And for the purposes of this trade, they had possessed themselves of a perrea or strip of the main-land immediately on the other side of the intervening strait, where they fortified various posts for the protection of their property. 1 The Corinthians were person- ally more popular among the Epirots than the Korkyrteans ; 2 but it was not until long after the foundation of Korkyra that they established their first settlement on the main-land, Ambrakia, on the north side of the Ambrakiotic gulf, and near the mouth of the river Arachthus. It was during the reign of Kypselus, and under the guidance of his son Gorgus, that this settlement was planted, which afterwards became populous and considerable. We know nothing respecting its growth, and we hear only of a despot named Periander as ruling in it, probably related to the despot of the same name at Corinth. 3 Periander of Ambrakia was overthrown by a private conspiracy, provoked by his own brutality, and warmly seconded by the citizens, who lived con- utHntly afterwards under a popular government. 1 "Notwithstanding the long-continued dissensions between Kor- kj'-a and Corinth, it appears that four considerable settlements en this same line of coast were formed by the joint enterprise of l,Uh, Leukas and Anaktorium, to the south of the mouth of the Ambrakiotic gulf, and Apollonia and Epidamnus, both in the territory of the Illyrians, at some distance to the north of the krokeraunian promontory. In the settlement of the two latter, 1 Thucyd. iii. 85. These fortifications are probably alluded to also i, <.5-54. ?i if TUV EKEIVUV 7i upiuv. 2 Thucyd. i, 47 3 Strabo, vii, p. 325. x. p. 452; Skymr. Chi. 4:3, Kaoul Rochette. Hut lei Colon. Grccq. vol. iii p. 294.
 * Aristot. Polit. -. . 3, '; v, 8, 9.