Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/58

 42 HISTORY OF GREECE. ander is said to have put to death his wife, Melissa, daughter of Prokles, despot of Epidaurus ; and his son Lykophron, informed of this deed, contracted an incurable antipathy against him. After vainly trying, both by rigor and by conciliation, to conquer this feeling on the part of his son, Periander sent him to reside at Korkyra, then dependent upon his rule ; but when he found himself growing old and disabled, he recalled him to Corinth, in order to insure the continuance of the dynasty. Lykophron still obstinately declined all personal communication with his father, upon which the latter desired him to come to Corinth, and engaged himself to go over to Korkyra. So terrified were the Korkyrae- ans at the idea of a visit from this formidable old man, that they put Lykophron to death, a deed which Periander avenged by seizing three hundred youths of their noblest families, and sending them over to the Lydian king, Alyattes at Sardis, in order that they might be castrated and made to serve as eunuchs. The Corinthian vessels in which the youths were dispatched for- tunately touched at Samos in the way ; where the Samians and Knidians, shocked at a proceeding which outraged all Hellenic sentiment, contrived to rescue the youths from the miserable fate intended for them, and, after the death of Periander, sent them back to their native island. 1 While we turn with displeasure from the political life of this man, we are at the same time made acquainted with the great ex- tent of his power, greater than that which was ever possessed by Corinth after the extinction of his dynasty. Korkyra, Ambra- kia, Leukas, and Anaktorium, all Corinthian colonies, but in the next century independent states, appear in his time dependencies of Corinth. Ambrakia is said to have been under the rule of another despot named Periander, probably also a Kypselid by birth. It seems, indeed, that the towns of Anaktorium, Leukas, and Apollonia in the Ionian gulf, were either founded by the Kypselids, or received reinforcements of Corinthian colonists, during their dynasty, though Korkyra was established consider- ably earlier. 2 1 Herodot. iii, 47-54. He details at some length this tragical story. Com pare Plutarch, De Herodoti Malignitat. c. 22, p. 86Q
 * Aristot. Polit. v, 3, G ; 8, 9. Plutarch, Amatorius. c. 23, p. 768, and De