Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/73

 ATHENS BEFORE THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 5^ after the revolt of Samos, reversed all these chances, and not only extinguished the dispositions of Corinth towards peace, but even transformed her into the forward instigator of war. Amidst the various colonies planted from Corinth along the coast of Epirus, the greater number acknowledged on her part an hegemony, or supremacy. 1 What extent of real power and interference this acknowledgment implied, in addition to the honorary dignity, we are not in a condition to say ; but the Corinthians were popular, and had not carried their interference beyond the point which the colonists themselves found accept- able. To these amicable relations, however, the powerful Kor- kyra formed a glaring exception, having been generally at variance, sometimes in the most aggravated hostility, with its mother-city, and withholding from her even the accustomed trib- utes of honorary and filial respect. It was amidst such relations of habitual ill-will between Corinth and Korkyra, that a dispute grew up respecting the city of Epidamnus, known afterwards, in the Roman times, as Dyrrachium, hard by the modern Durazzo, a colony founded by the Korkyraeans on the coast of Illyria, in the Ionic gulf, considerably to the north of their own island. So strong was the sanctity of Grecian custom in respect to the foundation of colonies, that the Korkyragans, in spite of their enmity to Corinth, had been obliged to select the oekist, or founder-in-chief of Epidamnus, from that city, a citizen of Herakleid descent, named Phalius, along with whom there had also come some Corinthian settlers : so that Epidamnus-, though a Korkyrasan colony, was nevertheless a recognized grand- daughter, if the expression may be allowed, of Corinth, the re- collection of which was perpetuated by the solemnities periodically celebrated in honor of the oekist. 2 Founded on the isthmus of an outlaying peninsula on the sea-coast of the Illyrian Taulantii, Epidamnus was at first very prosperous, and acquired a considerable territory as well as a numerous population. But during the years immediately pre- ceding the period which we have now reached, it had been ex- posed to great reverses : internal sedition between the oligarchy 1 Thucyd. i, 38. rfttfibvef re dvai Kai ri siKora
 * Thucyd. i, 24, 25.