It is not uncommon for great wars to arise from incidents in remote places. The Second Punic War broke out as a result of a quarrel over the unimportant Spanish town of Saguntum. The Great War of 1914 was the consequence of an assassination in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo. But Saguntum was located near the frontier between Carthaginian territory and an area under Roman protection. Bosnia was in a region which had long been the subject of dispute between Russia and Austria, and it is common to speak of the Balkans as a cockpit where several wars had taken place in the years before the Great War. The metaphor of a powder keg awaiting a spark is not strained when applied to both situations.
Epidamnus, however, where the events took place which ultimately led to the Peloponnesian War, was even more remote from the center of things than either Saguntum or Sarajevo. It was located on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, over one hundred miles to the north of Corcyra. In antiquity it was also called Dyrrachium, although in the fifth century Epidamnus was more common. The modern town of Durazzo occupies its site and is part of Albania.1 It was well beyond any conceivable sphere of Athenian interest, for even if we believe in continuing Athenian ambitions in Italy and Sicily, Epidamnus was far to the north of the route leading there. It was also, of course, well beyond the limits of Spartan concern. One could hardly imagine a less likely spot to provide the occasion for a great conflict between Athens and Sparta.
Epidamnus was founded in the last quarter of the seventh century by Corcyra. Since Corcyra was itself a Corinthian colony, it followed customary procedure and chose a Corinthian, Phalius, as the founder. From the first the colony was made up of some Corinthians and other Dorians, as well as the Corcyreans, but there was absolutely no question that Epidamnus was a Corcyrean colony.2 The city grew and prospered. Although surrounded by barbarians (an Illyrian people called the Taulantians) and distant from the centers of Greek culture, the Epidamnians were by no means cut off from the other Greeks. Early in the sixth century one of their citizens was rich and important enough to contest for the hand of Agariste, the daughter of Cleisthenes, the powerful tyrant of Sicyon. A flight of exiles from Elis to the coast of Illyria probably contributed to the growth in the wealth and population of Epidamnus.3 By 516 the city was wealthy enough to produce a citizen who not only won the chariot race at Olympia but dedicated statues of himself, his horses, and chariot as well.4
It is natural that the early constitution of the state should have been aristocratic, and there is reason to believe that the aristocrats had special privileges in the trade with the barbarians, which may have led to especially friendly relations between the aristocrats and the native lllyrians.5 It is possible that the Epidamnian aristocrats were the descendants of the first settlers from Corcyra, but this does not necessarily mean that Corcyra was more closely attached to them than to the commoners.6 As time passed and the population and prosperity of the town grew, the usual economic, social, and political developments took place. Thucydides tells us that social conflict was particularly severe in Epidamnus and that there was civil strife lasting for many years. To this was added a war against the barbarians of the neighborhood which devastated the city and deprived it of its power. In the year or two before 435 the democratic faction drove out the aristocrats, who immediately joined with the barbarians and attacked the city by land and sea. Under great pressure the democrats in the city sent ambassadors to Corcyra, the mother city, where they sat down as suppliants in the temple of Hera. The request they made was that the Corcyreans “should not look on at their destruction but reconcile them with the exiles and put an end to the war with the barbarians.”7
What the Epidamnians were asking of the Corcyreans was the kind of help a colony might expect of its mother city. It was very much like the help Corcyra, in cooperation with Corinth, had given to Syracuse in 492, when Hippocrates of Gela had defeated the Syracusans in battle. Corinth and Corcyra intervened on that occasion on behalf of their colonial kinsmen.8 The Epidamnian democrats did not ask the Corcyreans to take their part in a factional struggle, but merely to put an end to that struggle and help them against the barbarians. The Corcyreans, however, were unmoved by the appeal and refused. When the democrats of Epidamnus realized that they would get no help from their metropolis, they turned for help to the gods. Sending to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, they asked whether they should give their city over to the Corinthians as their founders and try to get some help from them. The god answered affirmatively, and the Epidamnians went to Corinth.“They handed over their colony and, pointing out that their founder was from Corinth and revealing the oracular response, they asked the Corinthians not to look on while they were destroyed but to help them.” The Corinthians accepted the invitation.9
The question immediately arises as to why the Corcyreans refused to aid their beleaguered colony, and the silence of Thucydides makes it difficult to give a confident answer. Corcyra had other colonies, or shares in colonies, in the Greek northwest. She shared with Corinth in the colonies of Anactorium, Apollonia, and Leucas, and we have reason to think that she made an effort to maintain her influence in them during the fifth century.10 One would think that the Corcyreans would be glad of a chance to increase their influence in Epidamnus, so that their refusal is somewhat puzzling.
One explanation that has been offered is that the Corcyreans remained aloof because they favored the aristocrats and expected them to win if there were no interference. This arises from one of two assumptions or a combination of both: that the Epidamnian aristocrats, and they alone, were related by blood to the Corcyreans, and that Corcyra itself was an oligarchy. The support for the first assumption comes from the fact that when the Corinthians agreed to support the Epidamnian democrats, the aristocrats went to Corcyra, pointed out the graves of their common ancestors, made claims on the kinship of the Corcyreans, and obtained their help.11 This proves nothing; for the aristocrats to make such claims does not show that the democrats could not or did not. The fact is that Diodorus informs us that the democrats did ask the Corinthians for help, “on the grounds that they were kinsmen.”12
The second assumption, that the government was oligarchic, though made by many scholars, rests only on the incident at Epidamnus. The argument is that if Corcyra helped aristocrats, its own constitution must have been aristocratic. Not only is this argument intrinsically dubious, as oligarchic Corinth’s help to the democrats of Epidamnus shows, but we have good reason to think that Corcyra was, in fact, a democracy. In 427, when civil war broke out at Corcyra, the government of the island was democratic.13 A change from aristocracy to democracy could hardly have come about so swiftly without a serious struggle. Since none of our sources says a word about such a civil conflict, although a lengthy and detailed account of the civil war of 427 such as Thucydides gives would demand an account of such recent troubles, we must believe that the government of Corcyra was democratic in the years before 435 as well. We may not, therefore, explain Corcyra’s behavior toward Epidamnus by oligarchic or aristocratic sympathies.14
Another suggestion is that the Corcyreans stood aloof because of cynical self-interest. Perhaps they expected both sides to wear each other out and leave Epidamnus so helpless that it would become a Corcyrean protectorate.15 This appears to come closer to the truth. We must remember that civil war at Epidamnus had been going on for some time, and the Corcyreans had looked on complacently. If they favored the aristocrats out of kinship, political sympathy, or advantage, they should have intervened before they were exiled. If they favored the democrats for similar reasons, they should have helped them crush their opponents. The fact is that Corcyra seems to have been remote not only in geography but in attitude. Her foreign policy was one of “splendid isolation,” and she seems to have been little interested in the affairs of her colony some distance to the north; it is her ultimate involvement rather than her aloofness that requires explanation.
It is hardly surprising that Epidamnus should have turned in her desperation to Corinth after her refusal by Corcyra, and the Corinthians responded quickly and vigorously. They issued an invitation to colonists to reinforce the city and immediately sent off a garrison of Corinthians accompanied by their allies from Ambracia and Leucas. The quickest, easiest, and most usual way to go was by sea, but the expedition set off to Apollonia on land, “fearing that the Corcyreans would prevent them if they went by sea.”16 The Corinthians, it is clear, undertook their expedition in the full expectation that Corcyra would object and that a war with Corcyra might ensue. Why were they willing to take the risk? It is customary in our time, and not always wrong, to seek an economic answer to such questions. It has been suggested that Illyria was a Corinthian trade center where they obtained the materials for the perfume that they exported in their beautiful aryballoi. More important is the suggestion that the silver for the ubiquitous coins of Corinth came from the mines of Damastium in Illyria.17
Now the evidence for Corinthian trade in Illyria is almost wholly archaeological and very slender. By any standards it was not large in comparison with the Italian and Sicilian trade. The evidence for Corinthian silver mines in Illyria is not much better. It depends on an obscure passage in Strabo, which says there were silver mines at Damastium, but no one knows precisely where Damastium was located.18 It is by no means clear, moreover, that Illyria was the source of Corinthian silver at all. Some have suggested that the Corinthian pegasi were made of silver from Spain by way of Samos or came to Corinth by way of Euboea, but the truth is that we simply do not know where the silver came from.19
We cannot, of course, be sure that Illyria was not the source of Corinthian silver, and the seekers for an economic motive for Corinthian intervention at Epidamnus point to a passage in Thucydides that seems to support their view. It comes in a speech that the Corinthians made at Athens to counter the Corcyrean request for an alliance. They point out that their geographical position has made the Corcyreans haughty and independent. They are accustomed to be judges in the cases in which they are themselves involved, “because they sail to the harbors of others very little, but chiefly receive others who come to them by necessity.”20 From this Beaumont argues as follows:
Why was it a “necessity” (ἀνάγκη) for the Corinthians to make frequent voyages to Corcyra? The voyage to Sicily need not have taken a Corinthian merchantman within fifty miles of the island, and Corinthian trade with the Adriatic, which must indeed have passed near Corcyra, was, apart from the possibility of silver, in luxuries, and on the available evidence it can hardly be ranked as a vital interest. Thucydides I, 37, 4 is clear evidence that Corcyra lay on some vital Corinthian trade route. Corinth simply had to make the voyage to the north. What was it, if it was not silver, that made the Adriatic trade so valuable?21
It is very important to analyze this argument, for on it rests the whole case for an economic interpretation of Corinth’s behavior at this time, and Beaumont is its most authoritative proponent. Since he himself dismisses the trade with Illyria as not vital, we need only concern ourselves with the question of silver.
The entire argument rests on the assumption that the Corinthians found it “a necessity” to make frequent stops at Corcyra and that these stops were on voyages to the north. This assumption, however, is not supported by the evidence. To begin with, it may be true that the Corinthians need not stop at Corcyra on their way to Italy and Sicily. In theory they could have sailed directly across the open sea as the ferry does today. But that is not the way the ancient Greeks sailed the seas. They feared the open sea, and particularly the dangerous Adriatic. The normal procedure was to cling to the coast and only venture away from it when absolutely necessary. The usual route from Corinth would be to sail along the northern shore of the Gulf of Corinth, where the Corinthians had sensibly planted colonies, to the Corinthian island colony of Leucas. From there one would sail along the coast of Epirus to Corcyra, and thence make the shortest possible crossing to Italy. Ships aiming for Sicily would move on along the Italian coast and cross to Sicily near the narrow Straits of Messina. When the Athenians made the trip to the west during the war, and from Leucas on it was the same route as the Corinthians would take, they proceeded in this way. As Thucydides points out, one of the reasons the Athenians chose to accept the Corcyrean alliance was because “it seemed to them that the island was well situated for a coasting voyage to Italy and Sicily.”22
Thus, if it was a necessity for the Corinthians to sail frequently to Corcyra, it is far more likely that it was to break a trip to the west, where Corinth certainly did have vital economic interests, than as a stopping place on the way north. But it would be wrong to exaggerate the importance of Corcyra even for Corinth’s western trade. Even if we assume that Corinthian merchants were occasionally irritated by their treatment in Corcyrean courts when commercial disputes arose, which is at best an unsubstantiated speculation, this was hardly a matter of vital interest to Corinth, one which would justify a war. If things were really bad at Corcyra, the Corinthians could have sailed north along the coast not too far to the friendly colony of Apollonia and used it as the stopping place on the way to Italy. In fact they did no such thing, surely because they had no reason to do so. Finally, it should be emphasized that it was not Corcyra’s unfriendliness to visiting merchants that brought on the crisis, but the opportunity for Corinthian intervention at Epidamnus. The former complaint is barely mentioned by the Corinthians in their speech at Athens and never referred to again. It was merely a device used by the Corinthians to counter the Corcyrean charges that Corinth was in the wrong because she refused arbitration.23
The setting of their speech at Athens is very important for our interpretation of it. The Corinthians were speaking in the Athenian assembly. Their purpose was to blacken the character of the Corcyreans and to demonstrate their own rectitude. Nothing could be less useful than to indicate that the Corinthians were arguing in behalf of a selfish interest. As we shall see, the one complaint they made against Corcyra on their own behalf is of a violation of decency and religious practice, not of material interest. What they are saying is that the Corcyreans take advantage of their geographical location and the necessity of others to use their harbors. The victims, if there really were any, might well include Athenian merchants, and it may be that the Corinthians were aiming their remarks, which are not emphasized, at such Athenians, among whom they might find sympathetic ears. All this is conjecture, but what is clear is that the passage provides no evidence of vital Corinthian interests in the north. The question has been asked, “What was it, if it was not silver, that made the Adriatic trade so valuable?” We have no good reason to think that there was a silver trade in the Adriatic, so we may answer that nothing made it valuable; therefore it was not valuable and certainly not vital. It is also clear that Corinth’s western interests, although both valuable and vital, were not threatened by Corcyra, but far more important, had nothing whatever to do with Epidamnus, and may not be used to explain Corinthian intervention there.
If we turn away from the realm of economic interests and examine the history of the relations between Corinth and Corcyra, we may find a more plausible motive for the Corinthian intervention at Epidamnus. Corcyra was a Corinthian colony, founded by the Bacchiads late in the eighth century. It is possible that, along with Syracuse, which was founded about the same time, it was intended to serve as an outpost for Corinthian trade with the west and thus to be closely attached to the metropolis, although it seems more likely that important Corinthian trade in the west followed rather than preceded the foundation of these colonies.24 Whatever the original intentions, there is no doubt that both Corcyra and Syracuse became altogether independent states, in no way under the control of Corinth; each colony had its own special development. Syracuse remained on very good terms with the mother city, but between Corcyra and Corinth a deep hostility sprang up very early. Herodotus tells us that there were differences between them from the foundation of the colony.25 As early as 664, Corinth and Corcyra fought a naval battle, the first one among Greeks, according to Thucydides.26 We do not know the cause of that early war, but it was clearly a war between two sovereign and independent states and not a war of independence.27
The enmity between metropolis and colony was intensified by the accession of the Cypselid dynasty of tyrants in Corinth. Without delay the Corcyreans received the exiled Bacchiads whom Cypselus had driven from Corinth.28 Since Corcyra had been hostile to Bacchiad Corinth, we have no ready explanation for this action, but it early set the tone for relations between Corcyra and the Corinth of the Cypselids. There is good reason to think that under the Cypselids Corinth for the first time undertook to establish what we might call a colonial empire in the northwest of Greece. This is not to say that the colonies they founded were subject states, but unlike Syracuse and Bacchiad Corcyra, they were probably under close Corinthian supervision. An examination of the geography of these Cypselid foundations shows that their location was not haphazard or determined by the usual agricultural considerations. Molycreium and Chalcis were on the north shore of the Gulf of Corinth, opposite Patras; Sollium, on the Acarnanian coast and Leucas, the island opposite it; Anactorium, on the south shore of the Ambracian Gulf and Ambracia on a river a few miles from the north shore; finally, there were Apollonia, Epidamnus, and Corcyra itself, all at some time under the control of Cypselids. The distribution is ideal for securing coastal shipping to the north and west and for asserting Corinthian influence in the entire region.29
The trouble between Corinth and Corcyra was intensified by Corcyra’s own interests in much of the same region. We have already seen that at a moment when their hostility was muted, the Corcyreans followed custom in employing a Corinthian founder for Epidamnus, which was, however, a purely Corcyrean colony, very remote from most of the Corinthian foundations. Corinthian interests met those of Corcyra head on in the colony of Apollonia. The ancient authors are divided as to whether it was a joint colony of the two cities or had been founded by Corcyra.30 We cannot be sure about the foundation of Apollonia, but the numismatic evidence points to Corcyra as founder. The first coins of Apollonia that we possess date from the middle of the fifth century. Like the contemporary coins of Epidamnus, they are nothing more than Corcyrean coins stamped with the first letters of the name of their town. It is no coincidence that at this time inscriptions first appear on Corcyrean coins. We must agree with Graham:“It appears likely that the three cities had all used Corcyra’s coins before this time, and it was only necessary to put an inscription on Corcyra’s coins when the colonies began to issue identical coins for themselves.”31 We may go beyond Graham in suggesting that the reason Apollonia and Epidamnus began inscribing the names of their towns on the Corcyrean coins is that they had begun to pull away from Corcyrean control and were asserting some degree of independence. It is not too much to believe that this movement toward independence may have been supported by Corinth, which hoped to supplant Corcyrean influence with its own.
The colonies of Anactorium and Leucas seem to offer evidence that the experience of Apollonia was not unique. Two of our ancient sources speak of Leucas as a Corinthian colony founded by a son of Cypselus, but they do not agree on which son.32 Plutarch says that it was founded by Periander.33 All are very remote from the event, and their disagreement makes it likely that little was known of the foundation of Leucas by the first century. In the fifth century, however, a dispute over Leucas took place between Corinth and Corcyra. The argument seems to have been very much like the one that occurred in 435 over Epidamnus; there was a disagreement over which was the true metropolis of the colony. Themistocles was called in to arbitrate and settled the affair by deciding that Corinth should pay an indemnity of twenty talents and thereafter treat Leucas as the common colony of Corinth and Corcyra. The solution was highly pleasing to Corcyra, where Themistocles was thereafter considered a public benefactor.34 The story is confirmed by Thucydides, who characteristically offers no details but makes it clear that Themistocles was considered a benefactor (εὐεργέτης) by the Coreyreans.35
If we try to reconstruct the events from the meager description of Plutarch, we find the parallel with the Epidamnian affair most striking. The payment of an indemnity to Corcyra plainly indicates that there had been some fighting, and Corinth was judged sufficiently culpable to pay the costs. The pleasure of the Corcyreans may seem to indicate that the settlement was fully in accord with their own wishes and claims, but that seems unlikely. Arbitrators rarely award full satisfaction to one side, and it is incredible that the Corinthians would have accepted the decision without receiving at least part of their own demands. It seems more than likely that Leucas had been founded by Corcyra, perhaps through a Corinthian. Over the years the island may have moved toward independence and sought aid from Corinth, which was glad to offer it in return for the recognition of its claims as founder. The war must have come when Corcyra challenged those claims. The decision of Themistocles gave Corinth half a loaf by recognizing her as co-founder; it pleased the Corcyreans because it prevented a total Corinthian victory, such as Corinth seems to have won at Apollonia, and awarded them an indemnity.36
Anactorium seems to present a similar experience. In 433, Thucydides speaks of it as a place common to the Corinthians and Corcyreans,37 but in 425, when the Athenians captured the town, he calls it a “city belonging to the Corinthians.”38 Later authors speak of it as being founded by a son of Cypselus, although they do not agree on which son.39 The evidence of the coins is different from what we find at Apollonia and Epidamnus, which first used Corcyrean coins and then stamped them with a local inscription. Like Leucas, Anactorium used Corinthian coins engraved with its own initial. This appears to suggest that the city had initially been a Corinthian colony. Perhaps it is correct to conjecture that a Corcyrean element had been added to the population by Periander when he controlled Corcyra,40 although it seems more likely that the Corcyreans had been there from the first.
There can, in any case, be no doubt that there was a Corcyrean population of some strength in Anactorium at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. We have seen that Thucydides considered it common to Corinth and Corcyra, and its actions in the succeeding years make it clear why he thought so. At the Battle of Sybota in 433, the nearby towns of Ambracia and Leucas supplied a total of thirty-seven ships, while Anactorium supplied only one. Even if we believe that Anactorium was a lesser naval state than the others, the degree of disparity remains surprising. When Thucydides lists the states who supplied ships to each side at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, Leucas and Ambracia are named, but Anactorium is missing. In 435 the Corinthians were compelled to capture the city, and Thucydides explains the need to do so, in the passage we have already cited, by pointing out that the city was the common property of Corinth and Corcyra. Even as late as 425 there was a powerful anti-Corinthian party in Anactorium which helped the Athenians and Ambracians take the city by treachery. It is not too daring a guess that the traitors may have been the remaining Corcyreans.41 The pattern at Anactorium is much the same as in the other cities we have discussed. There was some dispute between Corinthians and Corcyreans over the control of the city, and in Anactorium, as in all the others except Epidamnus, the Corinthians seem to have had the upper hand.
The picture that emerges from a study of the individual states where conflict arose between Corinth and Corcyra is something like this: Corinth had established colonies like Syracuse and Corcyra under the Bacchiads. These were altogether independent states, and Corcyra, in fact, soon became hostile. Perhaps the quarrel first arose from conflicting interests in the northwest, perhaps from less rational causes; we simply do not know. With the coming of the Cypselids, Corinth established a sphere of influence in the region by planting a series of colonies on the major sea route. Some of these may have conflicted with the interests of Corcyrean colonies already established or asserted Corinthian predominance in mixed colonies. The fall of the Cypselid dynasty may have given Corcyra a chance to assert her own influence in her neighborhood, perhaps even to dominate mixed colonies. All of this competition could only exacerbate the pre-existing ill will between the states. By the fifth century it looks very much as if Corinth had regained the upper hand. On the eve of the war she seems to have controlled all the disputed colonies with the exception of Epidamnus.
Thus, it might appear that we have discovered a rational, if not wholly admirable, reason why Corinth should have been willing to risk an almost certain war with Corcyra by going to the assistance of a political faction alien to its own constitutional and political outlook, in a far-off region where it had no vital economic interests. The answer seems to lie in the struggle for power, for political influence, for imperial control. This is a very Thucydidean answer, so it is surprising to find that it is not the answer he gives. He says instead that the Corinthians accepted the invitation of the Epidamnian democrats
in part because they thought that the colony was no less theirs than the Corcyreans; at the same time also out of hatred for the Corcyreans, for they paid no attention to the Corinthians even though they were their colonists. In the common festivals they did not give them the customary privileges nor did they begin by having a Corinthian commence the initial sacrifices, as the other colonies did, but treated them contemptuously.
The Corcyreans were a haughty people, proud of their wealth, their naval power, and their imagined descent from the legendary Phaeacians of Homer’s epic.42 All this had puffed them up and made them intolerable to the Corinthians. The irrationality of this motive has set off the hunt for better ones. “Is it really credible that the Corinthians disliked the Corcyreans to such an extent as to fight them for the reasons that Thucydides gives…?”Beaumont asked. “It is surely justifiable to look for something more concrete.”43 His search for the concrete led him to the putative Corinthian mining interests in Illyria, which we have rejected above.
To explain Corinth’s action as an imperialistic attempt to extend her power at Corcyrean expense may be more satisfactory, but it is hardly more rational. Our own century has good reason to know that the competition for power and empire, though cloaked by public assertions of rational advantage, is often nothing more than the satisfaction of an irrational urge and yields no tangible gain. We may not wish to go so far as Joseph Schumpeter, who says that “‘objectless’ tendencies toward forcible expansion, without definite, utilitarian limits—that is, non-rational and irrational, purely instinctual inclinations toward war and conquest—play a very large role in the history of mankind,”and believe that imperialism is a kind of cultural atavism.44 But we can hardly deny that the scramble to divide up the undeveloped areas of the world after 1870 was less than a completely rational activity. It is difficult to discern the economic, strategic, or other practical benefit which Ethiopia, Libya, or Eritrea could have given Italy in return for the money and lives she spent gaining control over them.
The real motive for Italian imperialism is more likely to be found in the psychology of a nation unified late and discontented with her weakness in comparison with her European neighbors. Rather than in economic statistics, it may be found in a speech made by Mussolini to Italian veterans in which he reminded them of the glories of ancient Rome, saying, “Nothing forbids us to believe that what was our destiny yesterday may again become our destiny tomorrow.”45 The true motive for Japanese imperialism may likewise be found in the minds of the Japanese rather than in their account books. They were a proud people embarrassed by the revelation of their backwardness in regard to the West and eager to assert themselves as equal, if not superior. One of their statesmen revealed the sentiments underlying Japanese policy in the following terms:
As soon as the Meiji Restoration lifted the ban on foreign intercourse, the long-pent-up energy of our race was released, and with fresh oudook and enthusiasm the nation has made swift progress. When you know this historical background, and understand this overflowing vitality of our race, you will see the impossibility of compelling us to stay within the confines of our little island home. We are destined to grow and expand overseas.46
These modern analogies are introduced merely to show that even in a world where economic considerations are far more dominant than they were in the world of the Greek city-state, imperial ventures are not always guided by the search for tangible gain. Corinth’s willingness to fight for Epidamnus was caused by similar non-rational motives. The sixth century had seen Sparta grow to be the dominant power in the Peloponnese. Since the Persian Wars, Athens had become her equal. Corinth, with a proud history as a commercial, industrial, artistic, and naval power, had seen her prestige shrink in comparison with the two superpowers who had arisen since the middle of the sixth century. She had learned to cope with Sparta and had reached a modus vivendi with Athens. At the same time, she determined to build a sphere of influence in the northwest of Greece to compensate for her diminished prestige elsewhere. This brought her into conflict with Corcyra, which had grown in power and influence while Corinth had declined. Corcyra had remained aloof from the wars that had troubled Greece in the fifth century and seemed to profit by it. At the time of the outbreak of the war she had accumulated one hundred and twenty ships, the second largest navy in Greece. Our investigation indicates that she had even tried to challenge Corinthian hegemony in the northwest. To these injuries the Corcyreans added the insult of public disdain for Corinth at the religious festivals common to them and to the other colonies of Corinth. We may well agree with Thucydides when he judges that this public insult inflamed the deep-seated hatred felt by the Corinthians and best explains their acceptance of the Epidamnian appeal.
Nothing compelled the Corinthians to intervene in Epidamnus when they knew that the intervention could mean war with Corcyra. No interest of theirs was threatened, no diminution of their power or prestige. It was they who took the initiative, who seized on what seemed a favorable opportunity to alter the situation in their own favor. Far from trying to avoid a war with Corcyra, they sought it as a splendid chance to damage that insolent offspring and perhaps crush it once and for all. The result, as we know, was not what the Corinthians had expected, but that is often the consequence of policies that are more emotional than rational.
1 Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 158.
2 Thuc. 1. 24. 1—2; the date of foundation comes from the Chronicles of Eusebius and is generally accepted as approximately correct. See Gomme, Hist. Commn., I, 158, Will (Korinthiaka, 371) and Graham, Colony and Mother City, 30—31, the last of whom demonstrates that Epidamnus was unquestionably a Corcyrean colony.
3 Thuc. 1. 24. 3. For the early history of Epidamnus, my chief source is R. L. Beaumont, ]HS, LVI (1936), 159ff., especially 166—168. The story of the wooing of Agariste is told in Hdt. 6. 127, and the tale of the Elean exiles comes from Strabo, p. 357.
4 Paus. 6. 10. 5.
5 Thuc. 1. 24. 5; Plut. Quaest. Graec. 29. 297F; Beaumont, op. cit., 167.
6 Wentker, Sizilien und Athen, 11, makes more of the special relationship between the first settlers of a colony, who become its nobility, and the mother city than the evidence warrants. He believes that the mother city established a position of hegemony based on a bond of service between the noble colonists and the metropolis (p. 13). I agree with Graham (p. 151) that Corinth’s support of the Epidamnian democrats shows that the idea is “somewhat farfetched.”
7 Thuc. 1. 24. 5–7.
8 Hdt. 7. 154; Graham, Colony and Mother City, 143–144.
9 Thuc. 1. 25. 1–3.
10 Graham, Colony and Mother City, 128–153.
11 Thuc. 1. 26. 3; Graham, Colony and Mother City, 149–150.
12 Diod. 12. 30. 3: ἀξιοῦντες τοὠς Kερκυραίους συγγενεῖς ὄντας βοηθῆσαι.
13 Thuc. 1. 70.
14 For an oligarchic or aristocratic rule at Corcyra, see Busolt, GG, III: 2, 766 and 774–5; Bernhard Schmidt, Korkyraeische Studien (Leipzig, 1890), 67; Meyer, GdA, IV: 1, 566; IV: 2, 6; Glotz and Cohen, HG, II, 615. Those who believe Corcyra was democratic include Grote (IV, 537) and Bürchner (PW, XII, 1413). Legon (.op. cit., 8–12) presents a useful discussion of the problem and arrives at the cautious conclusion that before the war Corcyra was either a democracy or a moderate oligarchy which could easily move in the direction of democracy without trouble. He rules out, however, the kind of aristocracy that would be automatically sympathetic with Epidamnian aristocrats.
15 Beaumont, op. cit., 167.
16 Thuc. 1. 26. 2—3: δέει τῶν Kερκυραίων μὴ κωλύωναι ὑπ’ αὐτῶν κατὰ θάλασσαν περαιούμενοι.
17 The case for Corinthian economic interests in Illyria is made best by Beaumont, op. cit., 181—186 and accepted by Michell, Economics, 244–247.
18 Strabo, 326, placed it “somewhere near [πλησίον δέ που]” some Illyrian peoples far to the north of Epidamnus and Apollonia. O. Davies (Roman Mines in Europe [Oxford, 1935], 239) says the mines were located too far from the coast to have been controlled by the Greeks, although Beaumont points out that Strabo tells us that one of the local tribes was ruled by a Corinthian Bacchiad (p. 182). According to J. M. F. May (The Coinage of Damastion and the Lesser Coinages of the lllyro-Paeonian Region [London, 1939], viii ff., 2ff.), the coinage of Damastium, which is not known before the fourth century, was current to the west, in the Chakidice. Thus, if Corinth got her silver from the mines of Damastium at all, she very likely got it by way of Potidaea. It is, of course, possible that Corinth received its silver through the Illyrian colonies, but what little evidence there is does not point in that direction. See J. G. Milne JHS, LVIII [1938], 96), who agrees with May’s conclusions.
19 M. Cary (Mélanges Glotz [Paris, 1932], I, 138) favors the Spain-Samos theory, and Milne (loc. cit.) suggests Euboea as a source. In 1943, C. H. V. Sutherland examined the claim for Illyria and concluded that “the evidence must be accounted as conjectural”(AJP, LXIV [1943], 134, n. 20.) Nothing has happened since to alter the validity of that judgment.
20 Thuc. 1. 37. 3: διὰ τὸ ἥκιστα ἐπὶ τοὠς πέλας ἐκπλέοντας μάλιστα τοὠς ἄλλους ἀνάγκῃ καταίροντας δέχεσθαι.
21 Beaumont, op. cit., 183.
22 1. 44. 3.
23 This section was composed before I had seen M. I. Finley’s excellent contribution on ancient Greece to the first volume of the Second International Conference of Economic History entitled Trade and Politics in the Ancient World (Paris, 1965), 11–35. It is pleasant to learn that my conclusions as to the value of the evidence for economic motives in the modern sense agree with his.
24 For a discussion of the date of foundation and the theories of the original purposes of the colonies, see Graham, Colony and Mother City, 218–223.
25 3. 49. 1.
26 1. 13. 4.
27 Graham, Colony and Mother City, 146–147
28 Nicolaus Damascenus, FGrH, 90, frg. 57, 7.
29 For a discussion of the Cypselids and their colonial policy, see Edouard Will (Korinthiaka 521—539), who offers useful discussions of the problems and controversies. See also E. Will, La Nouvelle Clio, VI, 413–460 (1954) and Graham, Colony and Mother City, 118—153.
30 Strabo (316) and Ps.-Scymnus (439) speak of it as a joint colony, while Pausanias (5. 22. 4) calls it a Corcyrean colony. Stephanus Byzantinus, s.v., “Apollonia,”speaks only of Corinthian settlers. Thucydides (1. 26. 2) calls it a Corinthian colony (Kοριυθίωυ οσὖαυ ἀποιkίαυ), which it had certainly become by 435, but his evidence does not bear on the question of the origins of the colony.
31 130.
32 Strabo, 452; Nic. Dam. FGrH, frg. 57, 7.
33 Moralia 552E.
34 Plut. Them. 24. 1.
35 1. 136. 1.
36 Graham (Colony and Mother City, 129–130) considers it possible that Leucas was originally a joint colony of Corinth and Corcyra. This seems to me possible, but unlikely for the reasons offered above and because of the long-standing enmity between the states. The best argument in his favor is that Leucas originally used Corinthian coins, which points to a Corinthian foundation. I cannot explain this inconvenient fact away, but find it less decisive than the evidence of Plutarch’s story. We simply know too little about the early history of western Greece to be sure that Leucas was not an exception to the rule that the use of another city’s coinage generally implied some close political relation. Whatever the truth in this matter, we agree that “Corinth was trying to gain sole control of Leucas in the early fifth century, and had succeeded in doing so by the time of the Epidamnus dispute.”
37 1. 55. 1: κοίυόυ Kερκυραίωυ καὶ ἐκείυωυ.
38 4. 49. 1: Koριυθίωυ πóλιυ.
39 Strabo (452) suggests that Gorgos was the founder, but Nic. Dam. (frg. 57, 7) says it was Pylades.
40 Hdt. 3. 48–53; Graham, Colony and Mother City, 129.
41 Graham, Colony and Mother City, 132–133. The relevant passages in Thucydides are: Sybota, 1. 46. 1; list of ships, 2. 9. 2-3; Corinthian capture of city, 1. 55. 1; treachery, 4. 49. 1.
42 1. 25. 3–4.
43 Op. cit., 183.
44 Imperialism and Social Classes, tr. Heinz Norden (New York, 1955), 64.
45 The speech is quoted by William L. Langer in Foreign Affairs, XIV (1935–36), 102–19. My views on imperialism owe much to his article.
46 Quoted by Langer, op. cit.