Korkyra. — Early foundation of Korkyra from Corinth. — Relations of Korkyra with Corinth. — Relations with Epirus. — Ambrakia founded by Corinth. — Joint settlements by Corinth and Korkyra. — Leukas and Anaktorium. — Apollonia and Epidamnus. — Relations between these colonies — Commerce. 402-410 CHAPTER XXIV. AKARNANIANS. — EPIROTS. Akarnanians. — Their social and political condition. — Epirots — comprising different tribes, with little or no ethnical kindred. — Some of these tribes ethnically connected with those of southern Italy; — others, with the Macedonians — impossible to mark the boundaries. — Territory distributed into villages — no considerable cities. — Coast of Epirus discouraging to Grecian colonization. — Some Epirotic tribes governed by kings, others not. 411-419 HISTORY OF GREECE. PART II. CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE. CHAPTER IX. CORINTH, SIKYON, AND MEGARA. — AGE OF THE GRECIAN DESPOTS. The preceding volume brought down the history of Sparta to the period marked by the reign of Peisistratus at Athens; at which time she had attained her maximum of territory, was confessedly the most powerful state in Greece, and enjoyed a proportionate degree of deference from the rest. I now proceed to touch upon the three Dorian cities on and near to the Isthmus,—Corinth, Sikyôn, and Megara, as they existed at this same period. Even amidst the scanty information which has reached us, we trace the marks of considerable maritime energy and commerce among the Corinthians, as far back as the eighth century B. C. The foundation of Korkyra and Syracuse, in the 11th Olympiad, or 734 B. C. (of which I shall speak farther in connection with Grecian colonization generally), by expeditions from Corinth, affords a good proof that they knew how to turn to account the excellent situation which connected them with the sea on both sides of Peloponnesus: and Thucydides,[1] while he notices them as the chief liberators of the sea, in early times, from pirates, also tells us that the first great improvement in ship-building,—the construction of the trireme, or ship of war, with a full deck and triple banks for the rowers,—was the fruit of Corinthian ingenuity. It was in the year 703 B. C., that the Corinthian Ameinoklês 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 between the Corinthians and the Korkyræans, B. C. 664.[2] [1] Thucyd. i, 13. [2] Thucyd. i, 13.