Turning now to the mainland of Greece we find, in most of the leading states, a sentiment of mingled fear and hatred against Athens, which had been steadily increasing in volume in the course of the last thirty years. The haughty Thebans had not forgotten their defeat at Oenophyta, and their nine years of servitude to Athens. Aegina was groaning under her yoke, and threatened with total political extinction. Megara complained that her commerce was ruined by a decree which excluded her merchants from the ports in the Athenian Empire. In the heart of Peloponnesus the Spartans were hatching mischief against their hated rival, who had robbed them of half their dignity as the acknowledged leaders of the Greeks. Corinth, whose commerce was chiefly in the western sea, outside the sphere of Athenian influence, was disposed to be friendly, and had done the Athenians good service during the revolt of Samos.[Footnote: See below, p. 31.] But five years later [Footnote: B.C. 435.] an event occurred which changed this feeling into bitter hatred against Athens, and drove the Corinthians into the ranks of her most inveterate foes. And it is at this point that we take up the main thread of our story. STORIES FROM THUCYDIDES CORINTH AND CORCYRA I It was in a remote corner of the Greek world that the trouble began which was destined to breed such mischief and havoc for the whole of Greece. At the beginning of the seventh century before our era the island of Corcyra had been colonised by the Corinthians. The colony grew and flourished, and in its turn founded other settlements on the opposite coasts of Epirus and Illyria. Among these was Epidamnus, called by the Romans Dyrrachium, and in Roman times the ordinary landing-place for travellers from Italy to Greece. After many years of prosperity the resources of Epidamnus were much crippled by internal faction, and by wars with the neighbouring barbarians. Four years before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, the nobles of Epidamnus, who had been expelled in the last revolution, made an alliance with the native tribes of Illyria, and by constant plundering raids reduced the Epidamnians to such straits that they were compelled to apply to Corcyra for help. But the Corcyraeans, whose sympathies were on the side of the banished nobles, refused to interfere.