In the interior, also, plundering expeditions were carried on by land, as on the borders of England or Scotland, and more anciently on the Welsh marshes. And up to the period of the Peloponnesian war, many Greek nations still continued to live after the ancient manner, as the Ozolian and Epicnemidian Locrians, the Ætolians, the Acarnanians, and other neighbouring tribes, of which their habit of wearing arms may be considered as a memento. To repress the ravages of these half-civilized races was often an object of great concern to the Athenians, who, to check the cruises of the Opuntians, long accustomed to enrich themselves by plundering the coast of Eubœa during the Peloponnesian war, took and fortified the uninhabited island of Atalantè.[1555] Some ages before, they had, under the conduct of Cimon, expelled from Scyros the piratical Dolopians, who not only scoured the neighbouring seas, but even plundered such vessels as put into their harbour.[1556] Nothing, however, could extirpate the evil, which has always continued to be the curse of those seas, sometimes denounced, sometimes encouraged, by the princes of the neighbouring countries, who, like Philip of Macedon, find it convenient, according to the exigencies of their affairs, to make war upon the buccaneers, or to unite with them in pursuit of plunder. ----- Footnote 1555: Thucyd. i. 151. Footnote 1556: Plut. Cim. § 8. ----- Of all the Doric states the most commercial was undoubtedly Corinth. That, situated on the isthmus by which the Peloponnesos is united with the rest of Greece, became very early an emporium, and rose to opulence[1557] and splendour; for whatever merchandise was transported from northern Greece into any of the states of the peninsula by land, necessarily passed through this city, and paying, as was customary, transit dues, tended greatly to enrich it. The same thing may be said of the productions of the Peloponnesos, which, by this road, found their way into Hellas. Afterwards addicting themselves to navigation, the Corinthians, from their two ports of Lechæum and Cenchreæ,[1558] carried on an extremely extensive commerce with Italy and the countries on the Adriatic on the one hand, and with Asia Minor[1559] and the islands on the other; so that whatever articles of commerce are reckoned among the imports of Athens were likewise in a measure to be found at Corinth. The aversion of the ancient mariners to double Cape Malea long secured its trade to Corinth. There was a proverb[1560] which said, that whoever sailed round that redoubtable promontory must be unmindful of his friends at home; and, in truth, the boisterous and contrary winds which still encounter the mariner who passes from the Myrtoan to the Ionian sea might well appear terrible to the small craft of remote antiquity. To avoid this dangerous navigation these barks themselves, together with the merchandise they carried, were drawn across the isthmus, and launched again on the opposite sea.