y. The Greek settlements in these
regions, the island-towns of Issa (Lissa) and Pharos (Lesina), the
important ports of Epidamnus (Durazzo) and Apollonia (to the north of
Avlona on the Aous) of course suffered especially, and were repeatedly
beleaguered by the barbarians. Farther to the south, moreover, the
corsairs established themselves in Phoenice, the most flourishing town
of Epirus; partly voluntarily, partly by constraint, the Epirots and
Acarnanians entered into an unnatural symmachy with the foreign
freebooters; the coast was insecure even as far as Elis and Messene.
In vain the Aetolians and Achaeans collected what ships they had, with
a view to check the evil: in a battle on the open sea they were beaten
by the pirates and their Greek allies; the corsair fleet was able at
length to take possession even of the rich and important island of
Corcyra (Corfu). The complaints of Italian mariners, the appeals for
aid of their old allies the Apolloniates, and the urgent entreaties
of the besieged Issaeans at length compelled the Roman senate to
send at least ambassadors to Scodra. The brothers Gaius and Lucius
Coruncanius went thither to demand that king Agron should put an end
to the disorder. The king answered that according to the national law
of the Illyrians piracy was a lawful trade, and that the government
had no right to put a stop to privateering; whereupon Lucius
Coruncanius replied, that in that case Rome would make it her business
to introduce a better law among the Illyrians. For this certainly not
very diplomatic reply one of the envoys was--by the king's orders, as
the Romans asserted--murdered on the way home, and the surrender of
the murderers was refused. The senate had now no choice left to it.
In the spring of 525 a fleet of 200 ships of the line, with a landing-
army on board, appeared off Apollonia; the corsair-vessels were
scattered before the former, while the latter demolished the piratic
strongholds; the queen Teuta, who after the death of her husband
Agron conducted the government during the minority of her son Pinnes,
besieged in her last retreat, was obliged to accept the conditions
dictated by Rome. The rulers of Scodra were again confined both on
the north and south to the narrow limits of their original domain,
and had to quit their hold not only on all the Greek towns, but also
on the Ardiaei in Dalmatia, the Parthini around Epidamnus, and the
Atintanes in northern Epirus; no Ill