orinthians, and others of
the Dorian race. Now, as time went on, the city of Epidamnus became
great and populous; but falling a prey to factions arising, it is
said, from a war with her neighbours the barbarians, she became much
enfeebled, and lost a considerable amount of her power. The last act
before the war was the expulsion of the nobles by the people. The exiled
party joined the barbarians, and proceeded to plunder those in the city
by sea and land; and the Epidamnians, finding themselves hard pressed,
sent ambassadors to Corcyra beseeching their mother country not to allow
them to perish, but to make up matters between them and the exiles,
and to rid them of the war with the barbarians. The ambassadors seated
themselves in the temple of Hera as suppliants, and made the above
requests to the Corcyraeans. But the Corcyraeans refused to accept their
supplication, and they were dismissed without having effected anything.

When the Epidamnians found that no help could be expected from Corcyra,
they were in a strait what to do next. So they sent to Delphi and
inquired of the God whether they should deliver their city to the
Corinthians and endeavour to obtain some assistance from their founders.
The answer he gave them was to deliver the city and place themselves
under Corinthian protection. So the Epidamnians went to Corinth and
delivered over the colony in obedience to the commands of the oracle.
They showed that their founder came from Corinth, and revealed the
answer of the god; and they begged them not to allow them to perish,
but to assist them. This the Corinthians consented to do. Believing the
colony to belong as much to themselves as to the Corcyraeans, they felt
it to be a kind of duty to undertake their protection. Besides, they
hated the Corcyraeans for their contempt of the mother country. Instead
of meeting with the usual honours accorded to the parent city by every
other colony at public assemblies, such as precedence at sacrifices,
Corinth found herself treated with contempt by a power which in point of
wealth could stand comparison with any even of the richest communities
in Hellas, which possessed great military strength, and which sometimes
could not repress a pride in the high naval position of an island
whose nautical renown dated from the days of its old inhabitants, the
Phaeacians. This was one reason of the care that they lavished on their
fleet, which became very efficient; indeed they began th