GRECIAN COLONIES IN AND NEAR EPIRUS.
On the eastern side of the Ionian sea were situated the Grecian
colonies of Korkyra, Leukas, Anaktorium, Ambrakia, Apollonia, and
Epidamnus.
Among these, by far the most distinguished, for situation, for
wealth, and for power, was Korkyra,—now known as Corfu, the same name
belonging, as in antiquity, both to the town and the island, which is
separated from the coast of Epirus by a strait varying from two to
seven miles in breadth. Korkyra was founded by the Corinthians, at
the same time, we are told, as Syracuse. Chersikratês, a Bacchiad,
is said to have accompanied Archias on his voyage from Corinth to
Syracuse, and to have been left with a company of emigrants on
the island of Korkyra, where he founded a settlement.[767] What
inhabitants he found there, or how they were dealt with, we cannot
clearly make out. The island was generally conceived in antiquity
as the residence of the Homeric Phæakians, and it is to this fact
that Thucydidês ascribes in part the eminence of the Korkyræan
marine.[768] According to another story, some Eretrians from Eubœa
had settled there, and were compelled to retire. A third statement
represents the Liburnians[769] as the prior inhabitants,—and
this perhaps is the most probable, since the Liburnians were an
enterprising, maritime, piratical race, who long continued to occupy
the more northerly islands in the Adriatic along the Illyrian and
Dalmatian coast. That maritime activity, and number of ships, both
warlike and commercial, which we find at an early date among the
Korkyræans, and in which they stand distinguished from the Italian
and Sicilian Greeks, may be plausibly attributed to their partial
fusion with preëxisting Liburnians; for the ante-Hellenic natives
of Magna Græcia and Sicily, as has been already noticed, were as
unpractised at sea as the Liburnians were expert.
[767] Strabo, vi, p. 269: compare Timæus, Fragm. 49, ed. Göller;
Fr. 53, ed Didot.
[768] Thucyd. i, 25.
[769] Strabo, _l. c._; Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 11; a different
fable in Conon. Narrat. 3, ap. Photium Cod. 86.
At the time when the Corinthians were about to colonize Sicily, it
was natural that they should also wish to plant a settlement at
Korkyra, which was a post of great importance for facilitating the
voyage from Peloponnesus to Italy, and was farther convenient for
traffic with Epirus, at that period altogether non-Hellenic. Their
choice of a site was fully justified by the prosperity and power of
the colony, which, however, though sometimes in combination with the
mother-city, was more frequently alienated from her and hostile,
and continued so from an early period throughout most part of the
three centuries from 700-400 B. C.[770] Perhaps also Molykreia and
Chalkis,[771] on the south-western coast of Ætolia, not far from the
mouth of the Corinthian gulf, may have been founded by Corinth at a
date hardly less early than Korkyra.
[770] Herodot. iii, 49.
[771] Thucyd. i, 108; iii, 102.
It was at Corinth that the earliest improvements in Greek
ship-building, and the first construction of the trireme or warship
with a triple bank of oars, was introduced, and it was probably
from Corinth that this improvement passed to Korkyra, as it did to
Samos. In early times, the Korkyræan navy was in a condition to
cope with the Corinthian, and the most ancient naval battle known
to Thucydidês[772] was one between these two states, in 664 B. C.
As far as we can make out, it appears that Korkyra maintained her
independence, not only during the government of the Bacchiads at
Corinth, but also throughout the long reign of the despot Kypselus,
and a part of the reign of his son Periander. But towards the close
of this latter reign, we find Korkyra subject to Corinth; and the
barbarous treatment inflicted by Periander, in revenge for the death
of his son, upon three hundred Korkyræan youths, has already been
recounted in a former chapter.[773] After the death of Periander,
the island seems to have regained its independence, but we are left
without any particulars respecting it, from about 585 B. C. down to
the period shortly preceding the invasion of Greece by Xerxes,—nearly
a century. At this later epoch the Korkyræans possessed a naval
force hardly inferior to any state in Greece. The expulsion of
Kypselids from Corinth, and the reëstablishment of the previous
oligarchy, or something like it, does not seem to have reconciled the
Korkyræans to their mother-city; for it was immediately previous to
the Peloponnesian war that the Corinthians preferred the bitterest
complaints against them,[774] of setting at nought those obligations
which a colony was generally understood to be obliged to render.
No place of honor was reserved at the public festivals of Korkyra
for Corinthian visitors, nor was it the practice to offer to the
latter the first taste of the victims sacrificed,—observances which
were doubtless respectfully fulfilled at Ambrakia and Leukas.
Nevertheless, the Korkyræans had taken part conjointly with the
Corinthians in favor of Syracuse, when that city was in imminent
danger of being conquered and enslaved by Hippokratês[775] despot of
Gela (about 492 B. C.),—an incident which shows that they were not
destitute of generous sympathy with sister states, and leads us to
imagine that their alienation from Corinth was as much the fault of
the mother-city as their own.
[772] Thucyd. i, 13.
[773] Herodot. iii, 49-51: see above, chap. ix, p. 42 of this
volume.
[774] Thucyd. i, 25-37.
[775] Herodot. vii. 155.
The grounds of the quarrel were, probably, jealousies of
trade,—especially trade with the Epirotic and Illyrian tribes,
wherein both were to a great degree rivals. Safe at home, and
industrious in the culture of their fertile island, the Korkyræans
were able to furnish wine and oil to the Epirots on the main-land in
exchange for the cattle, sheep, hides, and wool of the latter,—more
easily and cheaply than the Corinthian merchant. And for the purposes
of this trade, they had possessed themselves of a peræa or strip
of the main-land immediately on the other side of the intervening
strait, where they fortified various posts for the protection of
their property.[776] The Corinthians were personally more popular
among the Epirots than the Korkyræans;[777] but it was not until
long after the foundation of Korkyra that they established their
first settlement on the main-land,—Ambrakia, on the north side of
the Ambrakiotic gulf, and near the mouth of the river Arachthus. It
was during the reign of Kypselus, and under the guidance of his son
Gorgus, that this settlement was planted, which afterwards became
populous and considerable. We know nothing respecting its growth, and
we hear only of a despot named Periander as ruling in it, probably
related to the despot of the same name at Corinth.[778] Periander of
Ambrakia was overthrown by a private conspiracy, provoked by his own
brutality, and warmly seconded by the citizens, who lived constantly
afterwards under a popular government.[779]
[776] Thucyd. iii, 85. These fortifications are probably alluded
to also i, 45-54. ἢ ἐς τῶν ἐκείνων χωρίων.
[777] Thucyd. i, 47.
[778] Strabo, vii, p. 325, x. p. 452; Skymn. Chi. 453, Raoul
Rochette, Hist. des Colon. Grecq. vol. iii, p. 294.
[779] Aristot. Polit. v, 3, 5; v, 8, 9.
Notwithstanding the long-continued dissensions between Korkyra and
Corinth, it appears that four considerable settlements on this same
line of coast were formed by the joint enterprise of both,—Leukas and
Anaktorium, to the south of the mouth of the Ambrakiotic gulf,—and
Apollonia and Epidamnus, both in the territory of the Illyrians, at
some distance to the north of the Akrokeraunian promontory. In the
settlement of the two latter, the Korkyræans seem to have been the
principals,—in that of the two former, they were only auxiliaries;
and it probably did not suit their policy to favor the establishment
of any new colony on the intermediate coast opposite to their own
island, between the promontory and the gulf above mentioned. Leukas,
Anaktorium, and Ambrakia are all referred to the agency of Kypselus
the Corinthian, and the tranquillity which Aristotle ascribes to his
reign may be in part ascribed to the new homes thus provided for poor
or discontented Corinthian citizens. Leukas was situated near the
modern Santa Maura: the present island was originally a peninsula,
and continued to be so until the time of Thucydidês; but in the
succeeding half-century, the Leukadians cut through the isthmus,
and erected a bridge across the narrow strait connecting them with
the main-land. It had been once an Akarnanian settlement, named
Epileukadii, the inhabitants of which falling into civil dissension,
invited one thousand Corinthian settlers to join them. The new-comers
choosing their opportunity for attack, slew or expelled those who
had invited them, made themselves masters of the place with its
lands, and converted it from an Akarnanian village into a Grecian
town.[780] Anaktorium was situated a short distance within the mouth
of the Ambrakian gulf,—founded, like Leukas, upon Akarnanian soil,
and with a mixture of Akarnanian inhabitants, by colonists under
the auspices of Kypselus or Periander. In both these establishments
Korkyræan settlers participated;[781] in both, also, the usual
religious feelings connected with Grecian emigration were displayed
by the neighborhood of a venerated temple of Apollo overlooking
the sea,—Apollo Aktius near Anaktorium, and Apollo Leukatas near
Leukas.[782]
[780] About Leukas, see Strabo, x, p. 452; Skylax, p. 34; Steph.
Byz. v. Ἐπιλευκάδιοι.
Strabo seems to ascribe the cutting through of the isthmus to the
original colonists. But Thucydidês speaks of this isthmus in the
plainest manner (iii, 81), and of the Corinthian ships of war
as being transported across it. The Dioryktos, or intervening
factitious canal, was always shallow, only deep enough for boats,
so that ships of war had still to be carried across by hand or
machinery (Polyb. v, 5): both Plutarch (De Serâ Num. Vind. p.
552) and Pliny treat Leukadia as having again become a peninsula,
from the accumulation of sand (H. N. iv, 1): compare Livy,
xxxiii, 17.
Mannert (Geograph. der Gr. und Röm. part viii, b. 1, p. 72)
accepts the statement of Strabo, and thinks that the Dioryktos
had already been dug before the time of Thucydidês. But it seems
more reasonable to suppose that Strabo was misinformed as to the
date, and that the cut took place at some time between the age of
Thucydidês and that of Skylax.
Boeckh (ad Corp. Inscriptt. Gr. t. i, p. 58) and W. C. Müller (De
Corcyræor Republicâ, Götting. 1835, p. 18) agree with Mannert.
[781] Skymn. Chius, 458; Thucyd. i, 55; Plutarch, Themistoklês,
c. 24.
[782] Thucyd. i, 46; Strabo, x, p. 452. Before 220 B. C., the
temple of Apollo Aktius, which in the time of Thucydidês belonged
to Anaktorium, had come to belong to the Akarnanians; it seems,
also, that the town itself had been merged in the Akarnanian
league, for Polybius does not mention it separately (Polyb. iv,
63).
Between these three settlements,—Ambrakia, Anaktorium, and
Leukas,—and the Akarnanian population of the interior, there were
standing feelings of hostility; perhaps arising out of the violence
which had marked the first foundation of Leukas. The Corinthians,
though popular with the Epirots, had been indifferent or unsuccessful
in conciliating the Akarnanians. It rather seems, indeed, that
the Akarnanians were averse to the presence or neighborhood of
any powerful seaport; for in spite of their hatred towards the
Ambrakiots, they were more apprehensive of seeing Ambrakia in the
hands of the Athenians than in that of its own native citizens.[783]
[783] Thucyd. iii, 94, 95, 115.
The two colonies, north of the Akrokeraunian promontory, and on the
coast-land of the Illyrian tribes,—Apollonia and Epidamnus,—were
formed chiefly by the Korkyræans, yet with some aid and a portion
of the settlers from Corinth, as well as from other Doric towns.
Especially it is to be noticed, that the œkist was a Corinthian and
a Herakleid, Phalius the son of Eratokleidês,—for, according to the
usual practice of Greece, whenever a city, itself a colony, founded a
sub-colony, the œkist of the latter was borrowed from the mother-city
of the former.[784] Hence the Corinthians acquired a partial right
of control and interference in the affairs of Epidamnus, which we
shall find hereafter leading to important practical consequences.
Epidamnus,—better known under its subsequent name Dyrrhachium,—was
situated on an isthmus on or near the territory of the Illyrian
tribe called Taulantii, and is said to have been settled about 627
B. C. Apollonia, of which the god Apollo himself seems to have been
recognized as œkist,[785] was founded under similar circumstances,
during the reign of Periander of Corinth, on a maritime plain both
extensive and fertile, near the river Aôus, two days’ journey south
of Epidamnus.
[784] Thucyd. i, 24-26.
[785] The rhetor Aristeidês pays a similar compliment to Kyzikus,
in his Panegyrical Address at that city,—the god Apollo had
founded it personally and directly himself, not through any human
œkist, as was the case with other colonies (Aristeidês, Λόγος
περὶ Κυζίκου, Or. xvi, p. 414; vol. i, p, 384, Dindorf).
Both the one and the other of these two cities seem to have
flourished, and to have received accession of inhabitants from
Triphylia in Peloponnesus, when that country was subdued by the
Eleians. Respecting Epidamnus, especially, we are told that it
acquired great wealth and population during the century preceding
the Peloponnesian war.[786] A few allusions which we find in
Aristotle, too brief to afford much instruction, lead us to suppose
that the governments of both began by being close oligarchies, under
the management of the primitive leaders of the colony,—that in
Epidamnus, the artisans and tradesmen in the town were considered
in the light of slaves belonging to the public,—but that in process
of time, seemingly somewhat before the Peloponnesian war, intestine
dissensions broke up this oligarchy,[787] substituted a periodical
senate, with occasional public assemblies, in place of the permanent
phylarchs, or chiefs of tribes, and thus introduced a form more or
less democratical, yet still retaining the original single-headed
archon. The Epidamnian government was liberal in the admission of
metics, or resident aliens,—a fact which renders it probable that the
alleged public slavery of artisans in that town was a status carrying
with it none of the hardships of actual slavery. It was through
an authorized selling agent, or polêtês, that all traffic between
Epidamnus and the neighboring Illyrians was carried on,—individual
dealing with them being interdicted.[788] Apollonia was in one
respect pointedly distinguished from Epidamnus, since she excluded
metics, or resident strangers, with a degree of rigor hardly inferior
to Sparta. These few facts are all that we are permitted to hear
respecting colonies both important in themselves and interesting
as they brought the Greeks into connection with distant people and
regions.
[786] Thucyd. i, 24. ἐγένετο μεγάλη καὶ πολυάνθρωπος; Strabo,
vii, p. 316, viii, p. 357; Steph. Byz. v. Ἀπολλωνία; Plutarch, De
Serâ Numin. Vind. p. 553; Pausan. v, 22, 2.
Respecting the plain near the site of the ancient Apollonia,
Colonel Leake observes: “The cultivation of this noble plain,
capable of supplying grain to all Illyria and Epirus, with an
abundance of other productions, is confined to a few patches of
maize near the villages,” (Travels in Northern Greece, vol. i,
ch. vii, p. 367.) Compare c. ii, p. 70.
The country surrounding Durazzo (the ancient Epidamnus) is
described by another excellent observer as highly attractive,
though now unhealthy. See the valuable topographical work,
“Albanien, Rumelien, und die Oesterreichisch-montenegrinische
Gränze,” von Dr. Joseph Müller (Prag. 1844), p. 62.
[787] Thucyd. i, 25; Aristot. Polit. ii, 4, 13; iii, 11, 1; iv,
3, 8; v, 1, 6; v, 3, 4.
The allusions of the philosopher are so brief, as to convey
little or no knowledge: see O. Müller, Dorians, b. iii, 9, 6;
Tittmann, Griech. Staatsverfass. p. 491.
[788] Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. p. 297, c. 29; Ælian, V. H. xiii, 16.
The six colonies just named,—Korkyra, Ambrakia, Anaktorium, Leukas,
Apollonia, and Epidamnus,—form an aggregate lying apart from the
rest of the Hellenic name, and connected with each other, though
not always maintained in harmony, by analogy of race and position,
as well as by their common original from Corinth. That the commerce
which the Corinthian merchants carried on with them, and through
them with the tribes in the interior, was lucrative, we can have no
doubt; and Leukas and Ambrakia continued for a long time to be not
merely faithful allies, but servile imitators, of their mother-city.
The commerce of Korkyra is also represented as very extensive, and
carried even to the northern extremity of the Ionic gulf. It would
seem that they were the first Greeks to open a trade and to establish
various settlements on the Illyrian and Dalmatian coasts, as the
Phokæans were the first to carry their traffic along the Adriatic
coast of Italy: the jars and pottery of Korkyra enjoyed great
reputation throughout all parts of the gulf.[789] The general trade
of the island, and the encouragement for its shipping, must probably
have been greater during the sixth century B. C., while the cities
of Magna Græcia were at the maximum of their prosperity, than in
the ensuing century, when they had comparatively declined. Nor can
we doubt that the visitors and presents to the oracle of Dodona in
Epirus, which was distant two days’ journey on landing from Korkyra,
and the importance of which was most sensible during the earlier
periods of Grecian history, contributed to swell the traffic of the
Korkyræans.
[789] W. C. Müller. De Corcyræor. Repub. ch. 3, pp. 60-63:
Aristot. Mirab. Ausc. c. 104;. Hesychius, v. Κερκυραῖοι ἀμφορεῖς;
Herodot. i, 145.
The story given in the above passage of the Pseudo-Aristotle is
to be taken in connection with the succeeding chapter of the same
work (105), wherein the statement, largely credited in antiquity,
is given that the river Danube forked at a certain point of its
course into two streams, one flowing into the Adriatic, the other
into the Euxine.
It is worthy of notice that the monetary system established at
Korkyra was thoroughly Grecian and Corinthian, graduated on the usual
scale of obols, drachms, minæ, and talents, without including any of
those native Italian or Sicilian elements which were adopted by the
cities in Magna Græcia and Sicily. The type of the Corinthian coins
seems also to have passed to those of Leukas and Ambrakia.[790]
[790] See the Inscriptions No. 1838 and No. 1845, in the
collection of Boeckh, and Boeckh’s Metrologie, vii, 8, p. 97.
Respecting the Corinthian coinage our information is confused and
imperfect.
Of the islands of Zakynthus and Kephallenia, Zante and Cephalonia,
we hear very little: of Ithaka, so interesting from the story of the
Odyssey, we have no historical information at all. The inhabitants of
Zakynthus were Achæans from Peloponnesus: Kephallenia was distributed
among four separate city governments.[791] Neither of these islands
play any part in Grecian history until the time of the maritime
empire of Athens, after the Persian war.
[791] Thucyd. ii, 30-66.