History of the Peloponnesian War

The reasons why they broke it and the grounds of their quarrel I have first set forth, that no one may ever have to inquire for what cause the Hellenes became involved in so great a war.

The truest explanation, although it has been the least often advanced, I believe to have been the growth of the Athenians to greatness, which brought fear to the Lacedaemonians and forced them to war. But the reasons publicly alleged on either side which led them to break the truce and involved them in the war were as follows.

There is a city called Epidamnus on the right hand as one sails into the Ionian gulf, and its next-door neighbours are a barbarian tribe, the Taulantians, of Illyrian race.

The city was colonized by the Corcyraeans, and its founder was Phalius, son of Eratocleides, of Corinthian stock and a descendant of Heracles, who was invited from the mother-city according to the ancient custom;