History of the Peloponnesian War

The Epidannians, recognizing that no aid was to be had from Corcyra, were at a loss how to settle their present difficulty; so they sent to Delphi and asked the god whether they should deliver up their city to the Corinthians as founders and try to procure some aid from them. The god answered that they should deliver it up to them and make them leaders.

So the Epidamnians went to Corinth and[*](435 B.C.) delivered up the city as Corinthian colony, in accordance with the oracle, showing that their founder was from Corinth and stating the response of the oracle; and they begged the Corinthians not to look on and see them utterly destroyed, but to come to on

and sce. The Corinthians undertook the task, partly on the ground of right, because they considered that the colony belonged to them quite as much as to the Corcyraeans, partly also through hatred of the Corcyraeans, for the reason that these, though Corinthian colonists, neglected

the mother-city. For neither at their common festival gatherings 1 would they concede the customary privileges to Corinthians, nor would they begin with a representative of Corinth the initial rites at sacrifices,[*](According to the custom obtaining in Hellenic cities, whereby a stranger could offer sacrifices only through a citizen who acted for him. προκαταρχόμενοι, as the Schol. explains, διδόντες πρότερον (sc. ἢ τοῖς ἄλλοις) τὰς καταρχάς), i.e. giving the hair cut from the victim's forehead to a representative of Corinth, that he might throw it on the fire) as the rest of the colonies did, but they treated them with contempt For at that time they were in point of wealth equal to the richest of the Hellenes, and in preparation for war even stronger, while in sea-power they sometimes boasted that they were greatly superior, because of the former occupation of the island by the Phaeacians,[*](cf. Thuc. 1.70, where a sacred precinct of Alcinous in Corcyra is mentioned. The ancient belief that Corcyra was the Homeric Scheria has no support in the Odyssey.) whose glory was in their ships. It was for this reason that they kept on developing their navy, and they were in fact powerful; for they had on hand one hundred and twenty triremes when the war began.

So the Corinthians, having all these grounds of complaint, gladly sent the desired aid to Epidamnus, inviting whoever wished to go along as settlers and despatching as a garrison some Ambraciots and Leucadians and a detachment of themselves.

They proceeded to Apollonia, a colony of the Corinthians going by land through fear of the Corcyraeans, lest they might be prevented by them if they should attempt to cross the sea.

But when the Corcyraeans perceived that the settlers and the garrison had arrived at Epidamnus, and that their colony had been given up to the Corinthians, they were indignant So they sailed immediately with twenty-five shps, and later with a second fleet, and insolently bade the Epidamnians dismiss the garrison sent by the Corinthians and the settlers, and also receive back their exiles; for the exiled Epidamnians had gone to Corcyra, and pointing to the sepulchres of common ancestors and invoking the tie of kinship had begged the Corcyraeans to restore them.