more closely to the sea. It is said that the Corinthians were the
first to approach the modern style of naval architecture, and that
Corinth was the first place in Hellas where galleys were built; and
we have Ameinocles, a Corinthian shipwright, making four ships for
the Samians. Dating from the end of this war, it is nearly three
hundred years ago that Ameinocles went to Samos. Again, the earliest
sea-fight in history was between the Corinthians and Corcyraeans; this
was about two hundred and sixty years ago, dating from the same time.
Planted on an isthmus, Corinth had from time out of mind been a
commercial emporium; as formerly almost all communication between the
Hellenes within and without Peloponnese was carried on overland, and
the Corinthian territory was the highway through which it travelled.
She had consequently great money resources, as is shown by the epithet
"wealthy" bestowed by the old poets on the place, and this enabled
her, when traffic by sea became more common, to procure her navy and
put down piracy; and as she could offer a mart for both branches of
the trade, she acquired for herself all the power which a large
revenue affords. Subsequently the Ionians attained to great naval
strength in the reign of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and of
his son Cambyses, and while they were at war with the former commanded
for a while the Ionian sea. Polycrates also, the tyrant of Samos,
had a powerful navy in the reign of Cambyses, with which he reduced
many of the islands, and among them Rhenea, which he consecrated to
the Delian Apollo. About this time also the Phocaeans, while they were
founding Marseilles, defeated the Carthaginians in a sea-fight.
These were the most powerful navies. And even these, although so
many generations had elapsed since the Trojan war, seem to have been
principally composed of the old fifty-oars and long-boats, and to have
counted few galleys among their ranks. Indeed it was only shortly
the Persian war, and the death of Darius the successor of Cambyses,