Ἔστι πόλις Εφύρη μυχῷ "Αργεος ἱππόβοτοιο, IL. Z. 152. Μηδὲ γένος πατέρων αἰσχυνέμεν· οἱ μέγ' ἄριστοι Ἐγὼ δὲ ἴδιος ἐν κοινῷ σταλεὶς IL. Z. 200. PIND. OL. XIII. 68. According to the assertions of the Corinthians themselves, their city received its name from Corinthus, the son of Jove; but Pausanias does not credit this popular tradition, and cites the poet Eumelus, to shew that the appellation was really derived from Corinthus, the son of Marathon. (Corinth. 1.) Homer certainly employs both names indiscriminately. Οἱ δὲ Μυκήνας εἶχον, ἐϋκτίμενον πτολίεθρον, Ἦν δέ τις Εὐχήνωρ, Πολυΐδου μάντιος υἱὸς, IL. B. 570. IL. N. 663. Pausanias reports, that after the departure of Bellerophon into Lycia, the descendants of Sisyphus continued to reign at Corinth, but under the control of the sovereigns of Argos and Mycena. On the invasion of their territory by the Dorians and Heraclidæ, Doridas and Hyanthidas, the last princes of this race, abdicated the crown in favour of Aletes, a descendant of Hercules, whose lineal successors remained in possession of the throne of Corinth during five generations, when the crown passed into the family of the Bacchiadæ, so named from Bacchis, the son of Prumnis, who also retained it for five other generations. After which the sovereign power was transferred to annual magistrates still chosen, however, from the line of the Bacchiadæ, with the title of Prytanes. Strabo affirms that this form of government lasted 200 years, but Diodorus limits it to ninety years; the former writer probably includes within that period both the kings and Prytanes of the Bacchiadæ, Diodorus only the latter. (Strab. VIII. p. 378. Diod. Sic. Frag.") The oligarchy so long established by this rich and powerful family, was at length overthrown about 629 B. C. by Cypselus, son of Eetion, a Corinthian, whose life was preserved by his mother Labda against the designs of the Bacchiade, who had been apprised by an oracle of the danger which threatened their house through his means. (Herod. V. 92.) Λάβδα κύει, τέξει δ' ὀλοοίτροχον· ἐν δὲ πεσεῖται Cypselus, on attaining to manhood, usurped the supreme power, and by his tyranny and cruelty verified the prediction of another oracle, by which the Corinthians were warned that he would become the oppressor of his country. Αἰετὸς ἐν πέτρῃσι κύει· τέξει δὲ λεόντα Καρτερὸν, ὠμηστήν· πολλῶν δ ̓ ὑπὸ γούνατα λύσει. Herodotus affirms that he banished many of the Corinthians, depriving others of their possessions, and putting a still greater number to death. (V. 92.) Among those who fled from his persecution was De a Larcher, Chronol. d'Hérodote, t. VII. p. 519. 531. maratus, of the family of the Bacchiadæ, who settled at Tarquinii in Tuscany, and whose descendants became sovereigns of Rome. (Strab. VIII. p. 378. V. p. 219. Polyb. VI. 2. Dion. Hal. III. 46. Liv. I. 34.) The reign of Cypselus, which lasted thirty years, was more prosperous than his crimes deserved, (Herod. V. 92.) and though we find the period of his government afterwards adverted to by the republican Corinthians with detestation, it does not appear that the opulence and power of their city were diminished or impaired by Cypselus; on the contrary, the system of colonization, which had previously succeeded so well in the settlements of Corcyra and Syracuse, was actively pursued by that prince, who added Ambracia, Anactorium, and Leucas, to their maritime dependencies. (Strab. VII. p. 325.) while the rich offerings he sent to Olympia equally attest his munificence and wealth. (Strab. VIII. p. 378. Aristot. Polit. V. 9. Suid. v. Kveλidav.) Cypselus was succeeded by his son Periander, who, in the commencement of his reign, displayed a degree o moderation unknown to his father, but having subsequently contracted an intimacy with Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, from that time he is said by Herodotus to have far surpassed Cypselus in cruelty and crime. It is certain that if the particulars he has related of his conduct towards his own family b Niebuhr, in his History of Rome, considers this story of Demaratus as an invention of some Greek writer, afterwards adopted by the Roman annalists; but he is disposed to allow that a Corinthian of this name may at some time or other have resided in Etruria, and may have been celebrated. Certainly there must have been some foundation for the tradition, when we find such a writer as Polybius giving credit to it. (Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, p. 319. 322. Cambridge translation.) are authentic, they would justify the execration he has expressed for the character of this disgusting tyrant. (V. 92. III. 50. et seq.) Notwithstanding these enormities, Periander was distinguished for his love of science and literature, which entitled him to be ranked among the seven sages of Greece. (Diogen. Laert. Vit. Periand.) According to Aristotle, he reigned forty-four years, and was succeeded by his nephew Psammetichus, who lived three years only. On his death Corinth regained its independence, when a moderate aristocracy was established, under which the republic enjoyed a state of tranquillity and prosperity unequalled by any other city of Greece. (Aristot. Pol. V. 9. Strab. VIII. p. 378.) We are told by Thucydides that the Corinthians were the first to build war galleys or triremes; and the earliest naval engagement, according to the same historian, was fought by their fleet and that of the Corcyræans, who had been alienated from their mother-state by the cruelty and impolicy of Periander. (Herod. III. 48. et seq. Thuc. I. 13.) The arts of painting and sculpture, more especially that of bronze, attained to the highest perfection at Corinth, and rendered that city the ornament of Greece, until it was stripped of its treasures by the rapaciousness of a Roman general. Such was the beauty of its vases, that the tombs in which they had been deposited were ransacked by the Roman colonists whom Julius Cæsar had established there; after the destruction of the city, these being transmitted to Rome, were purchased at enormous prices. (Strab. VIII. p. 381.c) An interesting dissertation on these beautiful specimens of ancient art will be found in Dodwell's Tour, t. II. p. 196. The wealth and power of Corinth rendered that republic an important acquisition to the confederacy of the Peloponnesian states, at the head of which Sparta was already placed before the Persian war. Herodotus has recorded an occasion in which the wisdom and moderation of the Corinthians were very instrumental in counteracting the unjust designs of Cleomenes, king of Sparta, who was bent on replacing Hippias, son of Pisistratus, on the throne of Athens. (Herod. V. 92.) In the Persian war, however, owing perhaps to the mean and ungenerous spirit by which their leader Adimantus seems to have been actuated, they do not appear to have displayed that zeal and energy in the public cause of Greece, which was so conspicuous in the Athenians; reports indeed were circulated by the latter, that the Corinthian squadron had betaken itself to a hasty flight before the action of Salamis commenced: this however they denied, affirming that they were amongst the foremost in the battle; to the truth of which assertion the rest of Greece, says the historian, bears witness. (VIII. 94.) The assistance and protection afforded by Athens to the Megaræans first roused the hatred of the Corinthians against that power, as they sustained a severe defeat from its troops under Myronides when invading the Megarean territory. (Thuc. I. 103-106. Their animosity was also heightened by the alliance of the Athenians with Corcyra, and their conduct towards Potidæa, a Corinthian colony. At length their loud and reiterated complaints in the general assembly of the Peloponnesian confederates incited the Lacedæmonians to commence hostilities, for which the wrongs of their allies might be consi |