History of the Peloponnesian War

As Hellas grew more powerful and continued to acquire still more wealth than before, along with the increase of their revenue tyrannies began to be established in most of the cities, whereas before that there had been hereditary kingships based on fixed prerogatives. The Hellenes began to fit out navies, too, and to apply themselves more to the sea.

And the Corinthians are said to have been the first of all to adopt what was very nearly the modern plan as regards ships and shipping,[*](The reference seems to be to the construction of harbours and (locks as well as to the structure of the ships, e.g. providing them with decks (ch. 10. 4).) and Corinth was the first place in all Hellas, we are told, where triremes were built.

And it appears that Ameinocles, a Corinthian shipwright, built four ships for the Samians, also; and it was about three hundred years before the end of the Peloponnesian war that Ameinocles came to the Samians.[*](704 B.C.)

The earliest sea-fight, too, of which we know, was fought by the Corinthians against the Corcyraeans;[*](664 B.C.)and this was two hundred and sixty years before the same date.

For as the Corinthians had their city on the Isthmus, from the very earliest times they maintained there a market for the exchange of goods, because the Hellenes within and without the Peloponnesus, in olden times communicating with one another more by land than by sea, had to pass through their territory; and so they were powerful and rich, as has been shown even by the early poets, who called the place “Wealthy Corinth”.[*](Hom. Il. 2.570; Pind. O. 13.4.) And when navigation grew more prevalent among the Hellenes, the Corinthians acquired ships and swept the sea of piracy, and offering a market by sea as well as by land, raised their city to great power by means of their revenues.

The Ionians, too, acquired a powerful navy later, in the time of Cyrus,[*](559-529 B.C.) the first king of the Persians, and of Cambyses his son; and waging war with Cyrus they maintained control of the sea about their own coasts for some time. Polycrates, also, who was tyrant of Samos in the time of Cambyses,[*](532-522 B.C.) was strong in sea-power and subdued a number of the islands, Rhenea among them, which he captured and consecrated to the Delian Apollo.[*](3.104) Finally the Phocaeans, when they were colonizing Massalia,[*](Marseilles, founded 600 B.C.) conquered the Carthaginians in a sea-fight.