History of the Peloponnesian War

And the most ancient naval battle that we know of was fought between the Corinthians and the Corcyraeans, and from that battle to the same time are but two hundred and sixty years.

For Corinth, seated on an isthmus, had been always a place of traffic (because the Grecians of old, from within and without Peloponnesus, trading by land more than by sea, had no other intercourse one to another but through the Corinthians' territory), and was also wealthy in money, as appears by the poets, who have surnamed this town the rich. And after the Grecians had commerce also by sea, then likewise having furnished themselves with a navy, they scoured the sea of pirates and, affording traffic both by sea and land, mightily increased their city in revenue of money.

After this, the Ionians, in the times of Cyrus, first king of the Persians, and of his son Cambyses, got together a great navy, and making war on Cyrus, obtained for a time the dominion of that part of the sea that lieth on their own coast. Also Polycrates, who in the time of Cambyses tyrannised in Samos, had a strong navy wherewith he subdued divers of the islands; and amongst the rest having won Rhenea, he consecrated the same to Apollo of Delos. The Phocaeans likewise, when they were building the city of Marseilles, overcame the Carthaginians in a fight at sea.