History of the Peloponnesian War

Epidamnus is a city situated on the right hand to such as enter into the Ionian Gulf. Bordering upon it are the Taulantii, barbarians, a people of Illyris.

This was planted by the Corcyraeans; but the captain of the colony was one Phalius, the son of Heratoclidas, a Corinthian of the lineage of Hercules, and, according to an ancient custom, called to this charge out of the metropolitan city.

Besides that, the colony itself consisted in part of Corinthians and others of the Doric nation. In process of time the city of Epidamnus became great and populous;

and having for many years together been annoyed with sedition, was by a war, as is reported, made upon them by the confining barbarians brought low and deprived of the greatest part of their power.

But that which was the last accident before this war was that the nobility, forced by the commons to fly the city, went and joined with the barbarians and both by land and sea robbed those that remained within.

The Epidamnians that were in the town, oppressed in this manner, sent their ambassadors to Corcyra, as being their mother city, praying the Corcyraeans not to see them perish but to reconcile unto them those whom they had driven forth and to put an end to the barbarian war.

And this they entreated in the form of suppliants, sitting down in the temple of Juno. But the Corcyraeans, not admitting their supplication, sent them away again without effect.