The preceding volume brought down the history of Sparta to the period marked by the reign of Peisistratus at Athens; at which time she had attained her maximum of territory, was confessedly the most powerful state in Greece, and enjoyed a proportionate degree of deference from the rest. I now proceed to touch upon the three Dorian cities on and near to the Isthmus—Corinth, Sikyôn, and Megara, as they existed at this same period.

Even amidst the scantv information which has reached us, we trace the marks of considerable maritime energy and commerce among the Corinthians, as far back as the eighth century b.c. The foundation of Korkyra and Syracuse, in the eleventh Olympiad, or 734 b.c. (of which I shall speak farther in connection with Grecian colonization generally), by expeditions from Corinth, affords a good proof that they knew how to turn to account the excellent situation which connected them with the sea on both sides of Peloponnesus : and Thucydides, while he notices them as the chief liberators of the sea in early times from pirates, also tells us that the first great improvement in ship-building— the construction of the trireme, or ship of war, with a full deck and triple banks for the rowers—was the fruit of Corinthian ingenuity. It was in the year 703 b.c, that the Corinthian Ameinoklês built four triremes for the Samians, the first which those islanders had ever possessed: the notice of this fact attests as well the importance attached to the new invention, as the humble scale on which the naval force in those early days was equipped.