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Scodra The Achaean League Enlarged The Aetolians The only exceptions to this general rule were, the Illyrian provinces eastward of Epidamnus, which fell to Pleuratus the ruler of Scodra, and rendered that state of robbers and pirates, which a century before had been humbled by the Romans, once more one of the most powerful of the petty principalities in those regions; some townships in western Thessaly, which Amynander had occupied and was allowed to retain; and the three islands of Paros, Scyros, and Imbros, which were presented to Athens in return for her many hardships and her still more numerous addresses of thanks and courtesies of all sorts.
So the envoys departed home and did not return again. These were the charges and differences existing between the rival powers before the war, arising immediately from the affair at Epidamnus and Corcyra. Still intercourse continued in spite of them, and mutual communication.
Besides, if we were in the wrong, it would be honourable in them to give way to our wishes, and disgraceful for us to trample on their moderation; but in the pride and licence of wealth they have sinned again and again against us, and never more deeply than when Epidamnus, our dependency, which they took no steps to claim in its distress upon our coming to relieve it, was by them seized, and is now held by force of arms.
The city of Epidamnus had been founded by colonists from Corcyra, on the eastern side of the Adriatic. It was, however, the prey of domestic factions, and in a domestic revolution a part of the inhabitants became exiles. These appealed to the neighboring barbarians, who invested the city by sea and land.
Turning a deaf ear to all these proposals, when their ships were manned and their allies had come in, the Corinthians sent a herald before them to declare war and, getting under way with seventy-five ships and two thousand heavy infantry, sailed for Epidamnus to give battle to the Corcyraeans.
But having a quarrel with Corinth about Epidamnus, she now formed an alliance with Athens, whose intervention enraged the Corinthians. They then helped Potidæa, a Corinthian colony, but an Athenian tributary, to revolt from Athens.
Seeing, therefore, that they had nothing to hope from the Corcyraeans, the distressed people of Epidamnus began to turn their thoughts towards their ancient metropolis, and considered whether they should appeal to her to save them from ruin. But as this was a step of doubtful propriety, they first consulted the oracle of Delphi, the great authority on questions of international law.
But the Corcyraeans, whose sympathies were on the side of the banished nobles, refused to interfere. Epidamnus, as we have seen, was a colony founded by a colony, and according to Greek custom the original settlers had been led by a citizen of Corinth, the mother-city of Corcyra.
The possessions in Epirus which were formerly after the first Roman victories detached from Macedonia the Ionian islands and the ports of Apollonia and Epidamnus, that had hitherto been under the jurisdiction of the Italian magistrates were now reunited with Macedonia, so that the latter, probably as early as this period, reached on the north-west to a point beyond Scodra, where Illyria began.
When the Corcyraeans heard of their preparations they came to Corinth with envoys from Lacedaemon and Sicyon, whom they persuaded to accompany them, and bade her recall the garrison and settlers, as she had nothing to do with Epidamnus.
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