ory, covered
with the ridges and the spurs of the Geranean and and Oneian mountains,
and useless for purposes of agriculture. Its principal city was Corinth;
was favorably situated for commerce, and rapidly grew in population and
wealth. It also commanded the great roads which led from Greece Proper
through the defiles of the mountains into the Peloponnesus. It rapidly
monopolized the commerce of the AEgean Sea, and the East through the
Saronic Gulf; and through the Corinthian Gulf it commanded the trade of
the Ionian and Sicilian seas.

(M374) Corinth, by some, is supposed have been a Phoenician colony. Before
authentic history begins, it was inhabited by a mixed population of
AEolians and Ionians, the former of whom were dominant. Over them reigned
Sisyphus, according to tradition, the grandfather of Bellerophon who laid
the foundation of mercantile prosperity. The first historical king was
Aletes, B.C. 1074, the leader of Dorian invaders, who subdued the AEolians,
and incorporated them with their own citizens. The descendants of Aletes
reigned twelve generations, when the nobles converted the government into
an oligarchy, under Bacchis, who greatly increased the commercial
importance of the city. In 754, B.C., Corinth began to colonize, and
fitted out a war fleet for the protection of commerce. The oligarchy was
supplanted by Cypselus, B.C. 655, a man of the people, whose mother was of
noble birth, but rejected by her family, of the ruling house of the
Bacchiadae, on account of lameness. His son Periander reigned forty years
with cruel despotism, but made Corinth the leading commercial city of
Greece, and he subjected to her sway the colonies planted on the islands
of the Ionian Sea, one of which was Corcyra (Corfu), which gained a great
mercantile fame. It was under his reign that the poet Arion, or Lesbos,
flourished, to whom he gave his patronage. In three years after the death
of Periander, 585 B.C., the oligarchal power was restored, and Corinth
allied herself with Sparta in her schemes of aggrandizement.

(M375) The same change of government was seen in Megara, a neighboring
State, situated on the isthmus, between Corinth and Attica, and which
attained great commercial distinction. As a result of commercial opulence,
the people succeeded in overthrowing the government, an oligarchy of
Dorian conquerors, and elevating a demagogue, Theagenes, to the supreme
power, B.C. 630. He ruled tyrannically, in the name of t