Korkyra (polis)

Korkyra (also Corcyra, Greek: Κόρκυρα) was an ancient illyrian city on the island of Corfu in the Ionian sea, adjacent to Epirus. It was a colony of Corinth, founded in the archaic period. According to Thucydides, the earliest recorded naval battle took place between Korkyra and Corinth, roughly 260 years before he was writing - and thus in the middle of the seventh century BC.

The antagonism between Korkyra and its mother city Corinth appears to have been an old one. Quite apart from the naval battle Thucydides talks of, Herodotus records a myth involving the tyrant of Corinth, Periander. Periander was estranged from his younger son, Lycophron, who believed that his father had killed his mother Milissa. After failing to reconcile with Lycophron, he sent him to Korkyra, then within Corinth's governance. In his old age, Periander sent for his son to come and rule over Corinth, suggesting that they would trade places and he would rule Korkyra while his son came to rule Corinth. To prevent this, the Korkyraeans killed Lycophron. In punishment, Periander captured 300 young men of Korkyra with the intention of castrating them. This is more likely to be a myth explaining the animosity between Corinth and Korkyra (and justifying the use of the word tyrant for Periander's rule) than an actual historical event.

In the Persian War of 480 BC, Greek envoys were sent to Korkyra requesting aid. Korkyra enthusiastically promised ships, and fitted out sixty of them, but they failed to arrive in time for the battle of Salamis. Herodotus credits this as a desire among the Korkyraeans to remain neutral and thus not support the losing side. The excuse given for failing to join the battle was unfavourable winds, whereas Herodotus says that, had the Persians been victorious, the Korkyraeans would have claimed to have deliberately avoided the battle and, thereby, gain favour from the invading Persians.

Writing between 431 and 411 BC, Thucydides credited Korkyra's conflict with Corinth over their joint daughter-city Epidamnus as a significant cause of the Peloponnesian War. Korkyra, otherwise neutral as far as the two major powers, the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League, were concerned, appealed to Athens, head of the Delian League, for assistance against Corinth, who belonged to the Peloponnesian League.

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