The colony at Corcyra, also known today as Corfu or Kerkyra, was founded first as a way station by Eretrians en route from Euboea to Italy, then by the Corinthians, who took the island and evicted the Eretrians in 733 B.C. (Boardman 1980a, p. 225).

Corcyra possessed a good harbor and a strategic location, and the colony grew quickly, soon founding its own colonies, including Epidamnus, on the mainland 150 miles to the north (now called Durrës, in Albania), and "Black Corcyra" (melaina Korkura), modern-day Korcula in Croatia.

An important event in Corcyrean history was the civil strife during the fifth year of the Peloponnesian war (427 B.C.), provoked by Corinth's efforts to sway Corcyra, then an ally of Athens, into an alliance with the Peloponnesians.

Map showing the colonies of Corcyra, and Corcyra's mother-city, Corinth

The Corcyreans made an offering at Delphi after sucessfully catching a large school of tuna-fish, which had eluded them until they consulted the Delphic oracle. The fish had first been spotted by a herdsman, who noticed that his bull bellowed on the shore of the island when the tuna-fish swam by. The oracle at Delphi advised the Corcyreans to sacrifice the bull to Poseidon, and after they made this sacrifice, they caught the fish. With part of the proceeds from the fish, the people of Corcyra erected the Bull of Corcyra, a bronze sculpture by Theopropos of Aegina, which was dedicated in 480 BC. It stood in a place of prominence, just inside the main gate at the very start of the Sacred Way at Delphi.

Tampa 86.52
Attic black figure skyphos by the Theseus Painter
depicting a bull being led to sacrifice. ca. 490 BC.
from the Tampa Museum of Art

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Ships and Sea Travel

Trade

Colonies

Ancient Travellers

For who does not know that Corcyra has the best strategic position among the cities in the neighborhood of the Peloponnese...? Isocrates, Antidosis, 15.108

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