Some Of The Most Celebrated Cities Of Macedonia Were Founded By Foreign
Nations.
Epidamnus, which was seated at the entrance of the Ionian Gulf,
was a colony of the Corcyrians:
It was the occasion of a fierce naval war
between them and the Corinthians, generally called the Corinthian war.
Apollonia, distant seven miles from the sea, on the river Laus, was a
Corinthian colony: it was renowned for its excellent laws. On another part
of the coast of the Adriatic were the sea-ports of Elyma and Bullis. The
district of Paraxis, which was full of gulfs and inlets formed by the Egean
Sea, had several ports, but none of any repute. From this description of
Macedonia and its principal sea coasts and ports, it is evident that it
possessed many advantages for commerce and naval affairs, which, however,
were never embraced till the period when the Romans first turned their
thoughts to Greece. Had its sovereigns been disposed to engage in commerce,
the Adriatic, with its extensive and safe haven of Epidamnus, in which
there were several ports, would have opened the trade to Italy; the Egean
Sea, still more advantageous, would have secured the trade of Greece and
Asia, by means of its spacious bays, one of which, the Sinus Thermaeus, was
at least sixty miles long.
The produce of Macedonia also would have favoured its commerce; the soil
was every where fruitful, and, especially near the sea, abounding in corn,
wine, and oil: its principal riches, however, consisted in its mines of
almost all kinds of metals, but particularly of gold.
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