PERIANDER (625-585 B.c.), the second tyrant of Corinth. In contrast with his father Cypselus, the founder of the dynasty, he is generally represented as a cruel despot. The Greek tradition, however, is probably derived from a prejudiced source. There is no doubt that he was ruthless with the remains of the nobility. A careful sifting of the available evidence would rather tend to represent Periander as a ruler of probity and insight, and the firmness and activity of his government is beyond dispute. His home administration was so successful that he was able to dispense with direct taxation, and, combined with the far-seeing colonizing activities, laid the foundations of Corinth's commercial and in dustrial prosperity. Periander further appears as a patron of literature, for it was by his invitation that the poet Arion came to Corinth to organize the dithyramb. To promote and protect Corinthian commerce he established colonies at Potidaea and Apollonia in Macedonia, at Anactorium and Leucas in north western Greece, and he is said to have projected a canal through the isthmus. In Greece proper he conquered Epidaurus and
annexed Corcyra. He cultivated friendly relations with the tyrants of Miletus and Mytilene, and maintained a connection with the kings of Lydia, of Egypt and, possibly, of Phrygia.
Periander was reckoned one of the seven sages of Greece, and was the reputed author of a collection of maxims (`Trot9i1Kat) in 2,000 verses. The letters ascribed to him are spurious.
See Herodotus iii. 48-53, v. 92 ; Aristotle, Politics, v. 6, io–i2 ; Heracleides Ponticus in C. Miiller's Frag. hist. graec. ii. 212 ; Nicolaus Damascenus, ibid., iii. 393 ; Diogenes Laertius, De vitis clarorum phil osophorum, i. ch. 7; Cambridge Ancient History (vol. iii. 1925).