[5] That 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.

[7] Writing between 431 and 395 BC, Thucydides credited Korkyra's conflict with Corinth over their joint city Epidamnus as a significant cause of the Peloponnesian War.

After a period of violent skirmishes, the democrats won with assistance from the Athenian navy and subsequently slaughtered those they suspected of being an enemy, while the rest of their foes fled to the Greek mainland.

In 303 BC, after a vain siege by Cassander of Macedon, the island was occupied for a short time by Lacedaemonian General Cleonymus of Sparta and then regained its independence.

The tyrant of Syracuse added the island to his own domains and in 295 BC offered it as a dowry to his daughter Lanassa on her marriage to Pyrrhus, King of Epirus.

[11][12] Korkyra remained a member of the Epirote League until 255 BC, when it regained independence after the death of Alexander II, last King of Epirus.

In 229 BC, after a Greek defeat in the naval Battle of Paxos, the city briefly suffered an occupation by Illyrians, under the command of Demetrius of Pharos.