Bacchiads The royal family of Corinth in the period before the tyranny of CYPSELUS (c.657). They claimed descent from Heracles and fostered the commercial, military and artistic prosperity of Corinth. There were 200 families related by blood to them who also bore the name, and who intermarried exclusively with each other. Cypselus and his followers drove the whole clan out of Corinth and they scattered as far as Illyria and Etruria.