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| EPIRUS, or EPEIRUS, an ancient district of Northern Greefle extending along the lonian Sea from the Acroceraunian promontory on the N. to the Ambracian gulf on the S. It was conterminous on the landward side with Illyria, Macedonia and Thessaly, and thus corresponds to the southern portion of Albania (q.v.). The name Epirus (Hireipor) signified mainland, and was originally applied to the whole coast southward~ to the Corinthian Gulf, in contradistinction to the neighboring islands, Corcyra, Leucas, &c. The country is all mountainous, especially towards the east, where the great rivers of north-western Greece Achelous, Arachthus and Aousrise in Mt Lacmon, the backbone of the Pindus chain. In ancient times Epirus did not produce corn sufficient for the wants of its inhabitants; but it was celebrated, as it has been almost to the present day, for its cattle and its horses. According to Theopompus (4th cent. B.c.), the Epirots were divided into fourteen independent tribes, of which the principal were the Chaones, the Thesproti and the Molossi. The Chaones (perhaps akin to the Chones who dwelt in the heel of Italy) inhabited the Acroceraunian shore, the Molossians the inland districts round the lake of Pambotis (mod. Jannina), and the Thesprotians the region to the north of the Ambracian gulf. In spite of its distance from the chief centres of Greek thought and action, and the barbarian repute of its inhabitants, Epirus ~1as believed to have exerted at an early period no small influence on Greece, by means more especially of the oracle of Dodona. Aristotle even placed in Epirus the original home of the Hellenes. But in historic times its part in Greek history is mainly passive. The states of Greece proper founded a number of colonies on its coast, which formed steppingstones towards the Adriatic and the West. Of these one of the earliest and most flourishing was the Corinthian colony of Ambracia, which gives its name to the neighboring gulf. Elatria, Bucheta and Pandosia, in Thesprotia, originated from Elis. Among the other towns in the country the following were of some importance. In Chaonia: Palaeste and Chimaera, fortified posts to which the dwellers in the open country could retire in time of war; Onchesmus or Anchiasmus, opposite Corcyra (Corfu), now represented by Santi Quarante; Phoenice, still so called, the wealthiest of all the native cities of Epirus, and after the fall of the Molossian kingdom the centre of an Epirotic League; Buthrotum, the modern Butrinto; Phanote, important in the Roman campaigns in Epirus; and Adrianopolis, founded by the emperor whose name it bore. In Thesprotia: | |||
| ] | |||
| Cassope, the chief town of the most powerful of the Thesprotian clans; and Ephyra, afterwards Cichyrus, identified by W. M. Leake with the monastery of St John. 3 or 4 m. from Phanari, and by C. Bursian with Kastri at the northern end of the Acherusian Lake. In Molossia: Passaron, where the kings were wont to take the oath of the constitution and receive their peoples allegiance; and Tecmon, Phylace and Horreum, all of doubtful identification. The Byzantine town of Rogus is probably the same as the modern Luro, the Greek Oropus. | |||
| '''Epirus''' (]: ''Ήπειρος, Epiros'' / ]: ''Çamëria'') is a name applied to territory bordering the ] that is uneasily shared by modern ] and ]. In the northern part, which remained in Albania after diplomatic talks by the Great Powers in ]/], there is a recognised Greek minority. Some Albanians are claiming the existence of an Albanian minority on the Southern part although the claim is not supported by neither the international community nor the Greek government. | |||
| History.The kings, or rather chieftains, of the Molossians, who ultimately extended their power over all Epirus, claimed to be descended from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who, according to legend, settled in the country after the sack of Troy, and trans,mitted his kingdom to Molossus, his son by Andromache. The early history of the dynasty is very obscure; but Admetus, who lived in the 5th century B.C., is remembered for his hospitable reception of the banished Themistocles, in spite of the fact that the great Athenian had persuaded his countrymen to refuse the alliance tardily offered by the Molossians when victory against the Persians was already secured. Admetus was succeeded, about 429 s.c., by his son or grandson, Tharymbas or Arymbas I., who being placed by a decree of the people under the guardianship of Sabylinthus, chief of the Atintanes, was educated at Athens, and at a later date introduced a higher civilization among his subjects. Alcetas, the next king mentioned in history, was restored to his throne by Dionysius of Syracuse about 385 B.C. His son Arymbas II. (who succeeded by the death of his brother Neoptolemus) ruled with prudence and equity, and gave encouragement to literature and the arts. | |||
| In ancient times Epirus ("mainland" as opposed to the offshore islands) was the mountainous coastal district bordered by ], ] and ]. To the south lay ]. Epirus was separated from Illyria to the north by the ], and by the famous ] flowing from ]. The ] river, mythologized as a river of ], flowed through this region, and here also stood the oak grove of ] (modern ]), sacred to ] and famous for its ]s. | |||
| To him Xenocrates of Chalcedon dedicated his four books on the art of governing; and it is specially mentioned that he bestowed great care on the education of his brothers children. One of them, Troas, he married; Olympias, the other niece, was married to Philip II. of Macedon and became the mother of Alexander the Great. On the death of Arymbas, Alexander the brother of Olympias, was put on the throne by Philip and married his daughter Cleopatra. Alexander assumed the new title of king of Epirus, and raised the reputation of his country abroad. Asked by the Tarentines for aid against the Samnites and Lucanians, he made a descent at Paestum in 332 B.C., and reduced several cities of the Lucani and Bruttii; but in a second attack he was surrounded, defeated and slain near Pandosia in Bruttium. | |||
| Ancient Epirus was a homeland of the ] people, one of the ] (Greek) races, whose ] of Greece in the tenth century BC initiated the ]. Though the mother of ] was an Epirote princess, wild and tribal Epirus, famous for cattle and horses, lay outside the mainstream of Greek culture. Nevertheless Greek trading colonies such as Corinth's ] were established along its coast, until it was vigorously Hellenized by its most famous ruler, ], (318 BC - 272 BC). Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, one of the monarchs who divided the empire of Alexander the Great, was known for his campaigns against the ] in Italy (see also ]) and for his brief rule of ]. | |||
| Aeacides, the son of Arymbas II., succeeded Alexander. He espoused the cause of Olympias against Cassander, but was dethroned by his own soldiers, and had hardly regained his position when he fell in battle (313 B.C.) against Philip, brother of Cassander. He had, by his wife Phthia, a son, the celebrated Pyrrhus, and two daughters, Deidamia and Troas, of whom the former married Demetrius Poliorcetes. His brother Alcetas, who succeeded him, continued unsuccessfully the war with Cassander; he was put to death by his rebellious subjects in 295 B.C., and was succeeded by Pyrrhus (q.v), who for six years fought against the Romans in south Italy and Sicily, and gave to Epirus a momentary importance which it never again possessed. | |||
| With the fall of the ] in ] to Venetian-led armies in the ], the Despotate of Epirus became one of the | |||
| three successor states, the others being the ], and ]. At its brief height the despotate controlled territory from ] in the north to the Gulf of Patras in the south, even the island of Corcyra (]). The Despot was defeated by armies of the Nicaean lineage, who later re-captured ] from the Latins in ] and re-formed the Byzantine Empire. | |||
| Alexander, his son, who succeeded in 272 B.C., attempted to seize Macedonia, and defeated Antigonus Gonatas, but was himself shortly afterwards driven from his kingdom by Demetrius. He recovered it, however, and spent the rest of his days in peace. Two other insignificant reigns brought the family of Pyrrhus to its close, and Epirus was thenceforward governed by a magistrate, elected annually in a general assembly of the nation. held at Passaron. Having imprudently espoused the cause of Perseus (q.v.) in his ill-fated war against the Romans, 168 B.C., it was exposed to the fury of the conquerors, who destroyed, it is said, seventy towns, and carried into slavery 150,000 of the inhabitants. From this blow it never recovered. At the dissolution of the Achaean League (q.v.), 146 B.C., it became part of the province of Macedonia, receiving the name Epirus Vetus, to distinguish it from Epirus Nova, which lay to the east. | |||
| The area passed to the Ottoman ] in the fifteenth century and was not ceded to Greece until ]. Between ] and ] Epirus had a brief period of independence. | |||
| On the division of the empire it fell to the East, and so remained until the taking of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204, when Michel Angelus Comnenus seized Aetolia and Epirus. On the death of Michel in 1216, these countries fell into the hands of his brother Theodore. Thomas, the last of the direct line, was murdered in 1318 by his nephew Thomas, lord of Zante and Cephalonia, and his dominions were dismembered. Not long after, Epirus was overrun by the Samians and Albanians, and the confusion which had been growing since the division of the empire was worse confounded still. Charles II. Tocco, lord of Cephalonia and Zante, obtained the recognition of his title of Despot of Epirus from the emperor Manuel Comnenus in the beginning of the i5th century; but his family was deprived of their possession in 1431 by Murad (Amurath) II. In 1443, Scanderbeg, king of Albania, made himself master of a considerable part of Epirus; but on his death it fell into the power of the Venetians. From these it passed again to the Turks, under whose dominion it still remains. For modern history see ALBANIA. | |||
| Nicholas Gage (nee Gatzoyiannis) is a famous modern Epirote writer (from the village of Lia), the author of the renowned novel ELENI. | |||
| ==References== | |||
| ''Adapted in part from ]. | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| * | |||
| * An unsympathetic Turkish report on the official position of the Greek Government. | |||
| * | |||
| {{msg:1911}} | |||
| ] | |||
Revision as of 21:34, 9 May 2004
EPIRUS, or EPEIRUS, an ancient district of Northern Greefle extending along the lonian Sea from the Acroceraunian promontory on the N. to the Ambracian gulf on the S. It was conterminous on the landward side with Illyria, Macedonia and Thessaly, and thus corresponds to the southern portion of Albania (q.v.). The name Epirus (Hireipor) signified mainland, and was originally applied to the whole coast southward~ to the Corinthian Gulf, in contradistinction to the neighboring islands, Corcyra, Leucas, &c. The country is all mountainous, especially towards the east, where the great rivers of north-western Greece Achelous, Arachthus and Aousrise in Mt Lacmon, the backbone of the Pindus chain. In ancient times Epirus did not produce corn sufficient for the wants of its inhabitants; but it was celebrated, as it has been almost to the present day, for its cattle and its horses. According to Theopompus (4th cent. B.c.), the Epirots were divided into fourteen independent tribes, of which the principal were the Chaones, the Thesproti and the Molossi. The Chaones (perhaps akin to the Chones who dwelt in the heel of Italy) inhabited the Acroceraunian shore, the Molossians the inland districts round the lake of Pambotis (mod. Jannina), and the Thesprotians the region to the north of the Ambracian gulf. In spite of its distance from the chief centres of Greek thought and action, and the barbarian repute of its inhabitants, Epirus ~1as believed to have exerted at an early period no small influence on Greece, by means more especially of the oracle of Dodona. Aristotle even placed in Epirus the original home of the Hellenes. But in historic times its part in Greek history is mainly passive. The states of Greece proper founded a number of colonies on its coast, which formed steppingstones towards the Adriatic and the West. Of these one of the earliest and most flourishing was the Corinthian colony of Ambracia, which gives its name to the neighboring gulf. Elatria, Bucheta and Pandosia, in Thesprotia, originated from Elis. Among the other towns in the country the following were of some importance. In Chaonia: Palaeste and Chimaera, fortified posts to which the dwellers in the open country could retire in time of war; Onchesmus or Anchiasmus, opposite Corcyra (Corfu), now represented by Santi Quarante; Phoenice, still so called, the wealthiest of all the native cities of Epirus, and after the fall of the Molossian kingdom the centre of an Epirotic League; Buthrotum, the modern Butrinto; Phanote, important in the Roman campaigns in Epirus; and Adrianopolis, founded by the emperor whose name it bore. In Thesprotia:
Cassope, the chief town of the most powerful of the Thesprotian clans; and Ephyra, afterwards Cichyrus, identified by W. M. Leake with the monastery of St John. 3 or 4 m. from Phanari, and by C. Bursian with Kastri at the northern end of the Acherusian Lake. In Molossia: Passaron, where the kings were wont to take the oath of the constitution and receive their peoples allegiance; and Tecmon, Phylace and Horreum, all of doubtful identification. The Byzantine town of Rogus is probably the same as the modern Luro, the Greek Oropus.
History.The kings, or rather chieftains, of the Molossians, who ultimately extended their power over all Epirus, claimed to be descended from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who, according to legend, settled in the country after the sack of Troy, and trans,mitted his kingdom to Molossus, his son by Andromache. The early history of the dynasty is very obscure; but Admetus, who lived in the 5th century B.C., is remembered for his hospitable reception of the banished Themistocles, in spite of the fact that the great Athenian had persuaded his countrymen to refuse the alliance tardily offered by the Molossians when victory against the Persians was already secured. Admetus was succeeded, about 429 s.c., by his son or grandson, Tharymbas or Arymbas I., who being placed by a decree of the people under the guardianship of Sabylinthus, chief of the Atintanes, was educated at Athens, and at a later date introduced a higher civilization among his subjects. Alcetas, the next king mentioned in history, was restored to his throne by Dionysius of Syracuse about 385 B.C. His son Arymbas II. (who succeeded by the death of his brother Neoptolemus) ruled with prudence and equity, and gave encouragement to literature and the arts.
To him Xenocrates of Chalcedon dedicated his four books on the art of governing; and it is specially mentioned that he bestowed great care on the education of his brothers children. One of them, Troas, he married; Olympias, the other niece, was married to Philip II. of Macedon and became the mother of Alexander the Great. On the death of Arymbas, Alexander the brother of Olympias, was put on the throne by Philip and married his daughter Cleopatra. Alexander assumed the new title of king of Epirus, and raised the reputation of his country abroad. Asked by the Tarentines for aid against the Samnites and Lucanians, he made a descent at Paestum in 332 B.C., and reduced several cities of the Lucani and Bruttii; but in a second attack he was surrounded, defeated and slain near Pandosia in Bruttium.
Aeacides, the son of Arymbas II., succeeded Alexander. He espoused the cause of Olympias against Cassander, but was dethroned by his own soldiers, and had hardly regained his position when he fell in battle (313 B.C.) against Philip, brother of Cassander. He had, by his wife Phthia, a son, the celebrated Pyrrhus, and two daughters, Deidamia and Troas, of whom the former married Demetrius Poliorcetes. His brother Alcetas, who succeeded him, continued unsuccessfully the war with Cassander; he was put to death by his rebellious subjects in 295 B.C., and was succeeded by Pyrrhus (q.v), who for six years fought against the Romans in south Italy and Sicily, and gave to Epirus a momentary importance which it never again possessed.
Alexander, his son, who succeeded in 272 B.C., attempted to seize Macedonia, and defeated Antigonus Gonatas, but was himself shortly afterwards driven from his kingdom by Demetrius. He recovered it, however, and spent the rest of his days in peace. Two other insignificant reigns brought the family of Pyrrhus to its close, and Epirus was thenceforward governed by a magistrate, elected annually in a general assembly of the nation. held at Passaron. Having imprudently espoused the cause of Perseus (q.v.) in his ill-fated war against the Romans, 168 B.C., it was exposed to the fury of the conquerors, who destroyed, it is said, seventy towns, and carried into slavery 150,000 of the inhabitants. From this blow it never recovered. At the dissolution of the Achaean League (q.v.), 146 B.C., it became part of the province of Macedonia, receiving the name Epirus Vetus, to distinguish it from Epirus Nova, which lay to the east.
On the division of the empire it fell to the East, and so remained until the taking of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204, when Michel Angelus Comnenus seized Aetolia and Epirus. On the death of Michel in 1216, these countries fell into the hands of his brother Theodore. Thomas, the last of the direct line, was murdered in 1318 by his nephew Thomas, lord of Zante and Cephalonia, and his dominions were dismembered. Not long after, Epirus was overrun by the Samians and Albanians, and the confusion which had been growing since the division of the empire was worse confounded still. Charles II. Tocco, lord of Cephalonia and Zante, obtained the recognition of his title of Despot of Epirus from the emperor Manuel Comnenus in the beginning of the i5th century; but his family was deprived of their possession in 1431 by Murad (Amurath) II. In 1443, Scanderbeg, king of Albania, made himself master of a considerable part of Epirus; but on his death it fell into the power of the Venetians. From these it passed again to the Turks, under whose dominion it still remains. For modern history see ALBANIA.