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This is a very well done entry! Good job.

Greatest General

I have heard the order of Hannibal's greatest generals as Pyrrhus first, Alexander second, and I have heard it from other sources as the reverse. Can anyone confirm from the original Livy quote which way around it was?

According to Plutarch, Hannibal considered Pyrrhus the most skilled general, followed by Scipio and then himself: "Hannibal of all great commanders esteemed Pyrrhus for skill and conduct the first, Scipio the second, and himself the third."

Ethnicity

Pyrrhus probably was neither Illyrian nor Greek. Although he was influenced by the Greek culture, he belonged to a separate people of Epirus (Thesproti, Chaones, Molossians). Today, in the United States, World History books used at schools do not mention Epirus or Macedonia as lands of Greek people.--70.240.180.62

If he didn't at least consider himself Greek then why would he constantly refer to the Romans as barbarians? And why would the Greeks of Italy prefer to submit to Pyrrhus rather than the Romans? It's certain that Epirus and Macedon had influences from barbarians and were frowned upon by the Greek city-states. After all Macedon and Epirus never adopted the polis, which is what really differentiated them from the rest of Greece. They were most certainly Greek by language, religion and ancestry, and they viewed themselves as such. Miskin 15:00, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Epirus was semi-Greek. Certainly the aristocracy and the royal family, which believed itself descended from Achilles (note the names - Neoptolemus, Pyrrhus, Aeacides), considered itself to be Greek, just as the Macedonian royal house did. My understanding is that the languages of Epirus and Macedonia are generally considered to be in the same branch of Indo-European as Greek, but so little is known about them that it's not completely sure. john k 04:35, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Why should Pyrrhus (or Pyrrhos, if you prefer) not be Greek ? His name was greek, and so as that of his ancestors.Their culture, religiton and customs were greek. Maybe it's because they didn't know of the internet and didn't carry around them identity cards procalaiming their ethnic origin to everyone that causes such a stir today. Just becase they lived in kingdoms and not city-state formations doesn't mean that they were barbarians. ( Not to mention that for a long time, many greek states had kings too ...). And, anyway, the classification of american schoolbooks isn't a n official doctrine of archaeologists worldwide. Besides, it's not as if they would go into details about everyone. But claiming the Epirotes to be anything else than greek is quite a joke (a rather bad one).

Pyrrhus was a Molossi, and related more to the Illyrians than the Greeks. The Greeks used to consider Epeirotes "barbarians." Still, by Pyrrhus's time, Epeiros was hellenized. So I guess in that way, Pyrrhus would be "Greek" ...

Actually, Pyrrhus was greek. At least, that's what the anchient writer Pausanias calls him. In his ΕΛΛΑΔΟΣ ΠΕΡΙΗΓΗΣΙΣ he mentions Pyrrhos as the first person from Greece beyond the Ionian sea to have to have marched against the Romans : Ουτω Πυρρος εστιν ο πρωτος εκ της Ελλάδος της περαν Ιονιου διαβας επι Ρωμαιους. Attika, I,12,1. Can anyone answer why a people or a group does not belong to the anchient greek people(s), when: a)They define and consider themselves as Greeks b)They speak and use between themselves a greek dialect (a doric one, by the way, and not an attic one picked up from others) c) They are referred to by others (anchient writers and poets)as Greeks d) The inscriptions that are found in the regions that they lived are in Greek e) The names they used for themselves were greek. Even if they were mot greek, on what is their assumed origin as Illyrians based on ? Anchient texts? Linguistic similarities ? Archaeological founds ? The geographical proximity to another nation doesn't signify an ethnic relation on it's own. In that case, Ionians and Persians should be considered sister nations.

PYRRHUS IS ALBANIAN

Pyrrhus was Illyrian from epirus,he is refered to by thr greeks as barbarian and is called by his troops the "EAGLE" because of his great courage on the battlefield. When he heard this he told his soldiers 'It is because of you that I am an eagle, because your arms are my wings'. At the momment the article is mess,it has to be rewritten very soon, preferably without the Greek Propaganda Xalvas 17:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Isn't the Albanian double-headed eagle a ripoff from the Byzantine Greek emblem of the Paleologoi family? There's no evidence that it has any sort of continuity from antiquity. There's not even any evidence that Albanians are an Illyrian people in the first place (aside the fact that Epirus was not Illyrian land). Miskin 21:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

The Epirotes are not considered Illyrians. They were semi-Greek, and have always been considered to be such. The Epirot royal family certainly considered itself Greek, Pyrrhus among them, and scholars generally consider the Epirot language to be in the same family as Greek. There is no particular evidence for the existence of Albanians before, I believe, the early 2nd millennium AD (the Albanians article gives 1043 as the first mention). john k 21:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Epirotes and Pyrrhus were Greek since 2000 bc and have nothing to do with illyrians or albanians

Sources on the Epirotes "Zeus Archon, Dodonean, Pelasgian, who dwells afar, ruling on rough wintered Dodona, surrounded by the Selloi, the interpreters of your divine will, whose feet are unwashed and sleep on the ground".

Homer, Iliad 16:127 (Achilles prayer)

XI. "War was at the same time proclaimed against the Tarentines (who are still a people at the extremity of Italy), because they had offered violence to some Roman ambassadors. These people asked aid against the Romans of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who derived his origin from the family of Achilles...

XIII. "...Thus the ambassador of Pyrrhus returned; and, when Pyrrhus asked him "what kind of a place he had found Rome to be," Cineas replied, that "he had seen a country of kings, for that all there were such, as Pyrrhus alone was thought to be in Epirus and the rest of Greece."

Eutropius (Abridgment of Roman History) Historiae Romanae Breviarium

"Arha Ellas apo Oricias kai arhegonos Ellas Epiros"

"Greece starts at Oricus and the most ancient part of Greece is Epirus."

Claudius Ptolemy, The Geographer

“Peleus is the forefather of the kings of Epiros”

Pausanias, II (Corinth).

Peleus being the son of King Aeacus (the dynasty's name) and the father of Achilles.

“but we know of no Greek before Pyrros who fought against Rome.”

Pausanias, 1.11

“So Pyrros was the first to cross over against Rome from mainland Greece, and even so he went over only because he was called in by Tarentum”

Pausanias, 1.12

Being apprized of Alcmaeon's untimely end and courted by Zeus, Callirrhoe requested that the sons she had by Alcmaeon might be full grown in order to avenge their father's murder. And being suddenly full-grown, the sons went forth to right their father's wrong. Now Pronous and Agenor, the sons of Phegeus, carrying the necklace and robe to Delphi to dedicate them, turned in at the house of Agapenor at the same time as Amphoterus and Acarnan, the sons of Alcmaeon; and the sons of Alcmaeon killed their father's murderers, and going to Psophis and entering the palace they slew both Phegeus and his wife. They were pursued as far as Tegea, but saved by the intervention of the Tegeans and some Argives, and the Psophidians took to flight.

Having acquainted their mother with these things, they went to Delphi and dedicated the necklace and robe according to the injunction of Achelous. Then they journeyed to Epirus, collected settlers, and colonized Acarnania.

Apollodorus, 3.76-3.77.

Acarnania was Greek and settlers from Epirus helped colonize it...

After remaining in Tenedos two days at the advice of Thetis, Neoptolemus set out for the country of the Molossians by land with Helenus, and on the way Phoenix died, and Neoptolemus buried him; and having vanquished the Molossians in battle he reigned as king and begat Molossus on Andromache. And Helenus founded a city in Molossia and inhabited it, and Neoptolemus gave him his mother Deidamia to wife. And when Peleus was expelled from Phthia by the sons of Acastus and died, Neoptolemus succeeded to his father's kingdom."

Apollodorus, 6.12

"Alexander, the Epirote, when waging war against the Illyrians, first placed a force in ambush, and then dressed up some of his own men in Illyrian garb, ordering them to lay waste his own, that is to say, Epirote territory. When the Illyrians saw that this was being done, they themselves began to pillage right and left — the more confidently since they thought that those who led the way were scouts. But when they had been designedly brought by the latter into a disadvantageous position, they were routed and killed."

Frontinus, Strategemata, On Ambushes, 10

"When Harrybas, king of the Molossians, was attacked in war by Bardylis, the Illyrian, who commanded a considerably larger army, he dispatched the non-combatant portion of his subjects to the neighbouring district of Aetolia, and spread the report that he was yielding up his towns and possessions to the Aetolians. He himself, with those who could bear arms, placed ambuscades here and there on the mountains and in other inaccessible places. The Illyrians, fearful lest the possessions of the Molossians should be seized by the Aetolians, began to race along in disorder, in their eagerness for plunder. As soon as they became scattered, Harrybas, emerging from his concealment and taking them unawares, routed them and put them to flight."

Frontinus, Strategemata, 13

Seems clear that the Epirotes were NOT Illyrians...

"It was for this reason that Pyrrhus was defeated by the Romans also in a battle to the finish. For it was no mean or untrained army that he had, but the mightiest of those then in existence among the Greeks and one that had fought a great many wars; nor was it a small body of men that was then arrayed under him, but even three times as large as his adversary's, nor was its general any chance leader, but rather the man whom all admit to have been the greatest of all the generals who flourish at that same period;"

Dionysius of Halicarnnasus, Roman Antiquities, 19.11

"Theopompus says, that there are fourteen Epirotic nations. Of these, the most celebrated are the Chaones and Molotti, because the whole of Epirus was at one time subject, first to Chaones, afterwards to Molotti. Their power was greatly strengthened by the family of their kings being descended from the Æacidæ, and because the ancient and famous oracle of Dodona was in their country. Chaones, Thesproti, and next after these Cassopæi, (who are Thesproti,) occupy the coast, a fertile tract reaching from the Ceraunian mountains to the Ambracian Gulf."

"The Molotti also were Epirotæ, and were subjects of Pyrrhus Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, and of his descendants, who were Thessalians. The rest were governed by native princes. Some tribes were continually endeavouring to obtain the mastery over the others, but all were finally subdued by the Macedonians, except a few situated above the Ionian Gulf."

Strabo, 7.7.1

"Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, had a particularly high opinion of his powers because he was deemed by foreign nations a match for the Romans; and he believed that it would be opportune to assist the fugitives who had taken refuge with him, especially as they were Greeks, and at the same time so forestall the Romans with some plausible excuse before he should suffer injury at their hands. For so careful was he about his good reputation that though he had long had his eye on Sicily and had been considering how he could overthrow the power of the Romans, he shrank from taking the initiative in hostilities against them, when no wrong had been done him."

Cassius Dio, Book 9.4

Epirus in 2000bc

Margalit Finkelberg(Greeks and Pre-Greeks, Gambridge, edition 2007).

Prehistoric Greece 2000 BC

ISBN-13: 9780521852166 | ISBN-10: 0521852161)

albanian propaganda

Not only is Epirus and its inhabitants uncontestably Greek, but they have been so from earliest antiquity. Epirus is in fact the original Greek homeland and it is from Epirus that the Greek speaking tribes entered southern Greece. Attempts to claim that Pyrrhus and the ancient Epirots are not Greek are Albanian propaganda and are patently false. This is obvious as the propoents of this viewpoint can offer no evidence to prove their claims.

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