Epirus (ancient state)
Epirus Ἄπειρος Ápeiros | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
330 BC–167 BC | |||||||||||||
Capital | |||||||||||||
Common languages | Epirote Greek | ||||||||||||
Religion | Ancient Greek religion | ||||||||||||
Government |
| ||||||||||||
Neoptolemos II | |||||||||||||
• 297–272 BC | Pyrrhus of Epirus | ||||||||||||
• 231–167 BC | Epirote League | ||||||||||||
Historical era | Classical antiquity | ||||||||||||
• Epirote tribes established united political entity | 330 BC | ||||||||||||
280–275 BC | |||||||||||||
• Monarchy abolished | 231 BC | ||||||||||||
• Conquered by the Roman Republic in the Third Macedonian War | 167 BC | ||||||||||||
Currency | Epirote drachma | ||||||||||||
|
Epirus (/ɪˈpaɪrəs/; Epirote Greek: Ἄπειρος, Ápeiros; Attic Greek: Ἤπειρος, Ḗpeiros) was an ancient Greek kingdom, and later republic, located in the geographical region of Epirus, in parts of north-western Greece and southern Albania. Home to the ancient Epirotes, the state was bordered by the Aetolian League to the south, Ancient Thessaly and Ancient Macedonia to the east, and Illyrian tribes to the north. The Greek king Pyrrhus is known to have made Epirus a powerful state in the Greek realm (during 280–275 BC) that was comparable to the likes of Ancient Macedonia and Ancient Rome. Pyrrhus' armies also attempted an assault against the state of Ancient Rome during their unsuccessful campaign in what is now modern-day Italy.
History
Prehistory
Epirus has been occupied since at least
The
The Greek toponym Epirus (Greek: Ήπειρος), meaning "mainland" or "continent", first appears in the work of Hecataeus of Miletus in the 6th century BC and is one of the few Greek names from the view of an external observer with a maritime-geographical perspective. Although not originally a native Epirote name, it later came to be adopted by the inhabitants of the area.[7]
Molossian expansion (470–330 BC)
The
In 334 BC, the time
Kingdom of Epirus (330–231 BC)
In 330 BC, upon Alexander the Molossian's death, the term "Epirus" appears as a single political unit in the ancient Greek records for the first time, under the leadership of the Molossian dynasty. Subsequently, the coinages of the three major Epirote tribal groups came to an end, and a new coinage was issued with the legend Epirotes.[10] After Alexander's I death, Aeacides of Epirus, who succeeded him, espoused the cause of Olympias against Cassander, but was dethroned in 313 BC.
Aeacides's son
In 277 BC, Pyrrhus captured the Carthaginian fortress in Eryx, Sicily. This prompted the rest of the Carthaginian-controlled cities to defect to Pyrrhus. Meanwhile, he had begun to display despotic behavior towards the Sicilian Greeks and soon Sicilian opinion became inflamed against him. Though he defeated the Carthaginians in battle, he was forced to abandon Sicily.[12]
Pyrrhus's Italian campaign came to an end following the inconclusive Battle of Beneventum (275 BC). Having lost the vast majority of his army, he decided to return to Epirus, which finally resulted in the loss of all his Italian holdings. Because of his costly victories, the term "Pyrrhic victory" is often used for a victory with devastating cost to the victor.[13]
Epirote League (231–167 BC)
In 233 BC, the last surviving member of the Aeacid royal house,
In the following years, Epirus faced the growing threat of the expansionist Roman Republic, which fought a series of wars with Macedonia. The League remained neutral in the first two Macedonian Wars but split in the Third Macedonian War (171–168 BC), with the Molossians siding with the Macedonians and the Chaonians and Thesprotians siding with Rome. The outcome was disastrous for Epirus; Molossia fell to Rome in 167 BC and 150,000 of its inhabitants were enslaved.[1]
Organization
In antiquity, Epirus was settled by the same nomadic Hellenic tribes that went on to settle the rest of Greece.
Culture
At least since classical antiquity, the Epirotes were speakers of an epichoric
Ancient writers such as
In terms of religion they worshiped the same gods as the rest of the Greeks. No traces of non-Greek deities were found until the
See also
References
Citations
- ^ a b c d "Epirus". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
- ^ Tandy 2001, p. 4
- ^ McHenry 2003, p. 527: "Epirus itself remained culturally backward during this time, but Mycenean remains have been found at two religious shrines of great antiquity in the region: the Oracle of the Dead on the Acheron River, familiar to the heroes of Homer's Odyssey."
- ^ Tandy 2001, pp. 23, 30.
- ^ Filos 2018, p. 215.
- ^ Hammond 1982, p. 284.
- ^ Douzougli, Angelika; Papadopoulos, John (2010). "Liatovouni: a Molossian cemetery and settlement in Epirus". Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. 125: 3.
- ^ Anson 2010, p. 5.
- ^ Hammond 1994, p. 438.
- ^ Hammond 1994, p. 442.
- ^ Franke 1989, pp. 462–479.
- ^ Franke 1989, pp. 477–480.
- ^ Franke 1989, p. 468.
- ^ a b Walbank 1984, p. 452.
- ^ Borza 1992, p. 62; Minahan 2002, p. 578.
- ^ Hammond 1967.
- ^ Hammond 1967, pp. 507–508: "'They relate', says Plutarch in introducing Pyrrhus, 'that Tharyps was the first to become renowned, as he organized the states on a system of Greek customs, and rules and regulations of a humane kind' (Θαρρύπαν πρῶτον ἱστοροῦσιν Ἑλληνικοῖς ἔθεσι καὶ γράμμασι καὶ νόμοις φιλανθρώποις διακοσμήσαντα τὰς πόλεις ὀνομαστὸν γενέσθαι. (Plu. Ρ. 1)). ... It is probable that Tharyps was responsible for the kind of written rules and regulations which we find in the earliest known decrees of the Molossian state in 370–368 B.C. But the institutions were, of course, much earlier in origin."
- ^ Hatzopoulos 1997, p. 141
- ^ Katičić 1976, pp. 123–124; Filos 2018, pp. 233–234.
- ^ Hernandez, David (2010). Excavations of the Roman Forum at Butrint (2004-2007) (PhD). University of California at Berkeley, University of Cincinnati. Archived from the original on 2 April 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
Epigraphic and ancient literary evidence indicates that the Epirotes spoke a form of West Greek, a dialect of ancient Greek.
- ^ Hammond 1998: "Epirus was a land of milk and animal products [...] The social unit was a small tribe, consisting of several nomadic or semi-nomadic groups, and these tribes, of which more than seventy names are known, coalesced into large tribal coalitions, three in number: Thesprotians, Molossians and Chaonians [...] We know from the discovery of inscriptions that these tribes were speaking the Greek language (in a West-Greek dialect)."
- ISBN 1349051233.
- ISBN 978-1-4443-5163-7.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4443-5163-7.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 6.124.7.
- ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, 20.10 (19.11).
- ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece, 1.11.7–1.12.2.
- ^ Eutropius. Abridgment of Roman History (Historiae Romanae Breviarium), 2.11.13.
- ^ Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.8 Archived 5 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Strabo. Geography, 7.7.1.
- ^ Filos 2018, p. 218.
- ^ Hatzopoulos 1997, p. 141
- ^ Filos 2018, p. 219.
- ISBN 0199258104.
- ISBN 960-213-377-5.
It is equally incontestable that the Epirote tribes practised the same religion as the other Greeks. The supreme god of the Epirotes was Zeus and his sanctuary at Dodona attracted believers from all over the Greek world. Foreign deities are not attested...The most convincing proof, however, that the Epirotes belonged firmly within the religious body of Greece, is provided by the catalogue of thearodokoi listing Greek cities and tribes to which the major hellenic sanctuaries sent theoroi to... only Greeks were allowed to, participate in the pan-Hellenic games and festivals
- ^ Hammond 1986, p. 77: "The original home of the Hellenes was 'Hellas', the area round Dodona in Epirus, according to Aristotle. In the Iliad it was the home of Achilles' Hellenes."
- ^ Plutarch. Parallel Lives: Pyrrhus, 1.
- ^ Cameron 2004, p. 141: "As for Aspetos, Achilles was honored at Epirus under that name, and the patronymic [Ἀ]σπετίδης is found in a fragmentary poem found on papyrus."
Sources
- Anson, Edward M. (2010). "Why Study Ancient Macedonia and What This Companion is About". In Roisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian (eds.). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Oxford, Chichester, & Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 3–20. ISBN 978-1-4051-7936-2.
- Antoniadis, Vyron (2016). Tabula Imperii Romani: J 34 - Athens: Epirus. Athens: Academy of Athens. ISBN 978-960-404-308-8.
- Borza, Eugene N. (1992). In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00880-9.
- Cameron, Alan (2004). Greek Mythography in the Roman World. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517121-7.
- Filos, Panagiotis (2018). "The Dialectal Variety of Epirus". In Giannakis, Georgios K.; Crespo, Emilio; Filos, Panagiotis (eds.). Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 215–248. ISBN 978-3-11-053213-5.
- Franke, P. R. (1989). "CHAPTER 10 PYRRHUS". In Astin, A. E.; Walbank, F. W.; Frederiksen, M. W.; Ogilvie, R. M.; Drummond, A. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: The Rise of Rome to 220 BC. Vol. VII, Part 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 456–485. ISBN 0-521-23446-8.
- Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière (1998). Philip of Macedon. London: Duckworth. ISBN 0-7156-2829-1.
- Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière (1994). "CHAPTER 9d. ILLYRIANS AND NORTH-WEST GREEKS". In Lewis, David Malcolm; Boardman, John; Hornblower, Simon; Ostwald, M. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: The Fourth Century B.C. Vol. VI (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 422–443. ISBN 0-521-23348-8.
- Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière (1986). A History of Greece to 322 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-873096-9.
- Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière (1982). "CHAPTER 40 ILLYRIS, EPIRUS AND MACEDONIA". In Boardman, John; Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: The Expansion of the Greek World, Eighth to Sixth Centuries B.C. Vol. III, Part 3 (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 261–285. ISBN 0-521-23447-6.
- Hammond, N. G. L. (1967). Epirus: The geography, the ancient remains, the history and topography of Epirus and adjacent areas. Oxford University Press.
- Hatzopoulos, Miltiades B. (1997). "Τα όρια του ελληνισμού στην Ήπειρο κατά την αρχαιότητα". Ήπειρος: 4000 χρόνια ελληνικής ιστορίας και πολιτισμού (in Greek). Εκδοτική Αθηνών. pp. 140–145.
- ISBN 978-9-02-793305-8.
- McHenry, Robert (2003). The New Encyclopædia Britannica (15th ed.). Chicago, IL: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. ISBN 978-0-85-229961-6.
- Minahan, James (2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups around the World. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-31617-1.
- Tandy, David W. (2001). Prehistory and History: Ethnicity, Class and Political Economy. Montréal, Québec, Canada: Black Rose Books Limited. ISBN 1-55164-188-7.
- Walbank, Frank William (1984) [1928]. "CHAPTER 12 MACEDONIA AND THE GREEK LEAGUES". In Walbank, F. W.; Astin, A. E.; Frederiksen, M. W.; Ogilvie, R. M. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: The Hellenistic World. Vol. VII, Part 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 446–481. ISBN 978-0-521-23445-0.