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Me falni qe ky informacion eshte ne anglisht por me duket se ja vlen per te gjithe ata qe dine anglisht te lexojne pak nga vertetesia e rajonit shumeshkullor te Epirit, pa mbajtur njeaneshmeri te asnje pale.

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Epirus (region)
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This article is about the broad geographical and historical region of Epirus, spanning Greece and Albania. For other uses, see Epirus (disambiguation).
Epirus (Greek Ήπειρος Ķpiros; Albanian: Epir) is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in south-eastern Europe. It is divided between Greece, which possesses around 80 percent of the region, and southern Albania whose area is equivalent to the northern part of classical Epirus (see Northern Epirus). The Greek portion of the region is incorporated as the periphery of Epirus.


Map of ancient EpirusContents [hide]
1 Etymology of the name
2 Boundaries and definitions
3 Geography and ecology
4 History
4.1 Early settlement
4.2 Epirus and ancient Greece
4.3 Roman and Byzantine rule
4.4 Epirus under the Ottomans
4.5 20th century Epirus
5 Notes
6 See also
7 Bibliography
8 External links



[edit] Etymology of the name
The Greek name Epirus signifies "mainland" or "continent", to distinguish it from the Ionian islands off the Epirote coast. It was originally applied to the whole coast south to the Gulf of Patras. The name is thought to go back to Proto-Greek āper-jos, from an Indo-European root apero- meaning 'coast'.[1]


[edit] Boundaries and definitions
The historical region of Epirus is generally regarded as extending from the Bay of Vlorë in Albania to the Gulf of Arta or Ambracian Gulf in Greece. Its eastern boundary is defined by the Pindus Mountains that form the spine of mainland Greece and separate Epirus from Macedonia and Thessaly. To the west, Epirus faces the Adriatic Sea and Ionian Sea. The island of Corfu is situated off the coast but is not generally regarded as part of the province (politically it is part of the Ionian Islands province of Greece).


[edit] Geography and ecology

NASA satellite image of EpirusEpirus is a rugged and mountainous region. It is largely made up of mountainous limestone ridges, part of the Dinaric Alps, that in places reach 2,650 m. In the east, the Pindus Mountains that form the spine of mainland Greece separate Epirus from Macedonia and Thessaly. Most of Epirus lies on the windward side of the Pindus. The winds from the Ionian Sea offer the region more rainfall than any other part of Greece.

The climate of Epirus is mainly alpine. The vegetation is made up mainly of coniferous species. The animal life is especially rich in this area and features, among other species, bears, wolves, foxes, deer and lynxes.


[edit] History

[edit] Early settlement
Epirus has been occupied since Neolithic times, when hunters and shepherds inhabited the region and constructed large tumuli to bury their leaders. The tumuli had many similar characteristics to those later used by the Myceneans, suggesting a possible ancestral link between Epirus and the Mycenean civilisation. Certainly, Mycenean remains have been found at two ancient religious sites in the region, the Necromanteion (Oracle of the Dead) on the Acheron river, and the Oracle of Zeus at Dodona.

The Dorians invaded Greece via Epirus and Macedonia at the end of the 2nd millennium BC (circa 1100 BC-1000 BC), though the reasons for their migration are obscure. The region's original inhabitants were driven southward into the Greek mainland by the invasion and by the early 1st millennium BC three principal clusters of Greek-speaking tribes had emerged in Epirus. These were the Chaones of northwestern Epirus, the Molossians in the centre and the Thesprotians in the middle.


[edit] Epirus and ancient Greece

Remains of the sanctuary of Zeus Dodonaios in DodonaUnlike most other Greeks of the time, who lived in or around city-states such as Athens or Sparta, the Epirotes lived in small villages. Their region lay on the edge of the Greek world and was far from peaceful; for many centuries, it remained a frontier area contested with the Illyrian peoples of the Adriatic coast and interior. However, Epirus had a far greater religious significance than might have been expected given its geographical remoteness, due to the presence of the shrine and oracle at Dodona - regarded as second only to the more famous oracle at Delphi.

The Epirotes seem to have initially been regarded with some disdain by the Greeks of the south. The 5th century BC historian Thucydides describes them as "barbarians" and the only Epirotes regarded as truly Greek were the Aeacidae, who claimed to be descended from Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. Plutarch mentions an interesting cultural element of the Epirotes regarding Achilles. In his biography of king Pyrrhus, he claims that Achilles "had a divine status in Epirus and in the local dialect he was called Aspetos"[2]. The Aeacidae established the Molossian dynasty, who built a state in Epirus from about 370 BC onwards, expanding their power at the expense of rival tribes. The Molossians allied themselves with the increasingly powerful kingdom of Macedon and in 359 BC the Molossian princess Olympias, niece of Arybbas of Epirus, married King Philip II of Macedon. She was to become the mother of Alexander the Great.

On the death of Arybbas, Alexander of Epirus succeeded to the throne and the title King of Epirus. Aeacides of Epirus, who succeeded Alexander, espoused the cause of Olympias against Cassander, but was dethroned in 313 BC. His son Pyrrhus came to throne in 295 BC, and for six years fought against the Romans in southern Italy and Sicily. His campaigns gave Epirus a new, but brief, importance and a lasting contribution to the language with the concept of a "Pyrrhic victory".

In the 3rd century BC Epirus remained a substantial power, unified under the auspices of the Epirote League as a federal state with its own parliament (or synedrion). However, it was faced with 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 BC-168 BC), with the Molossians siding with the Macedonians and the Chaones and Thesproti siding with Rome. The outcome was disastrous for Epirus; Molossia fell to Rome in 167 BC, 150,000 of its inhabitants were enslaved and the region was so thoroughly plundered that it took 500 years for central Epirus to recover fully.


[edit] Roman and Byzantine rule
The Roman invasion permanently ended the political independence of the Epirotes. In 146 BC Epirus became part of the province of Roman Macedonia, receiving the name Epirus vetus, to distinguish it from Epirus nova to the east. Its coastal regions grew wealthy from the Roman coastal trade routes, and the construction of the Via Egnatia provided a further boost to prosperity.

Epirus became the westernmost province of the Eastern Roman Empire (subsequently the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire), ruled from Constantinople when the empire was divided in two in 395 AD. When Constantinople fell to the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Michael Angelos Komnenos Ducas seized Aetolia and Epirus to establish an independent Despotate of Epirus. The rulers of the Despotate controlled a substantial area corresponding to a large swathe of northwestern Greece, much of modern Albania and parts of the modern Republic of Macedonia.

In 1318 Epirus was overrun by Serbs in one of a series of uprisings. Following an Albanian uprising in 1359, in which the Despot Nicephorus II was killed, the Byzantines re-established a measure of control of the despotate by making it a vassal state. However, in 1430 the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Murad II annexed Epirus.


[edit] Epirus under the Ottomans

Ali PashaOttoman rule proved particularly damaging in Epirus; the region was subjected to deforestation and excessive cultivation, which damaged the soil and drove many Epirotes to emigrate to escape the region's pervasive poverty. Nonetheless, the Ottomans did not enjoy total control of Epirus. In 1443 George Kastrioti Skenderbeg revolted against the Ottoman Empire and conquered Northern Epirus, but on his death it fell to Venice. The Ottomans expelled the Venetians from almost the whole area in the late 15th century.

In the 18th century, as the power of the Ottomans declined, Epirus became a virtually independent region under the despotic rule of Ali Pasha, an Albanian brigand who became the provincial governor of Ioannina in 1788. At the height of his power, he controlled much of western Greece, the Peloponnese and Albania. Ali Pasha's campaigns to subjugate the confederation of the Souli settlements is a well known incident of his rule. His forces met fierce resistance by the Souliote warriors of the mountainous area. After numerous failed attempts to defeat the Souliotes, his troops succeeded in conquering the area in 1803. When the Greek War of Independence broke out, Ali tried to make himself an independent ruler, but he was deposed and murdered by Ottoman agents in 1822.

When Greece became independent, Epirus remained under Ottoman rule. However, the inhabitants of the region contributed greatly to the Greek War of Independence. Two of the founding members of the Filiki Eteria (secret patriotic society), Nikolaos Skoufas and Athanasios Tsakalov, came from the Arta area and the city of Ioannina respectively. Greece's first constitutional prime minister (1844-1847), Ioannis Kolettis, was a native of the Aromanian town of Syrrako in Epirus.


[edit] 20th century Epirus
The Treaty of Berlin of 1881 gave Greece parts of southern Epirus, but it was not until the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 that the rest of southern Epirus joined Greece. Northern Epirus was awarded to Albania by an international boundary commission. This outcome was unpopular among both Greeks and Albanians, as settlements of the two people existed on both sides of the border. Among Greeks, northern Epirus was regarded as terra irredenta.

When World War I broke out in 1914, Albania collapsed. Under a March 1915 agreement among the Allies, Italy seized northern Albania and Greece set up an autonomous Greek state of North Epirus in the southern part of the country. Although short-lived, the state of North Epirus managed to leave behind a number of historical records of its existence, including its own postage stamps; see Postage stamps and postal history of Epirus.

Although the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 awarded the area to Greece after World War I, political developments such as the Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War and, crucially, Italian, Austrian and German lobbying in favour of Albania meant that Greece, although backed by Russia, could not claim northern Epirus. The area was finally ceded to Albania in 1924.


A soldier of the Communist-led ELAS guerilla armyItaly occupied Albania in 1939 and in 1940 invaded Greece. The Italians were, however, driven back into Albania and Greece again took control of northern Epirus. The conflict, known as the Greco-Italian War, marked one of the first tactical victories of the Allies in World War II. Mussolini himself supervised the massive counter-attack of his divisions in spring 1941, only to be decisively defeated again by the poorly equipped, but determined, Greeks. Nazi Germany intervened in April 1941 to avert an embarrassing Italian defeat. The German military performed rapid military maneuvers through Yugoslavia and forced the encircled Greek forces to surrender.

The whole of Epirus was then placed under Italian occupation until 1943, when the Germans took over following the Italian surrender to the Allies. The highlands of Epirus became the major theatre of guerilla inter-fighting between the communist Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos (ELAS) and the republican Ethnikos Dimokratikos Ellinikos Syndesmos (EDES). Following the German withdrawal from Greece in 1944, the mountains of Epirus became the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the Greek Civil War.

It was during this time that Cham Albanians were forced out of Greek Epirus; members of the Cham community had collaborated with the Axis forces during the occupation of Greece, and when the Cham bands declined EDES' request to help them against ELAS, the former with British support attacked Cham villages killing 5,000 civilians and forcing about 35,000 to flee.[3]

The current President of Greece, mister Karolos Papoulias is a native of Epirus.

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"The Greek peninsula, and its northern borders, the Balkans, had previously been settled by the original European peoples during the Neolithic Age. These peoples had created the Old European civilizations, which were some of the most advanced in Europe at the time. From approximately 5000 BC onwards, the Indo-European peoples had started flooding westwards, at first conquering but then integrating with these original Old European peoples. This massive influx of peoples brought about the fall of these Old European civilizations - and in their place arose the two great civilizations which have come to epitomize the classical world: Greece and Rome."

- March of the Titans, Chapter 10

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Sipas UNRV History - Roman Empires

Epirus was the coastal region of northwestern Greece and southern Albania with Illyrium to the north and Macedonia to the east and was home to the Epirote tribes which were little known by the Greeks at the time. At the time of Homer (8th Century BC), Epirus was known as the home of the oracle of Dodona. The region was also home to the Oracle of the Dead on the Acheron River.

Epirus was the launching area of the Dorian invasions (1100-1000 BC) of Greece, which along with civil wars and environmental upheaval helped lead to the Greek Dark Ages. Greek culture, however, would retake dominance by the 9th Century BC. In the 5th BC century Epirus was still on the periphery of the Greek world. To the 5th-century historian Thucydides, the Epirotes were "barbarians." The only Epirotes regarded as Greek were the Aeacidae, who were members of the Molossian royal house and claimed descent from Achilles. From about 370 BC on, the Aeacidae were able to expand the Molossian state by incorporating tribes from the rival groups in Epirus. The Aeacidae's efforts gained impetus from the marriage of Philip II of Macedon to their princess, Olympias. In 334, while Alexander the Great, son of Philip and Olympias, crossed into Asia, his uncle, the Molossian ruler Alexander, attacked southern Italy, where he was eventually defeated by Rome and killed in battle in about 331 BC. Upon Alexander the Molossian's death, the Epirote tribes formed a coalition on an equal basis but with the Molossian king in command of their military forces.
The beginning of the 3rd Century BC saw the rise of King Pyrrhus, cousin of Alexander the Great. In 294 BC he exploited a dynastic quarrel in Macedonia to obtain the frontier areas of Parauaea and Tymphaea, along with Acarnania, Ampholochia, and Ambracia. Corcyra and Leucas were given to him in a marriage dowry. He then went to war against a former ally, Demetrius I Poliorcetes of Macedonia. Pyrrhus took Thessaly and the western half of Macedonia and relieved Athens from a siege, but was driven back into Epirus by Lysimachus, Demetrius' successor, in 284 BC.

In 281 the Italian city of Tarentum asked for Pyrrhus' assistance against Rome. He crossed to Italia with about 25,000 men including elephants which would be a later source of inspiration for Hannibal in the Punic Wars. In 280 BC he won a complete, if costly, victory over a Roman army at Heraclea. In 279, Pyrrhus, again suffering heavy casualties, defeated the Romans at Ausculum in Apulia. These victories would become synonymous in later history with the term "Pyrrhic Victory", in which the cost of victory was worse than those he defeated.

In 278 BC he crossed to Sicilia, and conquered most of the Punic province except Lilybaeum (Marsala). However, his despotic methods offered a very short term rule that provoked a revolt of the Greek Sicilians. In 276 (or early 275) he was forced to return to Italia. In 275 he suffered heavy losses in another "victory" against Rome at Beneventum.

The next year upon returning to Epirus, he invaded Macedonia, drove out Antigonus II Gonatas to Thessalonica, and took over the defecting Macedonian army. He abandoned the new victories in Macedonia, however, and launched an unsuccessful attack on King Areus of Sparta to restore Cleonymus (272 BC) to the throne there. Violations of royal tombs by a garrison of Gauls at Aegae offended the Greeks, and Pyrrhus went south to invade the Peloponnese, leaving his son Ptolemy in command. While occupied in the south, Antigonus Gonatas regained control of Macedonia and transported an army by sea to Corinth against Pyrrhus. At about the same time, Pyrrhus' son Ptolemy was killed in an ambush by the forces of King Areus of Sparta. At Argos Pyrrhus was trapped between the armies of the Macedonians and the Spartans and killed.

Pyrrhus' military adventures overstrained his state's military resources, but they also brought great prosperity to Epirus during his reign. After his fall, however, Epirus was left in a near state of ruin. His Memoirs and books on the art of war were quoted and praised by many ancient authors, including Cicero.

In 232 BC the various tribes created the Epirote League transformed the Kingdom into a Republic. Over the next half century it was caught between the warring powers, Rome and Macedonia. During the 3rd Macedonia War (171-168 BC), the Molossian Epirotes supported Macedonia and the League would fall apart. Rome, under the command of Aemilius Paullus, sacked the country in 167 BC and took 150,000 inhabitants as slaves. Epirus became a Roman province soon after and the coastal regions would prosper under its rule.

In 31 BC, one of the most important battles in the history of the world took place off the shores of Epirus to preserve the regions place in history. While not a major battle in terms of numbers of men or ships, the naval Battle of Actium, would decisively give Octavian Caesar control of the seas against his rivals Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra of Egypt. Over the next few months the victories for Octavian continued and he would soon be crowned as Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome.


Epirote tribes were mostly Hellenized (adapted to Greek culture) Illyrians. Unlike other Greek peoples who lived in or around large city-states, the early Epirotes lived in clusters of small villages. The Chaoni resided in northern Epirus, and the Thesproti in the South. Both were members of the Epirote League that allied with Rome during the Macedonian Wars. The most powerful of the tribes, the Molossi, were the dominant players in Epirus. They formed the early dynastic kingdoms of the region and were the ruling class prior to Roman conquest. They supported Macedonia against Rome and paid the price in the slavery of its people.

Throughout the occupation the Greek States were mostly content with Roman rule. Several civil wars saw them side with one faction or another, but still it was under Roman control. Greece was expected only to provide goods and revenue along with obedience, and was afforded a fair amount of autonomy. Copper, asphalt, and silver were extracted from the northern mountains and other exports were wine, cheese, and oil. Epirus remained a part of the Roman and Byzantine Empires until the 11th century AD.

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Pikerisht keto fakte historike vertetojne edhe njehere dyndjet e medha te shqiptareve te jugut mbas hapjes se kufijve te vendit ne 90 me teper ne krahinat greke se sa ne ato veriore te Europes.

Mos harroni se dikur nuk ka patur kufij, gardhe dhe ushtare dhe vetem keshtu shpjegohet edhe ngjashmeria e madhe qe kemi si popuj ne tradita, zakone dhe gjuhe.

Kur shajme italianet apo greket apo bullgaret apo rumunet apo serbet mos harroni se ne ata popuj ka te perzier edhe gjak shqiptar, zakone shqiptare dhe tradita shqiptare.


Italiani nuk e thote kot shprehjen me te goditur te shekujve "Una faca una raca"

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Relief of a Greek warrior from
Tarente, first quarter of the third
century (Allard Pierson
Museum, Amsterdam) Pyrrhus (319/318-272): king of Epirus (306-302 and 297-272) and Macedonia (288-284 and 273-272), well-known for his war against the Romans.

Epirus
From a classical Greek point of view, the northwest was inhabited by a bunch of barbarian tribes, in which the fifth-century sources are nor really interested. They contradict each other about which nations could be classified as western Greeks, Epirotes, or Illyrians. It does not really help us that the tribes did not leave behind written texts. Several sanctuaries, like Dodona, appear to have been hellenized quite early, but the people of the northwest retained several very archaic traits. Several tribes were led by kings, something that was very unusual in the Greek world. On the other hand, the nearby Macedonians shared some of these characteristics.
Like Macedonia, Epirus became a unified monarchy in the course of the fourth century. The tribe of the Molossians (in the interior) joined forces with the Thesprotians and the Chaones, and a more powerful state started to develop, with a king (Neoptolemus I), magistrates, coinage, a court, an assembly of tribal delegates, and a close alliance with king Philip of Macedonia. Supported by this powerful ruler, the unified Epirotes attacked and captured the Greek cities in the west. From now on, they had access to the sea. Urbanization started. The Molossian dynasty was sufficiently hellenized to claim descent from the the homeric hero Achilles.

King Alexander of Molossis, a contemporary of Alexander the Great, commanded an excellent army and was considered to be civilized enough to be invited to support the Greek colonies in southern Italy. He seriously weakened the native Italian tribes, but was murdered after a defeat. His ally, Rome, benefited: it overcame the Italian tribes and started to unify Italy. Sooner or later, the Greek cities in southern Italy would have to face this new power.

In 330, Alexander was succeeded by his relative Aeacides, who incurred the wrath of the Macedonian leader Cassander. In c.317 he organized a coup among the Molossians and put Neoptolemus II on the throne. After several difficult adventures, Aeacides' relatives found refuge at the court of another local king, Glaucias the Taulantian. He protected the Molossian royals and adopted Aeacides' baby son Pyrrhus.


The young king
Pyrrhus was born in 319/318 as the son of Aeacides and a Greek lady from Thessaly named Phthia, the daughter of a hero in the War of Greek liberation against the Macedonians (the "Lamian war"). The young boy grew up at the Taulantian court and was twelve when Glaucias made him king (306). It was obvious that Pyrrhus was to be some sort of puppet, and there was opposition among the Molossians. So when Pyrrhus visited his adoptive father to attend a wedding, his subjects revolted, plundered his property, and invited Neoptolemus II again (302). It seems likely that Cassander was behind the insurrection. Epirus
The young king
Macedonia
To Italy
Sicily
The end

Demetrius with bull's horns,
the symbol of the sea-god
Poseidon. Antikensammlung,
Berlin; ©**)
However, Pyrrhus was not without support. In 307, the Fourth Diadoch War had broken out. Among the Successors of Alexander the Great, there was a commander named Antigonus Monophthalmus who attempted to restore the unity of the empire. He was opposed by men like Cassander of Macedonia, Seleucus of Babylonia, and Ptolemy of Egypt, who were attempting to gain independence. Antigonus' son Demetrius had invaded Greece, and Glaucias had allied himself to the enemy of his own enemy, Cassander. The alliance had been cemented by a marriage: Glaucias had given Pyrrhus' sister Deidamia to Demetrius as his bride. In other words, Pyrrhus and Demetrius were brothers-in-law. And Demetrius could use the young man against Cassander.

Seleucus I Nicator
(Louvre, Paris)
For the time being, he needed Pyrrhus in what is now western Turkey, where the great decisive battle between on the one hand king Antigonus and Demetrius and on the other hand the members of the coalition was fought at Ipsus (301). Pyrrhus fought bravely, but ultimately, the five hundred war elephants of Seleucus won the battle. Antigonus was killed in action and his son had to flee. However, Demetrius still possessed a large navy and had garrisons in the cities of Greece, where Pyrrhus may briefly have served as one of the governors of his brother-in-law. But not for a long time. In the negotiations that started after the battle of Ipsus, Demetrius agreed to hand over to his opponent Ptolemy of Egypt his wife's brother as a hostage. In Antiquity, this was a very common diplomatic practice: hostages ensured that the opposing sides would keep their promises.

Ptolemy I Soter
(Ny Carlsberg Glyptoteket,
Kųbenhavn; ©!!!)
In 300 or 299 Pyrrhus, not yet twenty, arrived in Alexandria, the Greek-style capital of the ancient country of the Nile, and it appears that pharaoh Ptolemy really liked the valiant young man, who gave proof of his strength and courage during hunting parties and other exercises. Ptolemy's stepdaughter Antigone became Pyrrhus' bride. (She was the daughter of Berenice I, who had once been married to an otherwise unknown man named Philip and was later married to Ptolemy.) Pyrrhus' biographer Plutarch of Chaeronea remarks that the Molossian leader "had a particular art of gaining over the great ones to his own interest", and this appears to be true. On the other hand, the great ones knew how to use Pyrrhus. In 297, Ptolemy financed a new coup in Epirus -the fourth one during Pyrrhus' life- and sent the Molossian leader with an army of mercenaries back to Epirus.
Pyrrhus played his cards carefully. He announced that he would share power with Neoptolemus, who believed the promises of the man who was, after all, his relative. Pyrrhus became king of the Molossians and leader of the Epirote confederacy for the second time, and acted as Ptolemy's watchdog in Europe, guarding the Egyptian interests against Cassander of Macedonia.


From now on, Pyrrhus started to embark upon larger projects. In 295, he killed Neoptolemus during a banquet and was able to make his people believe that his colleague had been disloyal. He had now secured his rear, and went for the big prize: the Macedonian kingship. In 298, Cassander had died, leaving the throne to his son Philip IV, who died within two months (of natural causes). His two brothers now divided the kingdom: Antipater received the western and Alexander V the eastern half (the river Axios being the border). As was to be expected, they immediately started to quarrel. Alexander felt threatened, and invited Demetrius and Pyrrhus to come to his assistance.
Pyrrhus invaded Macedonia in 294 and restored the balance of power between the two brothers. As a quid pro quo, Pyrrhus was to receive a part of Molossis that had been conquered by Philip II of Macedonia, and the city of Ambracia (modern Arta). This was to become Pyrrhus' capital: a city with access to the sea that was neither Molossian, nor Thesprotian or Chaonian.

Pyrrhus may have had greater designs, but for the time being, he had to be content, because now Demetrius arrived. King Alexander went out to greet him and thank him (for nothing), and was killed by Demetrius during a banquet - a repeat of Pyrrhus' treatment of Neoptolemus. Almost immediately, the Macedonian army proclaimed Demetrius king (text). He went on to attack the second brother, Antipater, who fled and never returned. Demetrius was the new Macedonian king.


Agathocles (Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Wien)
Meanwhile, Pyrrhus' wife Antigone had died, and the king of Epirus remarried to three other women. His first bride was a Greek lady named Lanassa, and her dowry consisted of the islands of Leucas and Corcyra (modern Corfu). She was the daughter of Agathocles, the king of Syracuse on Sicily. Pyrrhus also married a daughter of king Audoleon of the Paeonians (north of Macedonia), and Bircenna, the daughter of the leader of the Illyrians, Bardyllis. Through marriage ties, Epirus was now at peace with all its neighbors - after all, the new king of Macedonia, Demetrius, was married to Pyrrhus' sister.

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Pyrrhus of Epirus (2)

Relief of a Greek warrior from
Tarente, first quarter of the third
century (Allard Pierson
Museum, Amsterdam) Pyrrhus (319/318-272): king of Epirus (306-302 and 297-272) and Macedonia (288-284 and 273-272), well-known for his war against the Romans.

Macedonia
While Pyrrhus was organizing his new capital and reorganizing his state, Demetrius expanded his power. He already controlled many Greek cities, had added Macedonia, and carried Thessaly and several states in Central Greece in 293. The only parts that he did not possess were Sparta in the south and Aetolia in the west. However, he had to cope with insurrections in Thessaly and Boeotia, and there were strong indications that Pyrrhus was involved. His sister Deidamia, Demetrius' wife, was by now dead. Worse, his wife Lanassa ran away and found refuge in the palace of Demetrius, to whom she married in 290. Epirus
The young king
Macedonia
To Italy
Sicily
The end

Demetrius with bull's horns,
the symbol of the sea-god
Poseidon. Antikensammlung,
Berlin; ©**)
The personal conflict between the two men escalated to an open war between Epirus and Macedonia when Demetrius wanted to conquer Aetolia and Pyrrhus announced to support those who were under attack. They were his southern neighbors, and if he saved them from Macedonian aggression, he ould subdue them himself. So when Demetrius invaded Aetolia, Pyrrhus did the same, but the two armies failed to make contact. Demetrius ravaged parts of Epirus, while Pyrrhus attacked the Macedonian vice-commander in Aetolia, Pantauchus. First, the Epirote king and the Macedonian officer fought a duel, and after Pyrrhus had been victorious, his army defeated its enemy. After this success, Pyrrhus invaded Macedonia proper, but was repelled.

In December 289, Demetrius and Pyrrhus renewed their alliance, but the Epirote was the moral victor. The defeat in Aetolia and the ensuing invasion had been heavy blows for Macedonian prestige. After all, since the days of king Philip II, its armies had almost never been defeated. From now on, Pyrrhus was often called "the eagle", a surname that expresses the admiration felt by many people, who were reminded of that other young warrior, Alexander the Great.

The situation in 289 (©**)
This was not the end of Pyrrhus' involvement in Macedonian affairs. Although the kingdom of Demetrius was smaller than that of king Lysimachus of Thrace, Ptolemy of Egypt or Seleucus of Asia, he was the strongest monarch of his age. His army was as large as that of Philip and Alexander, and his navy was stronger. Moreover, he could count on the Greeks. This power started to provoke resistance, and his competitors agreed to attack him. Ptolemy would send his navy into the Aegean Sea, and Lysimachus was to invade Macedonia. Seleucus, whose territories did not border on Demetrius', gave moral support.

Bust of Lysimachus,
(Archaeological museum of
Selçuk)
At this moment, the Macedonians revolted against their king (288). It is not exactly clear why, but it is tempting to suppose that they were shocked by Demetrius' oriental court and his forced conscriptions, which must have shocked them after the quiet last years of Cassander. Perhaps, Pyrrhus and Lysimachus were involved. The revolt must have shattered Demetrius, who knew that he would lose his kingdom if he stayed in Macedonia. Therefore, he installed his son Antigonus II Gonatas as governor of Greece, and decided to launch an all-out attack in the east, as if he were a new Alexander.
While Demetrius was away, Pyrrhus invaded Macedonia, where he was recognized as king. He ruled all the country between the Ionian Sea in the west and the Aegean in the east. A bit later, Lysimachus of Thrace arrived from the east and snatched away his part of Macedonia. The two kings accepted the river Axios as border.


Coin of Gonatas (©!!)
In 286, Pyrrhus, restless as ever, invaded Thessaly, which had until then remained loyal to Demetrius and Gonatas. There may have been some degree of coordination with the Athenians, who attacked Gonatas' garrison in Piraeus and liberated themselves from foreign rule. Antigonus was now reduced to central Greece and the Peloponnese, and was forced to conclude a peace treaty with Pyrrhus, in which he had to cede most of Thessaly (285). Pyrrhus was at the height of his power.
Later that year, Lysimachus, Pyrrhus, and Gonatas learned that Demetrius had been taken captive by Seleucus. The latter treated the invader fairly and saw to it that he was never short of anything, especially wine. Demetrius drank himself to death.


The situation in 283 (©**)
Now that Demetrius was removed, the former allies Pyrrhus and Lysimachus started to quarrel. The latter simply bought Pyrrhus' commanders, made diplomatic overtures to the Macedonians, and in the summer of 285, the king of Epirus had to return to his home land. Southern Macedonia and Thessaly were now part of Lysimachus' empire, which stretched from Thermopylae to the Danube and from the Ionian Sea to the river Halys in central Turkey.

Pyrrhus
(Museo nazionale della
civiltą romana, Roma; ©**)
As it turned out, it was an empire built on sand. Seleucus needed only one battle, at Curupedium in 281, to overthrow Lysimachus - only to be killed himself when he arrived in Europe, by an usurper named Ptolemy Keraunos. This offered new chances to Pyrrhus, who had both the moral credit and the opportunity to become king of his former kingdom. However, he lacked the temperament to settle and rule. The warrior Pyrrhus had other plans.

Italy
Since time immemorial, there had been Greeks living on the coasts of southern Italy and Sicily. Once, they had been superior to the native Italian tribes, but this supremacy was long gone. In the interior, people (like that Sicilian Ducetius) had copied Greek techniques of warfare and learned how to govern large territorial states.
Sometimes, when the enemies of the Greeks were becoming too powerful, the settlers invited warriors from the homeland. The Corinthian Timoleon had liberated Syracuse from the Carthaginian threat between 344 and 337; at the same time, king Archidamus III of Sparta had campaigned in the "heel" of Italy; and in 334, Pyrrhus' relative Alexander of Molossis had supported the divided Greek colonies against the federation of mountain tribes that is known as the Samnites. We have already seen above that this Alexander had weakened the native tribes, and that his ally Rome had benefited. It had been able to overcome the resistance of the Samnites and had started to unify Italy.


Coin of the Roman she-wolf,
minted between 279 and 276
(Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Wien)
In 281, the inhabitants of Tarentum invited Pyrrhus to help them against the Romans. It was to be an interesting conflict. Pyrrhus wanted to avenge his relative Alexander, who had died in Italy, and wanted to equal Alexander the Great by building up an empire in the western Mediterranean, where wealthy Sicily was a tempting target. He could pose as the defender of Greek civilization, which would gain him more respect in Greece, which still regarded the Macedonians and Epirotes as little better than barbarians.
But the most interesting aspect was ideological: it would be a second Trojan War. Rome claimed to have been founded by refugees from Troy, led by Aeneas; and Pyrrhus claimed to be a descendant of the archenemy of the Trojans. A new Achilles would fight against a new Troy. It is probably no coincidence that when the Romans started to strike coins, one of their first series showed a very Italian symbol: the she-wolf, as if the Romans did not want to play the "Trojan" card any more.


The cause of the war was the Roman expansion. In the battle of Sentinum (295), they had defeated the Samnites and Etruscans, and they had started to unify Italy. The Romans were not really interested in the deep south yet, but had to think of Italy as a whole now. The Lucanians, in the "instep" of Italy, were restless and threatened Greek cities in the "toe", which appealed for help as early as 285. The Romans, probably not realizing what they were up to, were willing to help Thurii, Rhegium, and Locrii. Immediately, they found themselves under attack by the Greeks from Tarentum (282). When the Senate sent envoys to complain about this incident, they were maltreated, and war was declared. Immediately, the Tarentines called in Pyrrhus, who must have seen this war as a nice exercise before he could conquer Sicily.
In 280, "the eagle" landed in Tarentum, with twenty war elephants, 3,000 cavalry, 2,000 archers, 500 slingers, and 20,000 soldiers. He could count on the city that had invited him, but also on Metapontum and Heraclea, and immediately ordered the Tarentines to hand over their citadel to him and forced them to do military exercises.

Meanwhile, the Romans had sent their consul Publius Valerius Laevinus to the south. His army had about as large as that of Pyrrhus, but the Romans were not yet used to the type of war that had been developed by Philip of Macedonia and Alexander the Great. At Heraclea, the armies engaged. The legionaries attacked the hoplites in the Epirote phalanx, which they found impenetrable. While the two infantry arrays were locked, Pyrrhus' horsemen and elephants attacked on the wings. The Romans, who had no real cavalry, were unable to cope with this, and found their wings turned.

They lost 7,000 men but were able to return to the north with discipline still intact. Pyrrhus lost 4,000 soldiers, which he could not replace. It had been an expensive victory, but the results were sensational: several inland tribes (the Lucanians, Bruttians, and Messapians) joined him, and the Greek cities of Croton and Locri did the same. The Romans had almost completely lost control of the south.

Now, Pyrrhus moved quickly to the north, hoping that Rome's allies would go over to him. However, they refused to side with him and the Roman alliance survived. Worse, the Roman consul followed him everywhere, although his army had been defeated, and the other consul arrived from the north. Understanding that he would soon be outnumbered, Pyrrhus returned. Winter quarters were found in Campania. The king of Epirus must have understood that the war was to become difficult.

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Pyrrhus of Epirus (3)

Relief of a Greek warrior from
Tarente, first quarter of the third
century (Allard Pierson
Museum, Amsterdam) Pyrrhus (319/318-272): king of Epirus (306-302 and 297-272) and Macedonia (288-284 and 273-272), well-known for his war against the Romans.

Sicily
During the winter, Pyrrhus opened negotiations with the Romans, who wanted to exchange POWs. He sent his courtier Cineas to talk to the Senate. This man, a pupil of the Athenian orator Demosthenes, offered very generous terms: the Romans had to make peace with Tarentum and had to recognize the independence of the Italian tribes and several Greek towns. As was usual in the Greek world, Cineas offered presents to the senators, who thought that they were being bribed and refused to talk any longer, especially when the old senator Appius Claudius Caecus (the man who had built the Aqua Appia and the Via Appia) rebuked them for doing business with an enemy who was still on Italian soil. The war was to continue. Epirus
The young king
Macedonia
To Italy
Sicily
The end

Coin of the Roman she-wolf,
minted between 279 and 276
(Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Wien)
In the spring of 279, Pyrrhus attacked the Roman colonies at Luceria and Venusia, which were situated in eastern Italy. Together with other cities, they belonged to a ring of Roman military settlements that surrounded the Samnites. Pyrrhus wanted to break this ring and win new allies: he was preparing for a long war. Rome did the same. It started to mint silver coins, which it needed to deal with potential Greek allies in the south. At the same time, Rome sent two consular armies, led by Publius Sulpicius Saverrio and Publius Decius Mus, to the east. Not far from Asculum, between Luceria and Venusia, they met Pyrrhus and fought an indecisive battle. On the next day, the Romans were forced back, but Pyrrhus was unable to capture their camp. The Romans had lost 6,000 men and consul Publius Decius Mus; the Greeks 3,500. At dawn, Pyrrhus was heard saying that he could not afford another such triumph.

Pyrrhus
(Museo nazionale della
civiltą romana, Roma; ©**)
Even worse, his enemy did not come to terms. In the Greek world, two victories were usually enough to finish a war. There were complaints in his own army, and Pyrrhus' physician offered the Romans to kill the king. The consuls of 278, Gaius Fabricius Luscinus and Quintus Aemilius Papus, informed Pyrrhus about the man's intentions, adding the famous joke that the king "seemed to be incapable of judging both his friends and enemies". Pyrrhus could appreciate the Roman chivalry, agreed to an exchange of POWs, and when the Romans said they would leave Tarentum alone for some time, Pyrrhus announced something like an armistice.
The Romans may have been surprised that their enemy postponed the war for a while, but they did not know that Pyrrhus had received a call for help from Syracuse on Sicily, which was threatened by the Carthaginians, and a call for help from Macedonia and Greece, which were attacked by Celtic tribes. The Macedonian king Ptolemy Keraunos, assassin of Seleucus and successor of Lysimachus, had been defeated by the Celts, who were now advancing to Delphi. Pyrrhus preferred the Sicilian battleground. This gave Rome an opportunity to force the Samnites into submission again, and subdue the Lucanians and Bruttians. It is recorded that consul Gaius Fabricius also captured the Greek city of Heraclea, but several historians have doubted this.


(©**)
Meanwhile, Pyrrhus had placed a garrison in Tarentum. The inhabitants were angry and asked him either to do what he had been hired for and continue the Roman war, or leave the city as he had found it. The king, however, simply ignored their order and went to Sicily (text), where he recruited and trained a new army from Syracuse and Acragas. It may have consisted of 2,500 cavalry and 30,000 infantry, and was supported by a fleet of 200 galleys. He immediately advanced to the far west, where he captured the Carthaginian stronghold on Mount Eryx by storm. Pyrrhus himself was first over the wall.

Coin of Pyrrhus, minted in
Syracuse: Heracles and
Athena (©!!)
The Carthaginians were now forced to negotiate, and because this took some time, Pyrrhus dealt with another enemy, the Mamertines. These were former mercenaries who had once supported king Agathocles of Syracuse, but had -when their king had died- occupied the city of Messina and had started to live as pirates. Pyrrhus defeated them, but was not interested in besieging their city.
By the end of 277, the Carthaginians had been reduced to one stronghold on the island: Lilybaeum, modern Marsala. Pyrrhus demanded that they would give up this city too, and when the Carthaginians refused this, he decided to cross the sea and attack his enemies at home. It was at this moment that the Syracusans decided not to continue the war. They had been liberated from direct Carthaginian threats, so they saw no point in fighting any longer, and refused the additional effort which the expedition to Carthage required. There was something to be said for this, because not much later, a peace treaty was concluded. On the other hand, one did not have to be a prophet to see that the Carthaginians would one day recover their positions, and that by then, only Rome could defend the Greeks on Sicily. "What a beautiful field we leave for the Romans and Carthaginians to fight in," Pyrrhus said when he left Syracuse.


On his way back, the Syracusan fleet, which ferried him to Italy, was defeated by the Carthaginians in what was to be the last battle of the war (275). The Syracusans now regretted what they had done, but now it was too late. The peace treaty, which was concluded not much later, was to last for only a decade. The inevitable conflict between Rome and Carthage, known as the First Punic War, started in 264.

The end
Pyrrhus arrived in southern Italy. His visions of empire had already been shattered, and the renewed war against Rome, with only one third of his initial forces left, was a mere rearguard action. Yet, he did not give up. Knowing that two Roman consuls were trying to unite their armies against him, he took a position between them, trying to defeat them separately. However, his night attack on consul Manius Curius Dentatus near Malventum failed, and during the day, he was for the first and last time defeated by the Romans. Because "malventum" sounded like the Latin word for "bad opportunity", they changed the name of the city in Beneventum, "good opportunity". Today, it is called Benevento.
Pyrrhus no longer had a choice: he had to go back to Tarentum, where he was regarded as an oppressor. Leaving a token force behind, he sailed back to Epirus in the winter of 275/274. He promised the Greeks that he would come back, but they understood that they were left alone. One by one, the cities surrendered to Rome, which turned out to be a surprisingly mild ruler. The world now knew that Rome was a superpower in the making, and the Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus was ready to conclude a treaty of friendship.


Coin of Gonatas (©!!)
To Pyrrhus, Epirus offered new opportunities. By now, the Celts had overrun Greece but had been defeated by Antigonus II Gonatas in 277. He had become king of Thrace and Macedonia, but had not yet consolidated his hold on western Macedonia, where Pyrrhus' son Ptolemy tried to expand the Epirote kingdom. Pyrrhus joined this war and expelled Gonatas from Macedonia (273). In the winter, the king of Epirus and Macedonia went to the south, where Gonatas still controlled several Greek cities. The campaign was a mixed success: a new ruler was installed in Sparta, and Pyrrhus was able to capture Argos. However, during the street fight that followed after he had entered the city, he was killed by a woman who threw a tile from a house-top. "The eagle" was buried in his capital Ambracia.

This was the end of Pyrrhus, who was, when we take everything into account, an adventurer and a conqueror, only capable of fighting. He was a brilliant tactician, but the days of Alexander the Great were gone; the world was being reconstructed by new rulers, who were more patient and could wait. If Pyrrhus had had the same quality, he could have become king of Macedonia in 281 and would have defeated the Celts. He would have united Epirus, Macedonia and Greece in one, strong kingdom. Instead, "the eagle" wasted his talents in ambitious campaigns in the far west, which he never was able to bring to their logical conclusions, and in the end, he lost everything.

The Life of Pyrrhus by Plutarch of Chaeronea can be found here. His Italian campaigns were also described by the Roman historian Livy, but this part of his History of Rome is now lost. A summary (Periochae), however, survives and can be read here. The subject has also been treated by Appian of Alexandria in his History of the Samnite War (text).

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Citim:

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Po citoj ato që tha football


Eshte me mire qe forumistat te mesojne historine e vertete, ate te historianeve dhe shkencetareve te panjeanshem te botes, Europes dhe Ballkanit se sa te lexojne ato pallavrat e tua pambarim si ato grate e liga.

Dhe per mua pak rendesi ka, kush e ka thene kete shprehje, rendesi ka qe eshte shume kuptimplote dhe e thelle, sepse eshte nje thennje e dale nga nje popull me kulture dhe civilizim te lashte, qe jetoi per shekuj ne nje nga pikat me dominuese te Europes, qe shperndau dritat ne gjithe boten, bashke me civilizimin aziatik, qe eshte turp te mohosh edhe kete civilizim ne bote.

Do te ishte me mire per ty te lexoje me shume, se sa te shkruaje te gjitha fantazirat, qe ke ne koken tende dhe infekton edhe te tjeret me urrejtjen tende maniake antigreke.

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Hahahahahahaha....po a me the vete per pallavrat?
Pse une e kam fajin?
Mu me leni ne qetesine time, nuk po te boj asgjo.
Ti vete vjen e krruhesh.
Tema ime nuk eshte aspak fantazi, por eshte realitet.
Po mire, po ti me copy pastat a nuk del si nje e pa afte per cdo gje?
Te fala anej...
Rrespekte Footballo.

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MARCH OF THE TITANS -

A HISTORY OF THE WHITE RACE

Chapter 10 : The Hellenes - Classical Greece

The Greek peninsula, and its northern borders, the Balkans, had previously been settled by the original European peoples during the Neolithic Age. These peoples had created the Old European civilizations, which were some of the most advanced in Europe at the time.

From approximately 5000 BC onwards, the Indo-European peoples had started flooding westwards, at first conquering but then integrating with these original Old European peoples.

This massive influx of peoples brought about the fall of these Old European civilizations - and in their place arose the two great civilizations which have come to epitomize the classical world: Greece and Rome.

MYCENAE AND DORIANS - FOUNDERS OF ATHENS AND SPARTA

The first of these new great peoples was the Mycenaean civilizations, started around the year 1900 BC. The Mycenaeans were however dispersed by yet another Indo-European invasion, that of the Dorians. The Mycenaeans settled in large numbers on islands off the present day Turkish coast, establishing what became known as Ionia and the Ionian civilization. The Dorians established their capital city at Sparta, a city which, along with Athens, was to become synonymous with the history of Classical Greece.


Above: The citadel of Mycenae, reconstructed to what it looked like at its height. The genesis of Classical Greek culture was born and nurtured here, one of the earliest Indo-European invasions of the Grecian lands.


By approximately 1000 BC, the waves of invading Indo-Europeans had started to come to an end, and a semblance of stability returned to central and western Europe. Together with the original European peoples, the new Nordic settlers built upon the Old European civilizations, with the first great "city states" being built on the Greek peninsula.

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