Epirus Ἄπειρος Ápeiros | |||||||||||||
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| 330–167 BC | |||||||||||||
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| Capital | |||||||||||||
| Common languages | Epirote Greek | ||||||||||||
| Religion | Ancient Greek religion | ||||||||||||
| Government |
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| King | |||||||||||||
• 330–313 BC | Aeacides | ||||||||||||
• 307–302 BC | Pyrrhus of Epirus | ||||||||||||
• 302–297 BC | 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 theRoman Republic in theThird Macedonian War | 167 BC | ||||||||||||
| Currency | Epirotedrachma | ||||||||||||
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Epirus (/ɪˈpaɪrəs/;Epirote Greek:Ἄπειρος,Ápeiros;Attic Greek:Ἤπειρος,Ḗpeiros) was anancient Greek kingdom, and later republic, located in the geographical region ofEpirus, in parts of north-western Greece and southern Albania. Home to theancient Epirotes, the state was bordered by theAetolian League to the south,Ancient Thessaly andAncient Macedonia to the east, andIllyrian tribes to the north. The Epirote kingPyrrhus is known to have made Epirus a powerful state in the wider Hellenistic world (during 297–272 BC) that was comparable to the likes of Macedon andAncient Rome. Pyrrhus' armies also attempted an assault against the state of Ancient Rome during their unsuccessful campaign in what is now modern-dayItaly.
The Greek toponymEpirus (Greek:Ήπειρος), meaning "mainland" or "continent", first appears in the work ofHecataeus of Miletus in the 6th century BC.[1] It is one of the few Greek names from the view of an external observer with a maritime-geographical perspective.[1] Although a foreign name,Epirus later came to be adopted by the inhabitants of the area.[2]
A number of Mycenaean remains have been found in Epirus[3][4] at the most important ancient religious sites in the region, including at theNecromanteion of Acheron (on theAcheron river) and at the Oracle ofZeus atDodona.[5][6] It is also known that Epirus had strong contact with other Ancient Greek regions, including those ofMacedonia,Thessaly,Aetolia andAcarnania.[7]
By the early 1st millennium BC three principal clusters of Greek-speaking tribes emerged in Epirus. These were theChaonians of northwestern Epirus, theMolossians in the center, and theThesprotians in the south.[8][9][10] The region inhabited by each of theseethne had its own name (Chaonia,Molossia,Thesprotia), thus there was no single name for the entire region originally.
TheMolossianAeacidae dynasty managed to create the first centralized state in Epirus from about 370 BC onwards, expanding their power at the expense of rival tribes. The Aeacids allied themselves with the increasingly powerful kingdom ofMacedon, in part against the common threat ofIllyrian raids,[11] and in 359 BC the Molossian princessOlympias, niece ofArybbas of Epirus, married KingPhilip II of Macedon (r. 359–336 BC). She was to become the mother ofAlexander the Great andCleopatra of Macedon. On the death of Arybbas,Alexander the Molossian, uncle ofAlexander the Great of Macedon, succeeded to the throne with the titleKing of Epirus.[12]
In 334 BC, the timeAlexander the Great crossed into Asia, Alexander the Molossian led an expedition in southern Italy in support of the Greek cities ofMagna Graecia against the nearbyItalian tribes and the emergingRoman Republic.[13] After some successes on the battlefield, he was defeated by a coalition ofItalic tribes at theBattle of Pandosia in 330 BC.[13]
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 legendEpirotes.[14] After Alexander's I death,Aeacides of Epirus, who succeeded him, espoused the cause of Olympias againstCassander, but was dethroned in 313 BC.
Aeacides's sonPyrrhus came to the throne in 295 BC. Pyrrhus, being a skillful general, was encouraged to aid the Greeks ofTarentum and decided to initiate a major offensive in theItalian peninsula andSicily. Due to its superior martial abilities, the Epirote army defeated the Romans in theBattle of Heraclea (280 BC). Subsequently, Pyrrhus's forces nearly reached the outskirts of Rome, but had to retreat to avoid an unequal conflict with a more numerous Roman army. The following year, Pyrrhus invadedApulia (279 BC) and the two armies met in theBattle of Asculum where the Epirotes won the eponymousPyrrhic victory, at a high cost.[15]
In 277 BC, Pyrrhus captured theCarthaginian fortress inEryx, 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.[16]
Pyrrhus's Italian campaign came to an end following the inconclusiveBattle 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.[17]
In 233 BC, the last surviving member of the Aeacid royal house,Deidamia, was murdered. Her death brought the Epirote royal family to an abrupt extinction and a federal republic was set up, though with diminished territory, since westernAcarnania had asserted its independence, and the Aetolians seized Ambracia,Amphilochia, and the remaining land north of theAmbracian Gulf. The new Epirote capital was therefore established atPhoenice, the political center of the Chaonians. The reasons for the swift fall of the Aeacid dynasty were probably complex. Aetolian pressure must have played a part, and the alliance with Macedonia may have been unpopular; in addition, there were perhaps social tensions.[18] However, Epirus remained a substantial power, unified under the auspices of the Epirote League as a federal state with its own parliament (orsynedrion).[18]
In the following years, Epirus faced the growing threat of the expansionistRoman Republic, which fought a series of wars with Macedonia. The League remained neutral in the first twoMacedonian Wars but split in theThird Macedonian War (171–168 BC), with the Molossians siding with the Macedonians and theChaonians andThesprotians siding with Rome. The outcome was disastrous for Epirus; Molossia fell to Rome in 167 BC and 150,000 of its inhabitants were enslaved.[5]
In antiquity, Epirus was settled by the same nomadic Hellenic tribes that went on to settle the rest of Greece.[19] Unlike most other Greeks of the time, who lived in or aroundcity-states such asAthens orSparta, theEpirotes lived in small villages and their way of life was foreign to that ofpolis of southern Greeks. Their region lay on the edge of the Greek world and was far from peaceful; for many centuries, it remained afrontier 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 atDodona – regarded as second only to the more famous oracle atDelphi.[20]Plutarch writes a story that was related to him, according to which, the Molossian kingTharrhypas was the first in his dynasty to become renowned, as he organized his cities on a system of Greek customs, rules and regulations. He was probably responsible for the earliest known decrees of the Molossian state in 370–368 BC, during the reign of his grandson Neoptolemus I; though, the institutions originated much earlier, and the dialect in which they are written is not, as was believed, theDoric of the Corinthian colonies, but aNorthwest Greek dialect with several distinctive features, so as to rule out the case of it having been borrowed.[21][22]
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At least since classical antiquity, the Epirotes were speakers of an epichoricNorthwest Greek dialect,Epirote Greek, different from the Dorian of the Greek colonies on the Ionian islands, and bearers of mostly Greek names, as evidenced byepigraphy and literary evidence.[23][24]
Nicholas Hammond argues that the principal social structure of the Epirotes was the tribe and that they spoke a West-Greek dialect.[25] Tom Winnifrith (1983) argues that the Epirotes became culturally more closely connected to the rest of the Greek world during the centuries that preceded the Roman conquest of the region (3rd-2nd century BC), while hellenisation process continued even after the conquest. As such their rulers claimed Greek descent.[26] Old genealogical links through the stories about the return voyages of the Greek heroes from Troy (nostoi) and other Greek myths strongly connected Epirus with the rest of Greece and these stories prevented any serious debate about the Greekness of the Epirotes, including the Molossians.[27] The language they spoke was regarded as a primitive Northwestern Greek dialect, but there was no question that it was Greek.[27] The way of life in Epirus was more archaic than that in the Corinthian and Corcyrean colonies on the coast, but there was never a discussion about their Greekness.[27]
Homer mentions the oracle of Dodona, which was located in the territory of Classical Epirus, with Panhellenic acclaim. The Athenian historianThucydides described the inhabitants as "barbarians" in hisHistory of the Peloponnesian War; andStrabo in hisGeography, seems to imply that Epirus was not originally a proper part of the Greek world. Other historians, such asDionysius of Halicarnassus,Pausanias, andEutropius considered the Epirotes proper Greeks, whileAristotle considered Epirus as the cradle of the Greeks.[28]Simon Hornblower interprets the vague, and sometimes even antithetical, comments of Thucydides on the Epirotes as implying that they were neither completely "barbarian" nor completely Greek, but akin to the latter. Notably, Thucydides had similar views about the neighboring Aetolians and Acarnanians, even though the evidence leaves no doubt that they were Greek. The term "barbarian" may have denoted not only clearly non-Greek populations, but also Greek populations on the fringe of the Greek world with peculiar dialects.[29] The ancient historians and geographers did not follow the scientific methods of modern linguists, who record in detail the speech of the groups they study; their information was based, more rarely on personal experiences, and mostly on the impressions of each of their informants, who as a rule, had neither philological training nor particularly linguistic interests.[22] A far more reliable source on the views of the Greeks is the list of sacred envoys (Ancient Greek:θεαρόδοκοι) inEpidaurus, which includes the Epirotes.[30] The list which was compiled in 360 BC includes the sacred envoys (members of the ruling family of each tribe or subtribe) of theMolossians,Kassopeans,Chaonians andThesprotians.[31] Only communities that considered themselves Greek and were considered so by others were allowed to participate at these great Panhellenic festivals.[9]
In terms of religion they worshiped the same gods as the rest of the Greeks. No traces of non-Greek deities were found until theHellenistic age (with the introduction of oriental deities in the Greek world). Their supreme deity wasZeus and the Oracle ofDodona found in the land of the Molossians attracted pilgrims from all over the Greek world. As with the rest of the Epirotes they were included in thethearodokoi catalogues where only Greeks were allowed in order to participate inPanhellenic Games and festivals.[32] Aristotle considered the region around Dodona to have been part ofHellas and the region where theHellenes originated.[33]Plutarch mentions an interesting cultural element of the Epirotes regarding the Greek heroAchilles. In his biography of KingPyrrhus, he states that Achilles "had a divine status in Epirus and in the local dialect he was called Aspetos" (meaning "unspeakable" or "unspeakably great" inHomeric Greek).[34][35]
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
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