to the Macedonian pronunciation), named after his wife Antigone, by the
side of the passes leading from Illyricum. You will remember my saying,
that Illyricum, from the Aöus, till far up into the mountains, is a
hilly country. The στενὰ τῆς Ἀντιγονείας (_claustra Epiri_) lead from
thence into the mountains of Epirus. The spot is of great importance
in the wars of Pyrrhus and his son Alexander against Macedonia; and in
universal history, these _claustra_ are celebrated in the expedition of
the Romans against Philip of Macedonia. After the Romans had endeavoured
in vain, with the Aetolians their allies, to advance into Macedonia
through Illyricum and across the Candauian mountains, in order to attack
the Macedonians, they marched through Epirus. Philip opposed them for a
long time; but it has been proved that all passes are invincible to those
only who make a direct attack upon them; they present no difficulty to
any one who does not mind spending some time in marching round them. This
the Romans did. The Macedonian army then retreated, being compelled to
abandon Epirus. Argyrocastro at present occupies nearly the same site.
BERENICE also was built by Pyrrhus, and he named it after his great
patroness, Berenice, the wife of Ptolemy Soter, and the mother of his own
wife Antigone.
I cannot refrain here from making a short grammatical observation.
We generally speak of Molossians, and the Roman authors, too, said
_Molossi_, but the Greeks said Μολοττοί, which is the genuine ancient
pronunciation and not an Atticism. As people in later times imagined that
it was only an Attic form, they changed the name into _Molossi_. From
Lucian’s _Judicium Vocalium_, however, we see, that ττ was essentially
Thessalian, and the Thessalians were only Hellenised Epirots. Aristotle,
who never Atticizes, always writes ὁ τῶν Μολοττῶν βασιλεύς.
I have as yet mentioned to you only three tribes, and I might add many
more, but will notice only the most important. In the north we have the
ATINTANIANS on the slope of the Epirot mountains towards Illyricum. They
were, properly speaking, not so completely subdued by the Illyrians as
the Hyllians and Pelagonians who lived farther north, but they were
subject only ἐς φόρου ἀπαγωγήν. The Atintanians were the first people
that yielded obedience to the Romans on their crossing the Adriatic.
Next follow the PELAGONIANS, who likewise dwelt in those parts, and
maintained themselves only with difficulty. Beyond the lofty Epirot
mountains, north-west of Pindus, we meet with the ORESTIANS, a true
Epirot people; in the expedition against Ambracia, they were united with
the other Epirot tribes, the Atintanians, Thesprotians, Molottians, and
others. The name Ἄργος Ὀρεστικὸν shews their Pelasgian origin. They were
subdued by the Macedonians, and became part of Μακεδονία ἐπίκτητος. The
Romans again separated them from it, and in order not to stand isolated,
they appear to have joined the Thessalians, for as among the Thessalian
strategi one is mentioned who was a native of Argos, it seems to me that
this must be referred to the Orestian Argos.
Coming down from the country of the Orestians and ascending the heights
of Tmarus, between the beautiful lake of Janina and mount Tmarus
(sometimes called Tomarus, the same mountain, of which Callimachus speaks
so beautifully), and then descending the river Arachthus, which flows
into the Ambracian gulf, we pass through the country of the PARAUAEANS
and STYMPHAEA (_Tymphaea_). All these small mountain tribes were included
in Μακεδονία ἐπίκτητος during the period from the time of Philip to that
of Pyrrhus. Still further down in the plain, we have the AMPHILOCHIANS
in the very μυχὸς of the Ambracian gulf; they were an ἔθνος βαρβαρικόν,
that is, of Pelasgian origin, but some μιγάδες Ἕλληνες lived among them,
whence they were outwardly Hellenised, as their coins shew. Their town
of ARGOS was a considerable city, and hostile to the Ambracians who had
attempted to colonise it. It is connected with Argos in Peloponnesus in
the legends about Amphilochus, but we must not infer from this, that it
was a colony from Argos, or a Greek city at all. The AGRAEANS on the
Achelous, in the time of Alexander, son of Pyrrhus, were probably, like
the Amphilochians, connected by sympolity with the Aetolians, who were
just then at the height of their power.
AMBRACIA or AMPRACIA. The latter is the diplomatic orthography in
Thucydides, and on all coins and inscriptions, for here we again meet
with inscriptions, it being a Doric city; in Aetolia and the interior of
Epirus none are found at all. Polybius and all the Latins write Ambracia,
which is again a proof, showing the agreement between the pronunciation
there and the modern Greek, in which the π after μ is pronounced softly;
hence in inscriptions μ is used instead of ν, if it is intended that
the following π should be softened. The accusative of πόλις, e.g., was
pronounced βόλιν, whence it was written εἰς τὴμ πόλιν. Ambracia was the
largest city in those parts, and had been founded by the Corinthians in
the time of Periander, the Cypselid. It became extremely great even at
an early period, but in the Peloponnesian war it suffered a defeat near
Olpae, from which it did not recover for a long time. Afterwards it lost
its historical importance, as its inhabitants allied themselves with
barbarians: it renounced the general Greek idea of reducing barbarians
to dependence, because it was content to live in that fertile country
within its own boundaries. Philip subdued it by intrigues; after his
death it revolted, but as it was Alexander’s interest quickly to pacify
the restless Greeks, it received tolerable terms, though it continued
to have a Macedonian garrison for forty years longer. During the Lamian
war it again revolted, but again without success. The son of Cassander,
seeking aid against his brother, ceded Ambracia as a part of Μακεδονία
ἐπίκτητος to Pyrrhus, who now transferred his residence to it and adorned
it. The ruins which still exist at Rogus, belong, no doubt, for the most
part, to this later period. After the dissolution of the Epirot kingdom,
Ambracia became Aetolian, and remained so until, after the war against
Antiochus, the Romans conquered the Aetolians. It then sustained one of
the most remarkable sieges, and by their manful defence, its inhabitants
gained the advantage of being able to conclude a peace before they were
conquered by force; the city was not ravaged, but many works of art,
with which Pyrrhus had embellished it, were carried off to Italy. The
statement in Ovid’s Ibis, that the remains of Pyrrhus were dragged from
a tomb at Ambracia and scattered about, renders it probable that this
was done by the Romans out of revenge—a terribly unworthy revenge upon
a great hero.[95] It is possible, however, that this may have been done
during the disgraceful madness of the nation in its rebellions against
the successors of Pyrrhus. Afterwards the name of Ambracia disappears;
its acropolis has now for a considerable time been called Rogus.
BUTHROTON or BUTHROTOS, a Greek colony, was regarded as a Trojan town,
founded by Helenus: it was to the Romans what Calais is to us, for to
it they sailed across the sea from Tarentum, Hydruntum, Brundusium, and
other ports. It was the place of residence of Atticus, a man in whom much
may be censured, though he was of an extremely amiable character; he
lived at an unhappy time, according to the rules of a philosophy which he
considered to be the most suitable. He had there his large estate and his
Alpine farm.
The district CASSIOPEA is of little importance.
We are now in the neighbourhood of one of the most illustrious Greek
islands, I mean
CORCYRA.
The difference between the more ancient form, Cercyra and the later
Corcyra, is purely dialectical; the Attics always have Cercyra, while
later writers, as Polybius, and the Romans always say Corcyra. The
history of this island goes back to that which is dearest to a scholar,
for what could be dearer to him than the Odyssey? In the account of
the reception of Odysseus, among the Phaeacians, we see how distant
this island was to the Greeks in Ionia, and how they knew it only by
report. It was then certainly not yet colonised by Greeks, and the
ancient inhabitants were Liburnians. In the second edition of the first
volume of my Roman History, I have shown that the Liburnians were not an
Illyrian people, but belonged to the ancient Pelasgian race. _Scheria_
was an ancient and genuine name of the island. We will not inquire into
the origin of the name Corcyra, because such inquiries lead to nothing.
Other names are _Drepane_ and _Macris_; all these ancient names must
be known in order to understand the poets; and they are also useful in
writing poetry in the ancient languages, for it would be unfortunate, if
that custom should become entirely extinct; even if among hundreds of
attempts that are made, only a few have any poetical value, still it is
an excellent exercise for those who wish to cultivate their minds; it
leads to a great familiarity with the ancient writers, and a critical
understanding of the poets.
The first Greeks who settled in the island, were Eretrians, and this
event belongs to the period when Chalcis and Eretria were rivals at sea.
As Chalcis directed its attention to the coast of Thrace and Sicily, so
Eretria, though it was much weaker, partly looked to the same countries
and partly to the Ionian and Adriatic seas, and hence they may have been
led to settle in Corcyra. They were established there for a considerable
time without destroying the ancient inhabitants, until the Corinthians
sent a colony thither, either during the latter period of the Bacchiads,
or in the first years of the reign of Cypselus. This colony grew
incredibly prosperous; the ancient inhabitants were made perioeci, and
the Eretrians, as troublesome neighbours, seem to have been expelled,
although the Corinthian colony was, no doubt, only small.
The greatness to which Corcyra now rose, is best attested by the colonies
which it founded on the Adriatic, such as Epidamnus and Apollonia, the
latter of which it established in conjunction with Corinth. How these
colonies led to disputes between the haughty Corcyra and its mother-city,
and how Corcyra was affected by them, is described in Thucydides, and it
is unnecessary for me to repeat it, my intention being to relate only
that which has to be gleaned from various authors. In the same Thucydides
you may read of the convulsions and internal horrors to which that war
led, and which finally ruined the island itself. After the Peloponnesian
war, the Corcyraeans are not mentioned again until Olymp. 101, in the
time of Timotheus, when the Athenians recovered their supremacy, though
it was of a different kind from the earlier one; the fleets of Athens
then again appeared in several seas, and Corcyra joined her. The island
now showed incredible weakness, but how it became so reduced, is a
question about which history leaves us in the dark. Afterwards, owing to
its fortunate position, it remained unassailed for a long time until
the period of Demetrius Poliorcetes. Cassander made an attempt to take
the island, but failed. Cleonymus, the Spartan prince and adventurer,
who went to Italy and entered the service of the Tarentines, conquered
it, and established himself there for a time; but he was expelled by
Agathocles, from whom it passed into the hands of Pyrrhus, and afterwards
into those of Demetrius; but after his fall, it appears to have again
been under the supremacy of Pyrrhus. Afterwards it was independent
indeed, but in such a state of weakness as to be unable to repel the
Illyrians, who, under their queen Teuta, made a descent upon the island.
The Corcyraeans, therefore, placed themselves under the protection of
Rome, and were thus delivered from the Illyrians. They now formed a
_libera civitas_, probably also _immunis_, and down to the latest times
it was altogether impossible for them to rid themselves of the dominion
of the Romans. In the middle ages they became subject to the Normans in
Sicily under Robert Guiscard; they were next conquered by the Byzantine
emperor, Manuel Comnenus, and then by the Venetians, under whose dominion
they remained until the most recent times. The modern Greek name is Αἱ
Κορφοί (pronounce _hai Corfi_), that is, the summits (αἱ κορυφαί), and
refers either to the peaks of mountains or to the acra. The name Corcyra
is unknown to the modern Greeks, and was so even in the middle ages to
such an extent, that in a Greek Menologium (in the _Acta Sanctorum_) we
find the legend of a Greek princess Corcyra, the daughter of a king, who
is said to have reigned in Corfu in the time of the emperor Claudius, or
even Tiberius; and she is reported to have died the death of a martyr for
the Christian religion. It would seem that here we still catch a glimpse
of the popular tradition about Nausicaa.
The island is traversed in its whole length by a mountain, which runs
parallel with the Chaonian mountain, and is also of the same structure.
It is evident that this mountain is a continuation of those of Epirus,
and that the sea between Corcyra and Epirus has been formed by some
gigantic revolution of the earth in those parts. The mountain is of
considerable height, but not so high as to be wild, nature has rather
destined the island to be a country for the cultivation of trees and
olives, but it is not ἀρόσιμος, and does not produce as much grain as is
required by its inhabitants. The oil is excellent, and the wine, which is
good, was valued also in antiquity.
The town of Corfu does not stand on the site of the ancient Corcyra, but
several miles from it; at the time of the Peloponnesian war, the ancient
town, as we learn from Thucydides, was very large and beautiful.
I might easily say a great deal more about Corcyra, as it is now so
frequently visited; but I must proceed.
MACEDONIA.
The first questions that have to be answered are:—What nation were the
Macedonians? To what race did they belong? How far can they be regarded
as Greeks, and how far not? I still remember the time of the very
uncritical treatment of ancient history, when, in spite of the express
testimony of the ancients, no one would have dreamed of doubting that
both the Epirots and Macedonians ought to be regarded as Greeks; this
belief was so firmly rooted, that the great Palmerius even thought
Illyricum a Greek country. Afterwards, however, disputes arose as to the
nationality of the Macedonians. Critics at first went to the opposite
extreme, and from a passage in the Epitome of Strabo, it was inferred,
that the Macedonians were Illyrians. The subject has been discussed in
an excellent little treatise by C. O. Müller of Göttingen. The matter
may perhaps be determined still more accurately by entering into minute
investigations. The extent of country to which we generally apply the
name of Macedonia, embraces later enlargements; in its narrowest sense,
it was but a very small country with a peculiar population. Macedonia
is the country of the Macedonians, just as Italy is the country of the
Itali. The boundaries of the original kingdom of Macedonia and their
gradual extension have been described nearly forty years ago by Gatterer,
an excellent man, whose merits are no longer as fully appreciated in
Germany as they ought to be. His ancient history, owing to the large
scale on which he undertook it, has great defects; but he commenced
it at a time when the way was altogether unprepared by preliminary
inquiries, and when so much was still unexplained; his history of the
eastern nations, therefore, could not be otherwise than imperfect. But
this should not prevent us from acknowledging his very great merits. His
smaller essays, especially that on Macedonia and Thrace, are extremely
valuable; they are printed in the Transactions of the Royal Society of
Göttingen, where maps also are added, in which he shows the gradual
extension of Macedonia.
Macedonia, in its most proper sense, did not touch upon the sea. We have
to distinguish two parts, viz., UPPER MACEDONIA, inhabited by the people
about the western range of mountains, extending from the north as far
as Pindus, and LOWER MACEDONIA, about the rivers which flow into the
Axius, in the earlier times, however, not extending to the Axius itself,
but only as far as Pella. From this district the Macedonians extended
themselves, and partly repressed the ancient inhabitants. The whole
of the sea-coast was occupied by other tribes, which are mentioned by
Thucydides in the excellent episode on the expedition of the Thracians
against Macedonia. The word ἐκβάλλειν which he uses in regard to the
ancient inhabitants, must not be taken literally, or in the sense in
which the Persians drove together and carried away the Eretrians—such
a thing was, generally speaking, never done by the ancient nations—but
a great part of the original inhabitants were subdued. The original
Macedonians in the west, therefore, embrace the Lyncestians, Elimiotans,
Pelagonians, and what are called the real Macedonians dwelling about
Edessa or Aegeae; the inhabitants of Emathia, Pieria, Bottia, and
Mygdonia on the east of the Axius and towards the Strymon, were conquered
countries, or, if at a later period their inhabitants were Macedonians,
they had become so in the course of time. These original Μακεδόνες or
Μακηδόνες are mentioned by all the ancient poets and in the fragments
of epic poetry; they dwelt among tribes which we regard as Pelasgian,
and were connected with the Magnetes, Magnes and Macedon being called
brothers. None of the Macedonian words we know are Greek, though some
are akin to it, but at the same time, they show decidedly barbarous
peculiarities. When Strabo says that a great portion of the Macedonians
were Illyrians, because they had the same customs, the same costume,
the same method of cutting the hair, the same language and the like,
we must take this to apply to tribes occupying parts of Macedonia in
the extended sense, and dwelling in the western half, just as a large
part of eastern Macedonia was inhabited by Thracians, some of whom were
free, while others had been subdued by the Macedonians: at the time when
the Macedonian kingdom became consolidated, they were still unmixed
Thracians. If we understand the passage of Strabo in this manner, it
presents no difficulty. We often weigh the words of ancient authors
too scrupulously; I admit, that on the whole they wrote with far more
care than we do, but if we consider without prejudice so many passages
containing errors, we must own that their heads too were not always
equally clear, and we must also bear in mind that they dictated their
works, whence much that is surprising to us, is only mis-written. Many
a faulty or corrupt construction may have originated with the scribes,
but sometimes the authors themselves, with their immense stores of
thought, may have dictated somewhat confusedly. I once found a passage
in Pliny written so confusedly, that at first I thought a transposition
of the words necessary; but when I commenced making the emendation, the
thought flashed upon me, that Pliny might have dictated wrongly, perhaps
inserting a clause and not finishing it; as the clause stands, it is
quite out of place.
Macedonia proper consisted of several small states. The LYNCESTIANS and
ELIMIOTANS had their own rulers called kings, and so also the people
of EDESSA or AEGEAE. The two former, like the Epirots, remained within
their boundaries without spreading themselves; but those in the plain
gradually overpowered the kings of the other tribes, and expelled their
royal families. The history of Lower Macedonia is important, that of
Upper Macedonia is not, for nothing remarkable can be related of the
Lyncestians, Elimiotans, and Pelagonians. Lower Macedonia is great in
the history of the world: its kings called themselves Heracleids, and
traced their descent to the Temenids of Argos. How far the ancient and
simple tradition may have been misunderstood, can only be conjectured;
but the probability is, that the Argos here mentioned is not the Argos
in Peloponnesus, but the Pelasgian Argos in Thessaly, which was situated
in the neighbourhood of Macedonia. Later persons only half-learned
erroneously connected this with the Peloponnesian Argos, and accordingly
the story of the Temenids is probably of recent origin, the ancient
tradition stating only that they were Heracleids from Argos. Respecting
the royal family, there were two different legends; according to the one,
the kings were descended from Caranus, and according to the other from
Perdiccas. There can be no doubt that the latter is only a symbolical
representation of the national constitution; for the founders of the
monarchy, Perdiccas and his two brothers, are the archegetae of three
tribes.