Post by Teuta1975 on Feb 23, 2008 17:34:27 GMT -5
The mountainous land of the ancient Illyrian tribes stretches down the Adriatic coast from modern day Trieste to the Rhizonic Gulf. The ancient Greeks considered the Illyrians to be barbarians. They were non Greek speakers and they had different customs; they were made up of various tribes. Herodotus refers to the Eneti tribe in Illyria and their habit of taking their daughters to the market place to sell them for marriage, a custom which he compares with that of Babylonians, another barbarian people. Yet, the clear distinction between Greeks and Barbarians with different customs is made more complicated by the observation that all Greece was originally occupied by Pelasgians who spoke a non-Greek language. This notion of the barbarian origins of Greece was corroborated centuries later by Strabo in his Geography.
Now Hecataeus of Miletus says of Peloponnesus that before the time of the Greeks it was inhabited by barbarians. Yet one might say that in the ancient times the whole of Greece was a settlement of barbarians, if one reasons from the traditions themselves…And even to the present day the Thracians, Illyrians and Epeirotes live on the flanks of the Greeks (though this was still more the case formerly than now); indeed most of the country that at the present time is indisputably Greece, is held by the barbarians – Macedonia and certain parts of Thessaly by the Thracians and the parts above Acarnania and Aetolia by the Threspoti, the Cassopaei, the Amphilochi, the Molossi, and the Athamanes – Epeirotic tribes.
According to this argument, the Hellenic Greeks had either emerged or arrived after the original barbarians and had civilized them and the land. The Illyrians and the Greeks were therefore thought to have shared a common origin, even if they had subsequently drifted apart. The Illyrians were to the primitive beginnings of the land, while Greeks, like their Olympian Gods, represented a later, and possibly higher civilization.
Beyond ancient myths of ethnic origin, the Illyrians were also deeply involved with the Greeks in the historical period. Strabo refers to the fact that “he Thracians, the Illyrians and Epeirotes live on the flanks of the Greeks”. In fact, much of Thrace, Illyria and Epirus was colonized by the Greeks, with the inevitable mingling and merging of the peoples. The largest Greek colony in Illyria was Epidamnus, the later Durazzo. It was here, according to Thucydides, that the first sparks of the Peloponnesian War caught fire, In 435 B.C. the aristocrats of Epidamnus were expelled by a newly emerged democratic group of people in the city. Anxious to regain their power, they allied themselves with the neighboring people, “a barbarian tribe, the Taulants, of Illyrian race (ethnos). “Making common cause with the barbarians”. Thucydides writes, the aristocrats “plundered those who were in the city both by land and sea”. The besieged democrats sought help from Corinth, the city of their original founder, while the now outnumbered aristocrats were soon aided by the colonizers of
Crcyra. Athens and Sparta were quickly drawn into the feud, as the different political alliance spread, and the Hellenic world began the process of tearing itself apart.
The Illyrians had a role to play later in the War in the battle of shifting alliances which characterized the campaigns. Since the Illyrians lived on the “flanks” of Greece, as Strabo commented, it was unclear to contemporaries whether they supported Athens or Sparta in the war, whether indeed they were sufficiently Greek to express support for either city. In one particular campaign, described by Thucydides, Brasidas and the Spartan general believes that his ally Perdiccas, who leads a troop of Macedonians, has elicited the support of Illyrians, only to discover that they have deserted and gone to help the opposition. The Illyrians, suddenly become enemies, present a frightening prospect to the Spartans, precisely because they are barbarian and different. Brasidas feels the need of rallying speech:
Now as for these Illyrians, for those who have had no experience of them, the menace of their attack has terror; for their number is indeed dreadful to behold and the loudness of their battle-cry is intolerable, and the idle brandishing of their arms has a threatening effect. But for hand-to-hand fighting, if their opponents but endure such threats, they are not the men they seem; for having no regular order, they would not be ashamed to abandon any position when hard pressed; and since flight and attack are considered equally honorable with them, their courage cannot be put to the test.
Brasidas defines the otherness of the Illyrians by pointing both to their excessive violence-their war-cry and their arms – and at the same time to their weakness – their tendency to retreat. What is not stressed is the fact that until the news of the Illyrian betrayal, Brasidas was prepared and hoping, to fight alongside the men he now condemns so vehemently. Greek alliances, and thus to an extent, Greek identity, are forged by such whims and exigencies of war.
In the third Century BC., the Romans began their conquest of the area, and two centuries later they had succeeded in establishing the command. They named the province Illyricum. The place and the name, lasted until the sixth or seventh centuries A.D. when Slav invasions changed the character of the whole region. Many Illyrians are thought to have died or to have fled. The others were absorbed by Slavic settlers. The name for the actual geographic place disappeared for the next thousand years. It left the space free for the fictionalizers.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses:
Ovid describes Cadmus and Harmonia being washed onto the Illyrian shore after the shipwreck and turmoil of losing their daughter:
Compelled with grief and great mishappes that had ensewed together
And strange foretokens often seen since first his coming thither,
He utterly forsakes his towne the which he builded had
As though the fortunes of the place so hardly him bessad
And not his owne. And fleeting long like piligrims at the last
Upon the coast of Illirie his wife and he were cast…
…………….Western travelers to Greece also became interested in Illyria after Napoleon’s re-awakening and after Slavs devoted much energy to asserting their descendant from the ancient Illyrians through the Illyrian movement. The mysteriousness and the elysian qualities of the Illyrians of western legend became transformed into a vision of their former purity and perfection. So, chief among the travel writers was William Martin Leake, whose “principal object (in writing) was a comparison of the ancient and modern geography, by confronting the information contained in the ancient authors with the actual state of the country.
His main concern was Albania, whose people, he argued, were descendant from the ancient Illyrians. Indeed, according to his thesis, the Albanians had originally been one of the Illyrian tribes and had now blossomed to inhabit the vast mountainous territory in modern day North-West Greece, Albania, and Southern Yugoslavia. The Albanians were of interests to Leake partly for political reasons…
But Leake was also interested in the Albanians because they seemed purer and therefore possibly more Greeks than the Greeks (!) They were uncontaminated by invasion and were fiercely nationalistic. He described them as:
Irregular and undisciplined soldiers, but possessing a perfect familiarity with the use of arms; ferocious and ignorant and uncivilized, but cherishing an enthusiastic partiality for their native mountains, and adding to the advantages of a country, which opposes the strongest natural obstacles to an invader, that determination to resist all foreign intruders, and that confidence in their ability to defend themselves, which had, until the period of war, been found very deficient in some more civilized nations of Europe.
The resistance to invasion meant that the Albanians were arguably closer to their distant ancestors than the Greeks, who had suffered incursions from the Romans, Northern barbarians and Eastern Turks and were now often indistinguishable from their Otoman Rulers. The Albanians therefore seemed to offer a picture of how the Greeks might have been, a picture of the more attractive elements of Greek culture.
His distinctions and connections:
Although possessing a marked distinction from the Greeks in form and physiognomy, having light eyes and high cheek-bones, they resemble very much in character and manners the natives of the more mountainous and independent districts of Greece. They possess perhaps more evenness of conduct, more
prudence, more fidelity to their employers, and at the same time more selfishness, avidity, and avarice, but there is found in them the same rigid observance of religious prejudices, the same superstitions, the same active, keen, and enterprising genius, the same hardy, patient and laborious habits.
JSTOR: A (Hi)story of Illyria, by Jennifer Wallace
Greece & Rome @1998 2nd ser., vol. 45, nr. 2.
Pages: 213-225
Stable URL: links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0017-3835%28199810%292%3A45%3A2%3C213%3AA%28OI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J
Now Hecataeus of Miletus says of Peloponnesus that before the time of the Greeks it was inhabited by barbarians. Yet one might say that in the ancient times the whole of Greece was a settlement of barbarians, if one reasons from the traditions themselves…And even to the present day the Thracians, Illyrians and Epeirotes live on the flanks of the Greeks (though this was still more the case formerly than now); indeed most of the country that at the present time is indisputably Greece, is held by the barbarians – Macedonia and certain parts of Thessaly by the Thracians and the parts above Acarnania and Aetolia by the Threspoti, the Cassopaei, the Amphilochi, the Molossi, and the Athamanes – Epeirotic tribes.
According to this argument, the Hellenic Greeks had either emerged or arrived after the original barbarians and had civilized them and the land. The Illyrians and the Greeks were therefore thought to have shared a common origin, even if they had subsequently drifted apart. The Illyrians were to the primitive beginnings of the land, while Greeks, like their Olympian Gods, represented a later, and possibly higher civilization.
Beyond ancient myths of ethnic origin, the Illyrians were also deeply involved with the Greeks in the historical period. Strabo refers to the fact that “he Thracians, the Illyrians and Epeirotes live on the flanks of the Greeks”. In fact, much of Thrace, Illyria and Epirus was colonized by the Greeks, with the inevitable mingling and merging of the peoples. The largest Greek colony in Illyria was Epidamnus, the later Durazzo. It was here, according to Thucydides, that the first sparks of the Peloponnesian War caught fire, In 435 B.C. the aristocrats of Epidamnus were expelled by a newly emerged democratic group of people in the city. Anxious to regain their power, they allied themselves with the neighboring people, “a barbarian tribe, the Taulants, of Illyrian race (ethnos). “Making common cause with the barbarians”. Thucydides writes, the aristocrats “plundered those who were in the city both by land and sea”. The besieged democrats sought help from Corinth, the city of their original founder, while the now outnumbered aristocrats were soon aided by the colonizers of
Crcyra. Athens and Sparta were quickly drawn into the feud, as the different political alliance spread, and the Hellenic world began the process of tearing itself apart.
The Illyrians had a role to play later in the War in the battle of shifting alliances which characterized the campaigns. Since the Illyrians lived on the “flanks” of Greece, as Strabo commented, it was unclear to contemporaries whether they supported Athens or Sparta in the war, whether indeed they were sufficiently Greek to express support for either city. In one particular campaign, described by Thucydides, Brasidas and the Spartan general believes that his ally Perdiccas, who leads a troop of Macedonians, has elicited the support of Illyrians, only to discover that they have deserted and gone to help the opposition. The Illyrians, suddenly become enemies, present a frightening prospect to the Spartans, precisely because they are barbarian and different. Brasidas feels the need of rallying speech:
Now as for these Illyrians, for those who have had no experience of them, the menace of their attack has terror; for their number is indeed dreadful to behold and the loudness of their battle-cry is intolerable, and the idle brandishing of their arms has a threatening effect. But for hand-to-hand fighting, if their opponents but endure such threats, they are not the men they seem; for having no regular order, they would not be ashamed to abandon any position when hard pressed; and since flight and attack are considered equally honorable with them, their courage cannot be put to the test.
Brasidas defines the otherness of the Illyrians by pointing both to their excessive violence-their war-cry and their arms – and at the same time to their weakness – their tendency to retreat. What is not stressed is the fact that until the news of the Illyrian betrayal, Brasidas was prepared and hoping, to fight alongside the men he now condemns so vehemently. Greek alliances, and thus to an extent, Greek identity, are forged by such whims and exigencies of war.
In the third Century BC., the Romans began their conquest of the area, and two centuries later they had succeeded in establishing the command. They named the province Illyricum. The place and the name, lasted until the sixth or seventh centuries A.D. when Slav invasions changed the character of the whole region. Many Illyrians are thought to have died or to have fled. The others were absorbed by Slavic settlers. The name for the actual geographic place disappeared for the next thousand years. It left the space free for the fictionalizers.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses:
Ovid describes Cadmus and Harmonia being washed onto the Illyrian shore after the shipwreck and turmoil of losing their daughter:
Compelled with grief and great mishappes that had ensewed together
And strange foretokens often seen since first his coming thither,
He utterly forsakes his towne the which he builded had
As though the fortunes of the place so hardly him bessad
And not his owne. And fleeting long like piligrims at the last
Upon the coast of Illirie his wife and he were cast…
…………….Western travelers to Greece also became interested in Illyria after Napoleon’s re-awakening and after Slavs devoted much energy to asserting their descendant from the ancient Illyrians through the Illyrian movement. The mysteriousness and the elysian qualities of the Illyrians of western legend became transformed into a vision of their former purity and perfection. So, chief among the travel writers was William Martin Leake, whose “principal object (in writing) was a comparison of the ancient and modern geography, by confronting the information contained in the ancient authors with the actual state of the country.
His main concern was Albania, whose people, he argued, were descendant from the ancient Illyrians. Indeed, according to his thesis, the Albanians had originally been one of the Illyrian tribes and had now blossomed to inhabit the vast mountainous territory in modern day North-West Greece, Albania, and Southern Yugoslavia. The Albanians were of interests to Leake partly for political reasons…
But Leake was also interested in the Albanians because they seemed purer and therefore possibly more Greeks than the Greeks (!) They were uncontaminated by invasion and were fiercely nationalistic. He described them as:
Irregular and undisciplined soldiers, but possessing a perfect familiarity with the use of arms; ferocious and ignorant and uncivilized, but cherishing an enthusiastic partiality for their native mountains, and adding to the advantages of a country, which opposes the strongest natural obstacles to an invader, that determination to resist all foreign intruders, and that confidence in their ability to defend themselves, which had, until the period of war, been found very deficient in some more civilized nations of Europe.
The resistance to invasion meant that the Albanians were arguably closer to their distant ancestors than the Greeks, who had suffered incursions from the Romans, Northern barbarians and Eastern Turks and were now often indistinguishable from their Otoman Rulers. The Albanians therefore seemed to offer a picture of how the Greeks might have been, a picture of the more attractive elements of Greek culture.
His distinctions and connections:
Although possessing a marked distinction from the Greeks in form and physiognomy, having light eyes and high cheek-bones, they resemble very much in character and manners the natives of the more mountainous and independent districts of Greece. They possess perhaps more evenness of conduct, more
prudence, more fidelity to their employers, and at the same time more selfishness, avidity, and avarice, but there is found in them the same rigid observance of religious prejudices, the same superstitions, the same active, keen, and enterprising genius, the same hardy, patient and laborious habits.
JSTOR: A (Hi)story of Illyria, by Jennifer Wallace
Greece & Rome @1998 2nd ser., vol. 45, nr. 2.
Pages: 213-225
Stable URL: links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0017-3835%28199810%292%3A45%3A2%3C213%3AA%28OI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J