EPIRUS, or Epeirct s, was that part of Northern Greece which stretched along the Ionian Sea from the Acroceraunian promontory on the N. to the Ambracian gulf on the S., and was conterminous on the landward side with Illyria, Macedonia, and Thessaly—thus corresponding to the southern portion of Albania. The name Epirus ("Ήπειρος, or in the local dialects “Απειρος) signified mainland, and was originally applied to the whole coast southward to the Corinthian gulf, in contradistinction to the neighbouring islands, Corcyra, Leucas, &c. The country is all more or less mountainous, especially towards the east, where the Pindus chain, in its main massif of Lacmon, feeds the fountains of nearly all the great rivers of Northern Greece,—the Peneus, the Achelous, the Arachthus, and the Aous. In ancient times it did not produce corn sufficient for the wants of its inhabitants; but it was celebrated, as it has been almost to the present day, for its cattle and its horses. According to Theopompus, a writer of the fourth century b.c., the Epirots were divided into fourteen independent tribes, of which the principal were the Chaones, the Thesproti, and the Molossi. The Chaones, identified by one theory with the Chones who dwelt on the Tarentine gulf in Italy, inhabited the northern portion of the country along the Acroceraunian shore, the Molossians the inland district of which the lake of Pambotis or Yannina may be regarded as the centre, and the Thesprotians the region to the north of the Ambracian gulf. Aristotle places in Epirus the original home of the Hellenes, though the common opinion among his countrymen traced them rather to Thessaly. In any case Epirus, in spite of its distance from the chief centres of Greek thought and action, and the fact that its ...inhabitants were hardly regarded as other than barbarians, exerted even at an early period no small influence on Greece, by means more especially of the oracle of Dodona. One of the earliest and most flourishing settlements of the Greeks proper in Epirus λvas the Corinthian colony of Ambracia, which give its name to the neighbouring gulf. The happy results of the experiment appear to have tempted other Greek states to imitate the example, and Elatria, Bucheta, and Pandosia bore witness to the enterprise of the people of Elis. Among the other towns in the country the following were of some importance :— in Chaonia—Palaeste and Chimaera, fortified posts to which the dwellers in the open country could retire in time of war; Onchesmus or Anchiasmus, now represented by Santi Quarante, or ή σκάλα των 'Αγιων Σάραντα, the Harbour of the Forty Saints; Phoenice, still so called, the wealthiest of all the native cities of Epirus, and after the fall of the Molossian kingdom the centre of an Epirotic League; Buthroton, the modern Butrinto; Phanote, well known from its connection with the wars of the Romans; and Hadrianopolis, founded by the emperor whose name it bore; in Thesprotia—the Elean settlements already mentioned; Cassope, the chef lieu of the Cassopaeans, the most powerful of the Thesprotian clans; Ephyra, afterwards Cichy-rus, a very ancient site, identified by Leake with the monastery of St John three or four miles from Phanari, but by Bursian with the ruins on the hill of K astri at the northern end of the Acherusian Lake; and in Molossia—Passaron, where the kings were wont to take the oath of the constitution and receive their people’s allegiance; and Tecmon, Phylace, and Horreum, all of doubtful identification. The Byzantine town of Rogus is probably the same as the modern Luro, formerly known as Oropus.
History.— The kings or rather chieftains of the Molossians, who ultimately extended their power over all Epirus, claimed to be descended from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who, according to the legend, settled in the country after the sack of Troy, and transmitted his kingdom to Molossus, his son by Andromache. The early history of the dynasty is very obscure; but Admetus, who lived in the 5th century b.c., has become famous for his hospitable reception of the banished Themistocles, in spite of the grudge that he must have harboured against the great Athenian, who had persuaded his countrymen to refuse the alliance tardily offered by the Molossian chief when their victory against the Persians was already secured. He was succeeded about 429 b.c. by his son or grandson, Tharymbas or Arymbas I. who being placed by a decree of the people under the guardianship of Sabylinthus, chief of the Atintanes, was educated at Athens, and thus became at a later date the introducer of a higher kind of civilization among his subjects. Alcetas, the next king mentioned in history, was contemporary with Dionysius of Syracuse (about 385 b.c.) and was indebted to his assistance for the recovery of his throne. His son Arymbas II. (who succeeded by the death of his brother Neoptolemus) ruled with prudence and equity, and gave encouragement to literature and the arts. To him Xenocrates of Chalcedon dedicated his four books on the art of governing; and it is specially mentioned that he bestowed great care on the education of his brother’s children. Troas, one of his nieces, became his own wife; and Olympias, the other, was married to Philip of Macedon, and had the honour of givipg birth to Alexander the Great. On the death of Arymbas, his nephew Alexander, the brother of Olympias, was put in possession of the throne by the assistance of Philip, who was afterwards assassinated on occasion of the marriage of the youthful king with his daughter Cleopatra. Alexander was the first who bore the title of King of Epirus, and he raised the reputation of his country amongst foreign nations. His assistance having been sought by the Tarentines against the Samnites and Lucanians, he made a descent, 332 B.o., at Paestum, near the mouth of the river Silarus, and reduced several cities of the Lucaui and Bruttii; but in a second attack upon Italy he was surrounded by the enemy, defeated, and slain, near the city Pandosia, in the Bruttian territory.
Aeacides, the son of Arymbas IL, succeeded Alexander, and espoused the cause of Olympias against Cassander; but he was dethroned by his own soldiers, and had hardly regained his position when he fell, 313 b.c., in battle against Philip, brother of Cassander. He had, by his wife Phthia, the celebrated Pyrrhus, and two daughters, Deidamia and Troas, of whom the former married Demetrius Poliorcetes. His brother Alcetas, who succeeded him, continued the war with Cassander till he was defeated; and he was ultimately put to death by his rebellious subjects, 295 b.c. The name of Pyrrhus, who next ascended the throne, gives to the history of his country an importance which it would never have otherwise possessed; but for an account of his life we must refer to the article Pyrrhus.
Alexander, his son, who succeeded in 272 b.c., attempted to seize on Macedonia, and defeated Antigonus Gonatas, but was himself shortly afterwards driven from his kingdom'by Demetrius. He recovered it, however, and spent the rest of his days in peace. Two other insignificant reigns brought the family of Pyrrhus to its close, and Epirus was thenceforward governed by a praetor, elected annually in a general assembly of the nation held at Passaron. It imprudently espoused the cause of Perseus in his ill-fated war against the Romans, 168 b.c. ;' and it was consequently exposed to the fury of the conquerors, who destroyed, it is said, 70 towns, and carried into slavery 150,000 of the inhabitants. It never recovered from this blow. At the dissolution of the Achaean league, 146 b.c., it became part of the province of Macedonia, receiving the name Epirus Vetus, to distinguish it from Epirus Nova, which lay to the east.
On the division of the empire it became the inheritance of the emperors of the East, and remained under them until the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, in 1204, when Michel Angelus Comnenus seized on Aetolia and Epirus. On the death of Michel in 1216, these countries fell into the hands of his brother Theodore. Thomas, the last of the direct line, was murdered in 1318 by his nephew Thomas, lord of Zante and Cephalonia, and his dominions were dismembered. Not long after, Epirus was overrun by the Samians and Albanians, and the confusion which had been growing since the division of the empire was worse confounded still. Charles II. Tocco, lord of Cephalonia and Zante, obtained the recognition of his title of despot of Epirus from the emperor Manuel Comnenus, in the beginning of the 15th century; but his family was deprived of their possession in 1431 by Amurath II. In 1443, Scanderbeg, king of Albania, made himself master of a considerable part of Epirus; but on his death it fell into the power of the Venetians, from whom it passed again to the Turks, under whose domination it still remains.
Nauze, “Rech. hist, sur les peuples qui s'établirent en Épire,” in Mém. de l'Acad. des ∕nscr., 1729; wolfe, “observations on the Gulf of Arta,” in Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc., 1834; Merleker, Darstellung des Landes und der Bewohner von Epeiros, Königs., 1841; J. H. Skene, “Remarkable Localities on the Coast of Epirus,” in Jour. R. G. 5.,1848; Bowen, Athos, Thessaly, and Epirus, 1852; ILιhι>, Albanesische Studien, 1854: Bursian, Geogr. von Griechenland, vol. i., 1862; Major R. Stuart, * Οη Phys. Geogr. and Nat. Resources of Epirus," in J. R. G. S., 1869; Guido Cora, in Cosmos; Dumont, “Souvenirs de l’Adriatique, de ΓEplre," <fcc., in Rev. des Deux Mondes. 1872.
[1,611 words — estimated reading time: 10 minutes]