GREECE, THE LAND WHERE MYTHS REPLACES

REALITY
(Myths about Epirus)

What is myth and what does it serve?

Myth is a narrative based usually on a false story which can not be used as a replacement
of history, but sometimes myth might be considered a distorted account of a real
historical event. The myth does not differ much from a folktale and usually the boundary
between them is very thin. Myth can not be considered as history, however in the ancient
society of the so called “”Ancient Greeks”” myth was usually regarded as a true account
for a remote past. Surprisingly this ‘tradition’ is descended to the Modern Greeks as well.
They never loose the chance to use the myths and the mythology of a remote past and to
pose them as their real ethnic history. This job is being done combining the ancient myths
with the ones already created in the modern era. Now let’s take a look at two Greek
myths, respectively one ancient and one modern, while our job is to prove that even these
myths are respectively hijacked or created to join realities not related to each other, but
unfortunately propagandized belonging to a real history, the history of the Greek race.
Thus before we analyze and expose some of their myths which are uncountable, we are
inclined to say that whatever is considered Greek History is completely based on
mythical stories, whose reliability and truthiness is deeply compromised for the mere fact
that is based on myths not only by the Modern Greeks and especially philhellenes, but
even by the ancient authors. One of them Strabo in a moment of self-reflection to the
weakness of those mythical stories is appealing like this:

Strabo book 13.1.1

πρὸς τοῦτο δὲ συγγνώμης δεῖ καὶ παρακλήσεως, ὅπως τὴν αἰτίαν τοῦ μήκους
μὴ ἡμῖν μᾶλλον ἀνάπτωσιν οἱ ἐντυγχάνοντες ἢ τοῖς σφόδρα ποθοῦσι τὴν
τῶν ἐνδόξων καὶ παλαιῶν γνῶσιν· προσλαμβάνει δὲ τῷ μήκει καὶ τὸ πλῆθος
τῶν ἐποικησάντων τὴν χώραν Ἑλλήνων τε καὶ βαρβάρων, καὶ οἱ συγγραφεῖς
οὐχὶ τὰ αὐτὰ γράφοντες περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν οὐδὲ σαφῶς πάντα· ὧν ἐν τοῖς
πρώτοις ἐστὶν Ὅμηρος εἰκάζειν περὶ τῶν πλείστων παρέχων. δεῖ δὲ καὶ τὰ
τούτου διαιτᾶν καὶ τὰ τῶν ἄλλων ὑπογράψαντας πρότερον ἐν κεφαλαίῳ τὴν
τῶν τόπων φύσιν.

With this fact in view, I should ask the pardon of my readers and appeal to them not to
fasten the blame for the length of my discussion upon me rather than upon those who
strongly yearn for knowledge of the things that are famous and ancient
And my discussion is further prolonged by the number of the peoples who have colonized
the country, both Greeks and barbarians (a clear division put from Strabo-my note), and
by the historians, who do not write the same things on the same subjects, nor always
clearly either; among the first of these is Homer, who leaves us to guess about most
things. And it is necessary for me to arbitrate between his statements and those of the

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others, after I shall first have described in a summary way the nature of the region in
question

In any case is better to inform the opinion about the weakness of the thesis the scientific
institutions where they are working upon, elaborating the mythical stories of a remote
past.

Ancient myth No. 1.

Achilles and his clan the Aeacides were (ancient) Greeks.

This myth has been often used from the ancient “”Greek””(this term is used for label
only) authors, to connect themselves with what they considered or wishing to be their
past. The story of Achilles and the story of those people who attacked the place named
Troy, is often considered a real story from the ancient authors. It was so romantic even
for them to be left aside as a myth, which what really was. The history of Achilles often
credited as a Greek hero, is a history of a mythical hero in a mythical story, the epic story
of Achaeans who attacked Troy. We won’t try to exclude this story from what really
happened, but we will definitely prove that whatever the narrative of Troy was, a myth or
a real story, the epic song was not dedicated to the Greek heroes, and none of the
participants of that battle can be regarded as Hellenes. The whole account about this
event real or fiction, was part and was dedicated to a previous culture and people, that of
the Pelasgians. Homer in his epic song as rightly noticed from ancient authors like
Thucydides or Strabo, nowhere call the participants of the Trojan War by the name
Hellenes. He uses instead the names :

1. Achaeans (Ἀχαιοί, Akhaioí) (used 598 times)

2. Danaans (Δαναοί, Danaoi) (used 138 times)
3. Argives (Ἀργεῖοι, Argioi) (used 29 times)

All these names imply the same people who now are wrongly widely recognized as
Greeks(or Hellenes), and some modern political clans are working hard to spread the
illusion they were such. The truth is that they all represent the population before the
Dorian invasion of Peloponnesus , they by no means can be regarded as Hellenes, while
the Hellenes are a later small offspring of them, taking the name as usually in those
ancient time from a mythical hero Hellen, son of another mythical hero Deucalion.
The most celebrated name Achaeans, is a result of the region inhabited by these people:

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These people were ruled (much earlier that the name Hellenes firstly appearing) by an
Egyptian ruler named Danaus. According to the mythology(not the history) he was twin
brother of Aegyptus and son of Achiroe and Belus, a mythical king of Egypt. As the old
accounts tell us, he named the people upon who he was ruling after himself.

Strabo, Book 008.006.009

τὴν δὲ ἀκρόπολιν τῶν Ἀργείων οἰκίσαι λέγεται Δαναός, ὃς τοσοῦτον τοὺς
πρὸ αὐτοῦ δυναστεύοντας ἐν τοῖς τόποις ὑπερβαλέσθαι δοκεῖ ὥστε κατ'
Εὐριπίδην Πελασγιώτας ὠνομασμένους τὸ πρὶν Δαναοὺς καλεῖσθαι νόμον
ἔθηκ' ἀν' Ἑλλάδα.

The acropolis of the Argives is said to have been founded by Danaüs, who is reputed to
have surpassed so much those who reigned in this region before him that, according to
Euripides,"throughout Greece he laid down a law that all people hitherto named
Pelasgians should be called Danaans."

Obviously the name Pelasgian is equivalent to the name Danans or Argives or Achaeans.

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The immediate succession of Hellenes in the history of the Pelasgians of Peloponnesus is
what causes the confusion among many of us in regard of the name we ethnically label
the people who attacked Troy.
For the sake of truth the name Hellenes is found one single time among the people
portrayed from Homer in his Iliad as the Troy’ attackers (Iliad 2.681):

τοὺς ὅσσοι τὸ Πελασγικὸν Ἄργος ἔναιον,

οἵ τ' Ἄλον οἵ τ' Ἀλόπην οἵ τε Τρηχῖνα νέμοντο,
οἵ τ' εἶχον Φθίην ἠδ' Ἑλλάδα καλλιγύναικα,
Μυρμιδόνες δὲ καλεῦντο καὶ Ἕλληνες καὶ Ἀχαιοί,
τῶν αὖ πεντήκοντα νεῶν ἦν ἀρχὸς Ἀχιλλεύς

Now all those again that inhabited Pelasgian Argos (1)

and dwelt in Alos and Alope and Trachis,
and that held Phthia and Hellas, the land of fair women,
and were called Myrmidons and Hellenes and Achaeans
of the fifty ships of these men was Achilles captain.

However even though a well-known martial tribe, their number used to represent just a
tiny particle of the Pelasgian race. The Hellenes mentioned in this paragraph are different
from the people which was considered to be the core of the Hellenic race, who were the
Dorians and appeared in this land generations later as invaders of Homeric Hellenes,
killing, subduing and driving them out of their land.
In the paragraph above the mythical hero Achilles was the captain of the Pelasgian
warriors. That Achilles was Pelasgian is easily verifiable, he came from a Pelasgian land
(1)(Iliad 2.681), he was worshiping a Pelasgian God : Zeus (Iliad 16.200):

Ζεῦ ἄνα Δωδωναῖε Πελασγικὲ τηλόθι ναίων

Δωδώνης μεδέων δυσχειμέρου

Zeus, thou king, Dodonaean, Pelasgian,

thou that dwellest afar, ruling over wintry Dodona

and his race was nowhere called Hellenic in the main source but Pelasgian. As a matter of
fact he was grandson of Aeacus (Αἴακος) and member of the family clan Aeacidians
Aἰακίδης who took the name from the patriarch Aeacus, who was the king of a small
island beside Peloponnesus, called Aegina

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and created the Pelasgic tribe of Mirmidones:
This tribe was not originally from Thessaly (and perhaps never been in Thessaly,
Macedonia), like Greek propaganda speculates based on some quotes from ancient
authors, but from the small island of Aegina

Strabo 008.006.016

Μυρμιδόνας δὲ κληθῆναί φασιν οὐχ ὡς ὁ μῦθος τοὺς Αἰγινήτας, ὅτι λοιμοῦ μεγάλου
συμπεσόντος οἱ μύρμηκες ἄνθρωποι γένοιντο κατ' εὐχὴν Αἰακοῦ, ἀλλ' ὅτι μυρμήκων
τρόπον ὀρύττοντες τὴν γῆν ἐπισπείροιεν ἐπὶ τὰς πέτρας, ὥστ' ἔχειν γεωργεῖν, ἐν δὲ τοῖς
ὀρύγμασιν οἰκεῖν φειδόμενοι πλίνθων

It is said that the Aeginetans were called Myrmidons, not as the myth has it, because,
when a great famine occurred, the ants became human beings in answer to a prayer of
Aeacus, but because they excavated the earth after the manner of ants and spread the
soil over the rocks, so as to have ground to till, and because they lived in the dugouts,
refraining from the use of soil for bricks

In the time of Achilles there were not a major race called Hellenes because as Thucydides
put it :

"because the Hellenes had not as yet been designated by a common distinctive name
opposed to that of the barbarians”

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The name of the small tribe of Hellenes mentioned in the Iliad, might have been the
reference which had been used to name the relatively very late mighty Hellenes.
Even archeologically the name Hellenes in the wider sense of the word appears
only for the first in writing in an inscription, dedicated to Heracles for his
victory in the Amphictyonic Games, and refers to the 48th Olympiad (584 BC).
So naming the Troy’ attackers(Danaans, or Achaeans or in wider meaning Pelasgians) as Greek is
inappropriate, irrelevant and abusive. So is the act of naming heroes of this great race,
like Achilles and his Mirmidones. It is true that a small portion of Pelasgic race started
calling themselves as Hellenes, but the former and the later are far from being equally the
same.
All accounts from antiquity confirm that what consists in the nucleus of the later Hellenes
appeared generations later of the Trojan War event:

Pausanias, Description of Greece 4.3.1

After the conclusion of the Trojan War and the death of Nestor after his return home,
the Dorian expedition and return of the Heracleidae, which took place two generations
later, drove the descendants of Nestor from Messenia. This has already formed a part of
my account of Tisamenus I will only add the following: When the Dorians assigned
Argos to Temenus, Cresphontes asked them for the land of Messenia, in that he was older
than Aristodemus.

It was exactly these Dorians who first among all would have called themselves
Hellenes, drove out from Peloponnese(the heart of the so called Greece) what remained
from the participants of Trojan War and their families. All the old accounts show us that
those people who attacked Troy called Achaeans not only identified themselves in a
wider meaning & interchangeably as Danaans or Pelasgians, and not Hellenes, but made
a common cause against the people who later would be the first calling themselves as
such. What would have become the core of the later Hellenes, never participated in the
Trojan War, and this later culture and people are intentionally suggested to us as the
participants in it.
The stories from the past being myth are often unsecure and unreliable to determine a
clear image of the ancient events but even if we follow these tracks, we can reach a
conclusion easily provable that:

1. The Dorians(and Heraclides) were the first among all others identifying
themselves as Hellenes much later the Trojan War event, they were the core of
the Hellenic people and did not participate in the Trojan War.

2. The participants of the Trojan War were called Achaeans or

Pelasgians(mainly from Peloponnesus and the around islands) were driven out
from their land, exactly by the people who in a much later period were the first
identifying themselves as Hellenes. These Hellenes were invaders and persecutors
of the Pelasgic Achaeans, and they firmly fought each-other until the end, which

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 was the Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 B.C around 800 years after Trojan War),
which ended up with the triumph of the Hellenes.

3. All Achaeans mythical heroes including Achilles (and his family clan starting
from his son Neoptolemos) were not Hellenes, they were Pelasgians, who never
returned back to their original home(most likely Aegina), but they went and ruled
over people of the same race, the Pelasgians of Epirus.

.
That the Ancient Greeks were inclined to make capital of the Pelasgians and their heroes,
nobody can deny, but the Moderns Greeks for every one who knows their intentions is
doubtless that their aspirations to make capital from the ancient people is limitless, and
this eager to claim ancient cultures as theirs is extended beyond the proper Ancient
Greeks. This aspirations include any race or sub-race who inhabited Balkans and was
somehow vaguely related to Ancient Greeks, except the Illyrians. In this rush to claim
anything as Greek, the Modern ones don’t follow any standard or criteria for that
approach. The tendency of some pre and post classical authors to look at Homeric heroes
as Greeks(especially Achilles and his descendents) is not only stressed out from the
Modern Greeks but also used to union a great amount of presumptions.
Their logic works like this: ‘Since Achilles was a Greek, his son Neoptolemos established
a Greek dynasty into Epirus whose Greekness was descended until Pyrrhus, and amongst
the entire Mollosian dynasty, and thus making any member of this clan a Greek”
The senseless of this logic does not only consist in the weak ties that connect its structure,
but also for reasons like myths where this presumptions are based on, and most of all for
intentionally ignoring the mere fact that Achilles and the entire race of the Danaans was
Pelasgian which in its meaning exceeds considerably even the greatest Hellenic one. .

Homer, Odyssey 11.440

ὣς ἔφατ', αὐτὰρ ἐγώ μιν ἀμειβόμενος προσέειπον:

‘Ἀτρεί̈δη, τί με ταῦτα διείρεαι; οὐδέ τι οἶδα,
ζώει ὅ γ' ἦ τέθνηκε: κακὸν δ' ἀνεμώλια βάζειν.’
“νῶι μὲν ὣς ἐπέεσσιν ἀμειβομένω στυγεροῖσιν
ἕσταμεν ἀχνύμενοι θαλερὸν κατὰ δάκρυ χέοντες:
ἦλθε δ' ἐπὶ ψυχὴ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
καὶ Πατροκλῆος καὶ ἀμύμονος Ἀντιλόχοιο
Αἴαντός θ', ὃς ἄριστος ἔην εἶδός τε δέμας τε
τῶν ἄλλων Δαναῶν μετ' ἀμύμονα Πηλεί̈ωνα.
ἔγνω δὲ ψυχή με ποδώκεος Αἰακίδαο
καί ῥ' ὀλοφυρομένη ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα:

“Thus we two stood and held sad converse with one another, sorrowing and shedding big tears;
and there came up the spirit of Achilles, son of Peleus, and those of Patroclus and of peerless
Antilochus and of Aias, who in comeliness and form was the goodliest of all the Danaans after
the peerless son of Peleus. And the spirit of the swift-footed son of Aeacus recognized me, and

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weeping, spoke to me winged words: “Son of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, Odysseus of many
devices, rash man, what deed yet greater than this wilt thou devise in thy heart?

That Argives(from the capital Argos), Danaans, Mycenai, and Achaeans are words
interchangeably used to describe the same people of the Pelasgian race is an well-known fact but
let us read a fragment from the remarkable lines of Euripides in this regard:

Euripide, Orestes 408 BC

Ἠλέκτρα

Μυκηνίδες ὦ φίλαι,

τὰ πρῶτα κατὰ Πελασγὸν ἕδος Ἀργείων.

Χορός

τίνα θροεῖς αὐδάν, πότνια; παραμένει

γὰρ ἔτι σοι τόδ' ἐν Δαναϊδῶν πόλει.

…………………….

…………………….

ELECTRA
O you women of Mycenae, my friends,
among the first ranks of those who live
in the Argives' Pelasgian home.

CHORUS LEADER
What is it you want to say, my lady?
You still retain this title in the city
where the sons of Danaus live.

MENELAUS
O land of the Danaans and you who live
in horse-rich Argos, take up your weapons
and bring help on the run. To save his life
this man here is using force against you,
against the entire city, though he carries
the pollution of his mother's murdered blood.

Pelasgian was the culture which archeology is classified as the Mycenaean civilization.
What the linguists label as an ancient form of Greek(Linear B) was in fact the language
of the Pelasgians, even the later incoming language of Hellenes is a form of the

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Pelasgian language. The label is very important, since its name enables a series of
modern political and historical pretenses, which have affected the course of history.

What is wrongly known as Ancient Greek was in fact the language of the Pelasgians, and
its written form might have been largely different from the spoken language. Pelasgian
was something larger and different in what it represented in quantity, time and space
from the entire Hellenic’ World even in it’s zenith. The boundaries of the Hellenic World
in the ancient times never reached those aspired and propagandized by the Greeks,
ancient or modern whatsoever, they remained limited, and the territory within was
inhabited not only by the Hellenes but by all sorts and sizes of different races, who if we
trust the old accounts were larger than those of Hellenes even in the “Greece” proper. The
notorious idea, that the race of Hellenes was the dominant race since Mychanean era and
at least until the Roman invasion is a subject to be refined to that degree that the result
could be completely different from the original one. The thesis circulating in some
political environment that Epirus was inhabited from some non culturally developed
Greek speakers is also false. Its falsity starts at the moment is used the term Greek,
because Hellenes were not the originators of that language.

Myth no 2.(Modern myth about antiquity)

Epirus was inhabited from some sort of Greeks who belonged to the so called North-West
Greek speakers (dialect).

That the Epirotes might have spoken a language similar to that of the so called Hellenes
is not a surprise for us, since we still consider both Hellenes and Epirotes as Pelasgians’
offspring, however them being strictly Greeks or very close to them following the
modern standards about the estimation of ethnicity is far from being true. There is no way
you can apply the same standards for the people of that remote time because the human
society was organized quite differently from ours, nevertheless we will neglect this, and
we will analyze each of the major Epirotic tribes separately bringing quotes which will
isolate the presumably truthiness of their thesis showing its absurdity.
Here it is a map of Epirus, created for any purpose other that representing the real mosaic
of tribes inhabiting this area in the ancient times.

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Strictly using ancient authors’ quotes we will modify it, simply placing the right
information in it which has intentionally altered and wrongly interpreted by the map
creator, who is a disgusting speculator and doesn’t deserve the academic position he
presumably enjoys. We previously explained many huge distortions of the real situation
made in this map for certain tribes in the article (Reviewing an “”Ancient”” map), but
today we will stop particularly to the tribes known as Epirotes, who are propagandized
from this map as Greek.
Strabo in his book 7.7.8 using the information taken from another “”Greek”” historian,
Theopompus (4th c. B.C) identifies 11 tribes inhabiting Epirus from 14 suggested by
Theopompus.

1. Chaones-Χαονες
2. Thesprotoi-θεσπρωτοι
2.a Kassopaians- [branch of Thesprotoi, Strabo (book 7.7.5)]
3. Mollosoi-Μολλοσοι
4. Atintanes-Ατιντανες
5. Athamanes-Αθαμανες

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6. Tymfaioi-Τυμφαιοι
7. Aithikes-Αιθικες
8. Orestai-Ορεσται
9. Enienes-Ενιηνες
10. Peraeboi-Περαιβοι
11. Amphilochoi- Ἀμφίλοχοι

We already know that the most known tribes of Epirus were Thesprotians(+Kassopaians),
Mollosians, and Chaonians . Several ancient authors like Thucydides(The Peloponnesian
War 2.80.1), Strabo (7.7.6), Theopompus(Strabo 7.7.8), Ephorus(Strabo 8.1.3), Hecateus
of Miletus(Strabo 7.7.1), Skylax of Karyander, Pseudo- Scymnus etc have not included
these tribes within Greece proper, some of the above have named them barbarians (a term
used to define a person ethnicity as opposed to a Greek one) and to drop the pretenses
raised that this term was not used to denote ethnic implication but just cultural one let’s
bring one quote from the above author:

Scymnus of Chios( Geographer)

The above highlighted sentence doesn’t leave room for interpretations, it clearly says that
Chaonians and Thesprotians were βάρβαρ-οι and the meaning of this word is explained
as explicit in there: NOT OF GREEK ORIGIN.
Strabo in his book
014.002.028

When the poet says,Masthles in turn led the Carians, τοῦ ποιητοῦ δ' εἰρηκότος οὑτωσί
of barbarian speech, we have no reason to inquire how
it is that, although he knew so many barbarian tribes, Μάσθλης αὖ Καρῶν ἡγήσατο βαρβαροφώνων,
he speaks of the Carians alone as "of barbarian

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speech," but nowhere speaks of "barbarians."
Thucydides, therefore, is not correct, for he says that
Homer "did not use the term 'barbarians' either,
because the Hellenes on their part had not yet been
distinguished under one name as opposed to them";
for the poet himself refutes the statement that the
Hellenes had not yet been so distinguished when he
says,My husband, whose fame is wide through Hellas
and mid-Argos. And again,And if thou dost wish to
journey through Hellas and mid-Argos. Further, if they
were not called "barbarians," how could they properly
be called a people "of barbarian speech?" So neither
Thucydides is correct, nor Apollodorus the
grammarian, who says that the general term was used
by the Hellenes in a peculiar and abusive sense against
the Carians, and in particular by the Ionians, who
hated them because of their enmity and the
continuous military campaigns; for it was right to
name them barbarians in this sense. But I raise the
question, Why does he call them people "of barbarian
speech," but not even once calls them barbarians?
"Because," Apollodorus replies, "the plural does not fall
in with the metre; this is why he does not call them
barbarians." But though this case does not fall in with
metre, the nominative case does not differ metrically
from that of "Dardanians": Trojans and Lycians and
Dardanians. So, also, the word "Trojan," inof what kind
the Trojan horses are. Neither is he correct when he
says that the language of the Carians is very harsh, for
it is not, but even has very many Greek words mixed
up with it, according to the Philip who wrote The
Carica. I suppose that the word "barbarian" was at first
uttered onomatopoetically in reference to people who
enunciated words only with difficulty and talked
harshly and raucously, like our words "battarizein,"
"traulizein," and "psellizein"; for we are by nature very
much inclined to denote sounds by words that sound
like them, on account of their homogeneity. Wherefore
onomatopoetic words abound in our language, as, for
example, "celaryzein," and also "clange," "psophos,"
"boe," and "crotos," most of which are by now used in
their proper sense. Accordingly, when all who
pronounced words thickly were being called barbarians
onomatopoetically, it appeared that the pronunciations
of all alien races were likewise thick, I mean of those
that were not Greek. Those, therefore, they called
barbarians in the special sense of the term, at first
derisively, meaning that they pronounced words thickly
or harshly; and then we misused the word as a general
ethnic term, thus making a logical distinction between
the Greeks and all other races. The fact is, however,
that through our long acquaintance and intercourse
with the barbarians this effect was at last seen to be
the result, not of a thick pronunciation or any natural
defect in the vocal organs, but of the peculiarities of
their several languages. And there appeared another
faulty and barbarian-like pronunciation in our
language, whenever any person speaking Greek did
not pronounce it correctly, but pronounced the words
like barbarians who are only beginning to learn Greek
and are unable to speak it accurately, as is also the
case with us in speaking their languages. This was
particularly the case with the Carians, for, although the
other peoples were not yet having very much
intercourse with the Greeks nor even trying to live in
Greek fashion or to learn our language--with the
exception, perhaps, of rare persons who by chance,
and singly, mingled with a few of the Greeks--yet the
Carians roamed throughout the whole of Greece,
serving on expeditions for pay. Already, therefore, the
οὐκ ἔχει λόγον πῶς τοσαῦτα εἰδὼς ἔθνη βάρβαρα
μόνους εἴρηκε βαρβαροφώνους τοὺς Κᾶρας, βαρβάρους
δ' οὐδένας· οὔτ' οὖν Θουκυδίδης ὀρθῶς· οὐδὲ γὰρ
λέγεσθαί φησι βαρβάρους διὰ τὸ μηδὲ Ἕλληνάς πω
ἀντίπαλον εἰς ἓν ὄνομα ἀποκεκρίσθαι· τό τε γὰρ μηδὲ
Ἕλληνάς πω ψεῦδος αὐτὸς ὁ ποιητὴς ἀπελέγχει
ἀνδρός, τοῦ κλέος εὐρὺ καθ' Ἑλλάδα καὶ μέσον Ἄργος.
καὶ πάλιν
εἴτ' ἐθέλεις τραφθῆναι ἀν' Ἑλλάδα καὶ μέσον Ἄργος.
μὴ λεγομένων τε βαρβάρων πῶς ἔμελλεν εὖ
λεχθήσεσθαι τὸ βαρβαροφώνων; οὔτε δὴ οὗτος εὖ οὔτ'
Ἀπολλόδωρος ὁ γραμματικός, ὅτι τῷ κοινῷ ὀνόματι ἰδίως
καὶ λοιδόρως ἐχρῶντο οἱ Ἕλληνες κατὰ τῶν Καρῶν, καὶ
μάλιστα οἱ Ἴωνες μισοῦντες αὐτοὺς διὰ τὴν ἔχθραν καὶ
τὰς συνεχεῖς στρατείας· ἐχρῆν γὰρ οὕτως βαρβάρους
ὀνομάζειν. ἡμεῖς δὲ ζητοῦμεν διὰ τί βαρβαροφώνους
καλεῖ, βαρβάρους δ' οὐδ' ἅπαξ. “ὅτ” φησί “τὸ
πληθυντικὸν εἰς τὸ μέτρον οὐκ ἐμπίπτει, διὰ τοῦτ' οὐκ
εἴρηκε βαρβάρους.” ἀλλ' αὕτη μὲν ἡ πτῶσις οὐκ
ἐμπίπτει, ἡ δ' ὀρθὴ οὐ διαφέρει τῆς Δάρδανοι
Τρῶες καὶ Λύκιοι καὶ Δάρδανοι.
τοιοῦτον δὲ καὶ τό
οἷοι Τρώιοι ἵπποι.
οὐδέ γε ὅτι τραχυτάτη ἡ γλῶττα τῶν Καρῶν· οὐ γάρ
ἐστιν ἀλλὰ καὶ πλεῖστα Ἑλληνικὰ ὀνόματα ἔχει
καταμεμιγμένα, ὥς φησι Φίλιππος ὁ τὰ Καρικὰ γράψας.
οἶμαι δὲ τὸ βάρβαρον κατ' ἀρχὰς ἐκπεφωνῆσθαι οὕτως
κατ' ὀνοματοποιίαν ἐπὶ τῶν δυσεκφόρως καὶ σκληρῶς
καὶ τραχέως λαλούντων, ὡς τὸ βατταρίζειν καὶ
τραυλίζειν καὶ ψελλίζειν. εὐφυέστατοι γάρ ἐσμεν τὰς
φωνὰς ταῖς ὁμοίαις φωναῖς κατονομάζειν διὰ τὸ
ὁμογενές· ᾖ δὴ καὶ πλεονάζουσιν ἐνταῦθα αἱ
ὀνοματοποιίαι, οἷον τὸ κελαρύζειν καὶ κλαγγὴ δὲ καὶ
ψόφος καὶ βοὴ καὶ κρότος, ὧν τὰ πλεῖστα ἤδη καὶ
κυρίως ἐκφέρεται· πάντων δὴ τῶν παχυστομούντων
οὕτως βαρβάρων λεγομένων, ἐφάνη τὰ τῶν ἀλλοεθνῶν
στόματα τοιαῦτα, λέγω δὲ τὰ τῶν μὴ Ἑλλήνων. ἐκείνους
οὖν ἰδίως ἐκάλεσαν βαρβάρους, ἐν ἀρχαῖς μὲν κατὰ τὸ
λοίδορον, ὡς ἂν παχυστόμους ἢ τραχυστόμους, εἶτα
κατεχρησάμεθα ὡς ἐθνικῷ κοινῷ ὀνόματι
ἀντιδιαιροῦντες πρὸς τοὺς Ἕλληνας. καὶ γὰρ δὴ τῇ πολλῇ
συνηθείᾳ καὶ ἐπιπλοκῇ τῶν βαρβάρων οὐκέτι ἐφαίνετο
κατὰ παχυστομίαν καὶ ἀφυΐαν τινὰ τῶν φωνητηρίων
ὀργάνων τοῦτο συμβαῖνον, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὰς τῶν
διαλέκτων ἰδιότητας. ἄλλη δέ τις ἐν τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ διαλέκτῳ
ἀνεφάνη κακοστομία καὶ οἷον βαρβαροστομία, εἴ τις
ἑλληνίζων μὴ κατορθοίη, ἀλλ' οὕτω λέγοι τὰ ὀνόματα ὡς
οἱ βάρβαροι οἱ εἰσαγόμενοι εἰς τὸν ἑλληνισμὸν οὐκ
ἰσχύοντες ἀρτιστομεῖν, ὡς οὐδ' ἡμεῖς ἐν ταῖς ἐκείνων
διαλέκτοις. τοῦτο δὲ μάλιστα συνέβη τοῖς Καρσί· τῶν
γὰρ ἄλλων οὔτ' ἐπιπλεκομένων πω σφόδρα τοῖς
Ἕλλησιν, οὔτ' ἐπιχειρούντων ἑλληνικῶς ζῆν ἢ μανθάνειν
τὴν ἡμετέραν διάλεκτον, πλὴν εἴ τινες σπάνιοι καὶ κατὰ
τύχην ἐπεμίχθησαν καὶ κατ' ἄνδρα ὀλίγοις τῶν Ἑλλήνων
τισίν· οὗτοι δὲ καθ' ὅλην ἐπλανήθησαν τὴν Ἑλλάδα
μισθοῦ στρατεύοντες. ἤδη οὖν τὸ βαρβαρόφωνον ἐπ'
ἐκείνων πυκνὸν ἦν ἀπὸ τῆς εἰς τὴν Ἑλλάδα αὐτῶν
στρατείας· καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐπεπόλασε πολὺ μᾶλλον, ἀφ'
οὗ τάς τε νήσους μετὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ᾤκησαν, κἀκεῖθεν
εἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν ἐκπεσόντες οὐδ' ἐνταῦθα χωρὶς Ἑλλήνων
οἰκεῖν ἠδύναντο, ἐπιδιαβάντων τῶν Ἰώνων καὶ τῶν
Δωριέων. ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς αὐτῆς αἰτίας καὶ τὸ βαρβαρίζειν
12
barbarous element in their Greek was strong, as a λέγεται· καὶ γὰρ τοῦτο ἐπὶ τῶν κακῶς ἑλληνιζόντων
result of their expeditions in Greece; and after this it εἰώθαμεν λέγειν, οὐκ ἐπὶ τῶν καριστὶ λαλούντων. οὕτως
spread much more, from the time they took up their οὖν καὶ τὸ βαρβαροφωνεῖν καὶ τοὺς βαρβαροφώνους
abode with the Greeks in the islands; and when they δεκτέον τοὺς κακῶς ἑλληνίζοντας· ἀπὸ δὲ τοῦ καρίζειν
were driven thence into Asia, even here they were καὶ τὸ βαρβαρίζειν μετήνεγκαν εἰς τὰς περὶ ἑλληνισμοῦ
unable to live apart from the Greeks, I mean when the τέχνας καὶ τὸ σολοικίζειν, εἴτ' ἀπὸ Σόλων εἴτ' ἄλλως τοῦ
Ionians and Dorians later crossed over to Asia. The ὀνόματος τούτου πεπλασμένου.
term "barbarize," also, has the same origin; for we are
wont to use this too in reference to those who speak
Greek badly, not to those who talk Carian. So,
therefore, we must interpret the terms "speak
barbarously" and "barbarously-speaking" as applying
to those who speak Greek badly. And it was from the
term "Carise" that the term "barbarize" was used in a
different sense in works on the art of speaking Greek;
and so was the term "soloecise," whether derived from
Soli, or made up in some other way.

it is quite clear that the term barbarians was applied only to address the non-Greeks who
even when they were trying to speak Greek were according Strabo:

Accordingly, when all who pronounced words thickly were being called
barbarians onomatopoetically, it appeared that the pronunciations of all
alien races were likewise thick, I mean of those that were not Greek.

So the already completely unproven alibi that since Epirotes were speakers of a Greek
dialect they were Greeks(according to our modern standards) is fallacious, ridiculous and
irrelevant. They were non-Greeks although they were offspring of the same ancient
Pelasgic source. Its here were the speculation starts building on, the Hellenes who were a
partition of the Pelasgians were obviously speaking a Pelasgian dialect, however all those
tribe who remained more conservative to the Pelasgian origin, like Epirotes, and were
still recognizable as Pelasgian were visibly distinct from Hellenes, who by the time
elapsed since all Pelasgians had a common name, were separated from the main body and
created another distinct nation(whatever the meaning of this word used to be). This
clearly makes Epirotes and their main tribes: Chaonians, Mollosians, Thesprotians as
non-Greek.
Now let’s mark this fact on the above map:

13
ATINTANES
This tribe was considered from Strabo(book 7.7.8) a tribe of Epirus, living in Epirus
inland. This tribe has been attested to be Illyrian tribe too:

Appian The Foreign Wars The Illyrian Wars III.2.7

Ἰλλυριοὶ μὲν δὴ τὰς πολιορκίας λύσαντες ἀνεχώρουν, καί τινες αὐτῶν ἐς Ῥωμαίους, οἱ
Ἀτιντανοὶ λεγόμενοι, μετετίθεντο. μετὰ ταῦτα δὲ ἡ Ἄγρωνος γυνὴ πρέσβεις ἐς Ῥώμην
ἔπεμψε τά τε αἰχμάλωτα ἀποδιδόντας αὐτοῖς καὶ τοὺς αὐτομόλους ἄγοντας, καὶ ἐδεῖτο
συγγνώμης τυχεῖν τῶν οὐκ ἐφ' ἑαυτῆς ἀλλ' ἐπὶ Ἄγρωνος γενομένων. οἱ δὲ ἀπεκρίναντο
Κόρκυραν μὲν καὶ Φάρον καὶ Ἴσσαν καὶ Ἐπίδαμνον καὶ Ἰλλυριῶν τοὺς Ἀτιντανοὺς
ἤδη Ῥωμαίων ὑπηκόους εἶναι,

The latter then entered into an alliance with Epidamnus and went to the assistance of the
Issii and of the Epidamnians, who were besieged by the Illyrians. The latter raised the
siege and fled, and one of their tribes, called the Atintani, went over to the Romans.
After these events the widow of Agron sent ambassadors to Rome to surrender the
prisoners and deserters into their hands. She begged pardon also for what had been

14
done, not by herself, but by Agron. They received for answer that Corcyra, Pharus, Issa,
Epidamnus, and the Illyrian Atintani were already Roman subjects.

as we talked about them in a previous article. We don’t know for certain if they were
more Epirotic or Illyrian, or if these names were representing different sub-tribes of the
same tribe, but what we know for sure is that they were classified as barbaroi from
Thucydides:

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 2.80.6

καὶ αὐτῷ παρῆσαν Ἑλλήνων μὲν Ἀμπρακιῶται καὶ Λευκάδιοι καὶ Ἀνακτόριοι καὶ οὓς
αὐτὸς ἔχων ἦλθε χίλιοι Πελοποννησίων, βάρβαροι δὲ Χάονες χίλιοι ἀβασίλευτοι, ὧν
ἡγοῦντο ἐπετησίῳ προστατείᾳ ἐκ τοῦ ἀρχικοῦ γένους Φώτιος καὶ Νικάνωρ.
ξυνεστρατεύοντο δὲ μετὰ Χαόνων καὶ Θεσπρωτοὶ ἀβασίλευτοι. Μολοσσοὺς δὲ ἦγε καὶ
Ἀτιντᾶνας Σαβύλινθος ἐπίτροπος ὢν Θάρυπος τοῦ βασιλέως ἔτι παιδὸς ὄντος, καὶ
Παραυαίους Ὄροιδος βασιλεύων.

The Hellenic troops with him consisted of the Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians,
and the thousand Peloponnesians with whom he came;
the barbarian of a thousand Chaonians, who, belonging to a nation that has no king,
were led by Photius and Nicanor, the two members of the royal family to whom the
chieftainship for that year had been confided. With the Chaonians came also some
Thesprotians, like them without a king, some Molossians and Atintanians led by
Sabylinthus, the guardian of king Tharyps who was still a minor, and some Paravaeans,
under their King Oroedus, accompanied by a thousand Orestians, subjects of King
Antiochus and placed by him under the command of Oroedus.

a term explained above that means not only not-Greek but not of Greek origin as well.
Despite the desperate efforts to duplicate this Illyrian and/or Epirotic tribe in two
different ones, they were one and the same, and they were living in Epirus.
As for their territory, Pseudo-Skylaks when describing the Illyrian tribes writes:

Skylax is a the earliest, 6th B.C.E and the latest, mid-4th century
B.C.E.

15
ENGLISH translation

22. ILLYRIOI. And after Libyrnians are the Illyrian nation, and the
Illyrians live along beside the sea as far as Chaonia by Kerkyra, the island
of Alkinoös. And there is a Hellenic city here, which has the name
Herakleia, with a harbour. The barbarians called Lotus-eaters are the
following: Hierastamnai, Boulinoi (Hyllinoi), coterminous with Boulinoi the
Hylloi. And these say Hyllos son of Herakles settled them: and they are
barbarians. And they occupy a peninsula a little lesser than the
Peloponnese. And from peninsula parastonion* is upright: Boulinoi live
beside this. And Boulinoi are an Illyric nation. And the coastal voyage is
of the territory of Boulinoi of a long day up to Nestos river.

23. NESTIANS. And from Nestou the voyage is gulf-shaped. And all this gulf
is called Manios. And the coastal voyage is of one day. And there are in
this gulf islands, Proteras, Krateiai, Olynta. And these from one another
are distant 2 stades or a little more, by Pharos and Issa. For here is New
Pharos, a Hellenic island, and Issa island, and these are Hellenic cities.
Before sailing along-the-coast up to the Naron river, much territory extends
very much into the sea. And there is an island near the coastal territory,
which has the name Melite [Malta], and another island near this, which has
the name Kerkyra the Black: and this island runs out very much with one of
the promontories from the coastal territory, and with the other promontory
it comes down to the Naron river. And from Melite it is distant 20 stades,
and from the coastal territory it is distant 8 stades.

24. MANIANS. And from Nestians is the Naron river: and the voyage into the
Narona is not narrow: and even a trireme voyages into it, and boats into the
upper trading-town, being distant from the sea 80 stades. And these are
Illyrian by nation, the Manians. And there is a lake inland from the
trading-town, a great one, and the lake extends to Autariatai, an Illyric
nation. And there is an island in the lake of 120 stades: and this island is

16
very much well farmed. And from this lake the Naron river flows. And from
the Naron up to the Arion river is a day’s voyage: and from the Arion river
a voyage of a day’s half: and Kadmos’s and Harmonia’s stones are here, and a
sanctuary [not] far from the Rhizous river. And from the Rhizous river to
Bouthoë the voyage ** and the trading-town.

25. ENCHELEIS. A nation of Illyrians are the Encheleis, adjoining the

Rhizous. And out of Bouthoë to Epidamnos, Hellenic city, voyage of a day and
a night, and a road of three days.

26. TAULANTIOI. And of the Taulantians is the Illyric nation, in which

Epidamnos is, and a river flows beside the city which has the name Palamnos.
And out of Epidamnos to Apollonia, a Hellenic city, is a road of two days.
And Apollonia is distant from the sea 50 stades, and the river Aias flows
beside the city. And from Apollonia into Amantia is 320 stades. And the Aias
river from the Pindos Mountain flows beside Apollonia. [And] towards
[Amantia] inland, somewhat into the Ionian gulf is Orikos. It comes down
from Orikia to the sea 90 stades, and from Amantia 60 stades. Sharing a
border with all these in
the interior are Atintanes above Orikia and Karia*
as far as Dodonia. And in the Kestris territory is said to be a pedion, name
Erytheia. Here Geryones is said to come and pasture his oxen. By these
places are the Keraunian mountains in Epeiros, and there is an island beside
these places, a small one, which has the name Sason. From here to Orikos
city is a coastal voyage of a day’s third part.

27.[ORIKOI. And the Orikoi occupy of the Amanian territory.] And

the [Amantians], from Boulinoi as far as here, are Illyrians. And the mouth
of the Ionian gulf is from Keraunian mountains as far as cape Iapygia. And
up to Hydroëis city in Iapygia from the Keraunian mountains, the stades of
the voyage across are about 500, [which] is the mouth of the gulf: and the
places inside are the Ionian gulf. There are many harbours in the Adriatic:
and the same thing is the Adriatic and the Ionian.

28. CHAONES. [U]And after Illyrians, Chaonians. And Chaonia has good
harbours: and the Chaonians live in villages. And the coastal voyage of
Chaonia is a half of a day.

29. KORKYRA. And by Chaonia is an island, Korkyra, and a Hellenic city in

it, having three harbours by the city: of these the one is enclosed. And
Korkyra belongs also to Thesprotia more than Chaonia. And I return again
onto the mainland, whence I turned aside.

30. THESPROTIANS. And after Chaonia are the Thesprotian nation. And these
too live in villages: and this territory also has good harbours. Here is a
harbour, which has name Elaia. Into this the harbour the river Acheron
emits: and there is lake Acherousia, out of which the Acheron fiver flows.
And the coastal voyage of Thesprotias is a half of a day.

31. KASSOPIANS. And after Thesprotia is the nation Kassopia. And these too
live in villages. And these live beside as far as into the Anaktoric gulf.
And the coastal voyage of the Kassopians’ territory is a half of a day; and
the Anaktoric gulf is a little less from its mouth as far as into the inner
end, 120 stades. And the mouth has width 4 stades.

32. MOLOTTIA(MOLOSSIA). And after Kassopia are the Molottian nation. And
these live in villages: and they come down only a little here to the sea,
and largely into the interior. And the coastal voyage of Molottian territory
is of 40 stades.

Let us mark this on the map:

17
18
ATHAMANES
That was another Epirotic tribe who kept the extreme south-eastern position from all the
Epirus tribes. We won’t take for granted that they were barbaroi(non-Greek) since they
were Epirotes, not willing to fall not even in a minor speculation, and we know very little
about them, but we know very well that they were nowhere attested as Greeks.
Strabo is the first telling us that Athamanes were originally Epirotes but their country was
included in a later time within Thessaly:

Strabo 009.005.011
διὰ γὰρ τὴν ἐπιφάνειάν τε καὶ τὴν ἐπικράτειαν τῶν Θετταλῶν καὶ τῶν
Μακεδόνων οἱ πλησιάζοντες αὐτοῖς μάλιστα τῶν Ἠπειρωτῶν, οἱ μὲν ἑκόντες
οἱ δ' ἄκοντες, μέρη καθίσταντο Θετταλῶν ἢ Μακεδόνων, καθάπερ Ἀθαμᾶνες

19
καὶ Αἴθικες καὶ Τάλαρες Θετταλῶν, Ὀρέσται δὲ καὶ Πελαγόνες καὶ Ἐλιμιῶται
Μακεδόνων.
For both on account of the fame and of the predominance of the Thessalians and the
Macedonians, the countries of those Epeirotes who were their nearest neighbors were
made, some willingly and the others unwillingly, parts of Thessaly or Macedonia; for
instance, the Athamanes, the Aethices, and the Talares were made parts of Thessaly, and
the Orestae, the Pelagonians, and the Elimiotae of Macedonia

The same story was told from Stephanus Byzantinus(Στέφανος Βυζάντιος; fl. 6th
century) a later historian in his book Ethnica (Εθνικά). The only difference is that what is
Epirote from Strabo’s prospective seems to be Illyrian in the Stephanus Byzantinus’ one,
which is a huge indication that the names Epirote and Illyrian are variants of the same
name, where the former is just a local name for the later, considering the geography of
Epirus.

We might consider this quote a vague one to determine the exact Athamians’ ethnicity,
but combined with other quotes in their regard we might reach a reliable conclusion, that
their land had never been included within Greece proper, but most likely within Illyrians
(whose nationally is not willed to be shared with those of the Hellenes from Greek propaganda) or Thessalians
who originally were kindred of barbaric(non-Greek) Thessprotians, until Athamanians
ceased to exist by Strabo’s time(Strabo 9.4.11).

Let’s mark on the map the above conclusion:

20
As for the Thessaly(not the Thessaly in Peloponnesus) itself, is often wrongly considered
a Greek land only, but the truth is that other than geographicaly was nowhere suggested
that Thessalians to be Hellenes proper, their origin is well attested(from at least two
ancient sources) to be Thesprotian

Strabo book 9.443

In reality and as Herodotus also affirms, Thessalians were a branch of Thesprotians
thus Thessalians and Epirotans were kinsmen.

21
Velleius Paterculus, Roman History Book I.3.
The Achaeans, driven from Laconia, established themselves in those localities which they
occupy to- day. The Pelasgians migrated to Athens, and a warlike youth named
Thessalus, of the race of the Thesprotians, with a great force of his fellow-countrymen
took armed possession of that region, which, after his name, is now called Thessaly.
.

but also since antiquity Pelasgians and their branch Thracians(also Beotians a race founded from
the Phoenician Cadmus who was also the founder of the Illyric race).The general the name used to address
them was Pelasgiotis(Πελασγιῶτις), and whatever this name meant it didn’t mean strictly
and simply Greek at all, but was used for the people who never became part of the Greek
nation(whatever this concept means) mostly Thracians and Epirotes(Thesprotians) who
were well differentiated from the Hellenes..

Strabo, Geography, book 7. 7. 8

And again, of the Epeirotes, the Molossi became subject to Pyrrhus, the son of
Neoptolemus the son of Achilles, and to his descendants, who were Thessalians. But the
rest were ruled by men of native stock

So, for now I will mark Thessalia as a Pelasgian’s(Thracian) land what it really was and
called even when it had been geographically included within Hellas, for the mere reason
that Greece had been geographically considered to be the continuation of Pelasgia (in a
limited way), regardless the various different tribes of the Pelasgian universe living there
from all sorts and sizes.

22
A Pelasgian genus too is the following:

PERRHAEBIANS

We talked a lot about them in previous article(The credits belongs to the Pelasgians)
proving beyond any doubt that they were of the Pelasgian race.

23
STRABO, Book 9.5.20 (1)
AESCHYLUS, Suppliant, Women 234 (2)
APPIAN, The Foreign Wars ( The Illyrian Wars) Ill. 1.1 (3)

The exact limits location of their territory are determined from Strabo’s description(1)

Perrhaebians stead fast in war, who had established their homes round wintry Dodona,
{321} and dwelt in the fields about lovely Titaresius
&
…and also because, although the Lapiths held possession of the plains and the
Perrhaebian element there were for the most part subject to the Lapiths, the
Perrhaebians held possession of the more mountainous parts near Olympus and
Tempe, as, for example, Cyphus, and Dodona, and the region about the Titaresius; this
river rises in the Titarius Mountain, which connects with Olympus, and flows into the
territory of Perrhaebia which is near Tempe,……

24
25
This is a very ancient tribe, their existence at least since the Trojan War, has been attested
by Homerus himself

Homer Iliad 2.749-751

Γουνεὺς δ' ἐκ Κύφου ἦγε δύω καὶ εἴκοσι νῆας:

τῷ δ' Ἐνιῆνες ἕποντο μενεπτόλεμοί τε Περαιβοὶ
οἳ περὶ Δωδώνην δυσχείμερον οἰκί' ἔθεντο οἵ
τ' ἀμφ' ἱμερτὸν Τιταρησσὸν ἔργα νέμοντο

And Gouneus led from Cyphus two and twenty ships,

and with him followed the Enienes and the Perrhaebi,
staunch in fight, that had set their dwellings about wintry Dodona,
and dwelt in the ploughland about lovely Titaressus,

And of course being a tribe that was in existence at least 500 years before Hellenes and
their names to be filtered from the rest of the world, they Perrhaebians can not be regarded
as Hellenes at all, but their name stands portrayed as Pelasgiotis.
Let’s mark this Illyrian and/or Pelasgian tribe in the map.

26
In regard of the Perrhaebi, we find an interesting fact, although they are implied as
Hellenes from Greek propaganda, they failed to mark them on their original map:

27
and we find this unusual for a propaganda which self-educated itself with the reflexive
habit to mark as Greek or Greek-related any historical and pre-historical people or event.
Did they miss to mark Perrhaebi on their map?
No, if you take a look on their map they found time to mark cities such as Pambotis,
Astakos or Orraon which never played any role of great importance in the history of
Epirus but they failed to mark Perrhaebi. As usually for any Epirotic tribe who is attested
to be clearly Pelasgic and/or Illyrian like the case of Perrhaebi they follow the duplication
of its name tactics. They invented another tribe naming the same with the Illyrian
Perrhaebi, finding this as an alibi for their thesis. Even if we grant for now the pleasure to
consider Perrhaebi as a Hellenic tribe, they still didn’t mark them on the map. This is not
happening for the reason of amnesia, because if you look their map it’s been flood with
all kinds of unnecessary information. The real reason is that this Illyric tribe had been
living around the most important religious places such as Dodona and Olympus, making
null the pretenses that these places were Greek only worshiping ones. Evidently the
Hellenes of close Pelasgic origin were still worshiping the same places and Gods like the

28
other Pelasgic offspring races, such as Illyrians who not only shared the same religion
with Hellenes, but their Gods still had room in the most celebrated worship places such as
Olympus, even in the time(which came too late) when the division between Hellenes and
their forefathers Pelasgians(and the other offspring) was such radical that Hellenes were
portraying themselves a distinct race and they have established a distinct Gods’ pantheon.

ARISTOPHANES ”THE BIRDS”

PITHETAERUS
Ah! and since when, pray?

PROMETHEUS
Since you founded this city in the air. There is not a man who now
sacrifices to the gods, the smoke of the victims no longer reaches us.
Not the smallest offering comes! We fast as though it were the
festivall of Demeter. The barbarian gods, who are dying of hunger, are
bawling like Illyrians and threaten to make an armed descent upon
Zeus, if he does not open markets where joints of the victims are sold.

PITHETAERUS
What! there are other gods besides you, barbarian gods who dwell above Olympus?

PROMETHEUS
If there were no barbarian gods, who would be the patron of Execestides?

Nevertheless is another very important reason why Greek propaganda “forgot” to mark
the Perrhaebi in their own map. Perrhaebi who shared the name Pelasgiotis with the other
Pelasgians such as Thessalians and Lapithes, were located in a strategic line of division,
the line which divides Macedonians from the most northern Greek tribes, cutting in half
the presumed Hellenic continuity, and smashing in pieces the modern Greek pretenses
that the Macedonians belonged to the Hellenic race.

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30
(We will dedicate another article about the ethnicity of the Macedonians)

AMPILOCHIANS
This tribe was located in the most southern area of Epirus.

Strabo portraits them as Epirotes, and if we follow the Greek propaganda standards we
expect them to be Greeks, this based in their location too. It was not thinking so the father
of the “”greatest Greek ever” Alexander the Great, Philip II king of Macedonia:

POLYBIUS - 'THE RISE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE', HISTORIES Book XVIII.5

Ῥωμαίοις καὶ κελεύοντες ἐκχωρεῖν Μακεδόνας ἁπάσης τῆς Ἑλλάδος: τοῦτο γὰρ
ἀναφθέγξασθαι καὶ καθόλου μέν ἐστιν ὑπερήφανον, οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ Ῥωμαίων μὲν
λεγόντων ἀνεκτόν, Αἰτωλῶν δ' οὐκ ἀνεκτόν: ποίας δὲ κελεύετέ με" φησὶν " [8]
ἐκχωρεῖν Ἑλλάδος καὶ πῶς ἀφορίζετε ταύτην; αὐτῶν γὰρ Αἰτωλῶν οὐκ εἰσὶν Ἕλληνες οἱ
πλείους: τὸ γὰρ τῶν Ἀγραῶν ἔθνος καὶ τὸ τῶν Ἀποδωτῶν, ἔτι δὲ τῶν Ἀμφιλόχων, οὐκ
ἔστιν Ἑλλάς. [9] ἢ τούτων μὲν παραχωρεῖτέ μοι.

But the most outrageous part of their conduct is that they try to rival Rome, and bid me
entirely evacuate Greece! The demand in itself is sufficiently haughty and dictatorial:
still, in the mouths of Romans, it is tolerable, but in that of Aetolians quite intolerable.
'What is this Greece which you demand that I should evacuate, and what do you define
Greece? Certainly most of the Aetolians themselves are not Greeks!. The countries of
the Agraae, the Apodotea, and the Amphilochians cannot be regarded as Greeks. So do
you allow to me to remain in those territories.

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The surprise doesn’t come for the Amphilochians, since we already know from other
ancient sources that they were no Greeks, and learnt Greek language only during the
contacts with the Greek colonists of Ambracia, and not all of them:

Thucydides (Book 2.68)

68 ]Κατὰ δὲ τοὺς αὐτοὺς χρόνους, τοῦ θέρους τελευτῶντος, καὶ ᾿Αμπρακιῶται
αὐτοί τε καὶ τῶν βαρβάρων πολλοὺς ἀναστήσαντες ἐστράτευσαν ἐπ' ῎Αργος
τὸ ᾿Αμφιλοχικὸν καὶ τὴν ἄλλην ᾿Αμφιλοχίαν. ἔχθρα δὲ πρὸς τοὺς ᾿Αργείους
ἀπὸ τοῦδε αὐτοῖς ἤρξατο πρῶτον γενέσθαι. ῎Αργος τὸ ᾿Αμφιλοχικὸν καὶ
᾿Αμφιλοχίαν τὴν ἄλλην ἔκτισε μὲν μετὰ τὰ Τρωικὰ οἴκαδε ἀναχωρήσας καὶ
οὐκ ἀρεσκόμενος τῇ ἐν ῎Αργει καταστάσει ᾿Αμφίλοχος ὁ ᾿Αμφιάρεω ἐν τῷ
᾿Αμπρακικῷ κόλπῳ, ὁμώνυμον τῇ ἑαυτοῦ πατρίδι ῎Αργος ὀνομάσας (καὶ ἦν ἡ
πόλις αὕτη μεγίστη τῆς ᾿Αμφιλοχίας καὶ τοὺς δυνατωτάτους εἶχεν
οἰκήτορασ), ὑπὸ ξυμφορῶν δὲ πολλαῖς γενεαῖς ὕστερον πιεζόμενοι
᾿Αμπρακιώτας ὁμόρους ὄντας τῇ ᾿Αμφιλοχικῇ ξυνοίκους ἐπηγάγοντο,
καὶ ἡλληνίσθησαν τὴν νῦν γλῶσσαν τότε πρῶτον ἀπὸ τῶν
᾿Αμπρακιωτῶν ξυνοικησάντων· οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι ᾿Αμφίλοχοι βάρβαροί εἰσιν.

the surprise comes for the Aetolians who are propagandized so badly as Greeks.
Now let’s include in one map everything we proved with direct and reliable quotes:

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There is nothing Greek in Illyria and its geographical division Epirus, beside some
colonies:
And since we are talking about Epirus, there was only two of them with Greek
colonists(not natives), Ambracia and Corcyra which was build in the Corcyra island
originally inhabited by the Illyrian Liburnians.
Almost all ancient authors who described Epirus were stressing the term Hellenic
polises(urbes-lat.) for the Greek colonies in Epirus and Illyria, a term that wouldn’t be
necessary to use if Epirus was a Greek land.
Epirus is a geographical term, and opposed to the general idea does not have ethnic
implication in its meaning, when we talk about ancient times. It was inhabited from a
series of Illyrian and Thracian tribes and Greek colonies, people who had in common the
same origin and was sharing the same language who is regarded today as Greek but was
in fact the language of all these people, and if we name it: Pelasgian, we don’t fall in big

33
mistake, although the wrong idea spread from Greek propaganda that this race was living
only in Greece before the arrival of Greeks.
What is special about Epirus and Epirotes is that otherwise from the name Illyrians and
Hellenes their name never disappeared, as Albanian hero portraits his race[ in a letter send
as a response to the Prince of Taranto who was trying to humiliate Scanderbeg’s people(Albanians)
comparing them to sheep]:

Probably the ideologists of Greek propaganda are wishing that his chronicles were lying,
but unfortunately for them and their hopes, all the Latin literature is giving the same
meaning Epirotes and Albanians using interchangeably these name as alternatives of
different times, that of the past Epirotes, and that of the present Albanians .
In any Encyclopedia or Dictionary:

34
Which correspond with the time of Greek state creation

35
English
Epirus today called Albania

or

36
Dictionarium Latino Epiroticum, per R.D. Franciscum Blanchum,
Romae: Typis Sac.Congr.de Propag. Fide. 1635

In any map
Map 1600 AD

37
English
Epirus called Albania today.

38
English
Epirus called Albania today

39
In any book dedicated to the Albanian heroes

40
41
or in any Italian book about them:

42
In any translation of the ancient authors (like this book of Pliny the Elder)

from the translator Lodovico Domenichi in the year 1515 AD, the text written from Pliny
the Elder taken from his book III chapter 26/23

in any medieval book where is written about Epirus:

43
44
Book, year 1581

And most importantly this connection is demonstrated spontaneously from anyone other
than Albanians. The accusation against so called “Albanian propaganda” is false and
ridiculous. There is no Albanian propaganda; no nationalistic movement was in existence

45
when Scanderbeg recognized Albanians as Ancient Epirotes and claimed Pyrrhus and
Alexander the Great as their ancestors:

Moreover, you scorned our people, and compared the Albanese

to sheep, and according to your custom think of us with insults.
Nor have you shown yourself to have any knowledge of my
race. My elders were from Epirus, where this Pyrrhus came
from, whose force could scarcely support the Romans. This
Pirro, who Taranto and many other places of Italy held back
with armies.
I do not have to speak for the Epiroti. They are very much
stronger men than your Tarantini, a species of wet men who
are born only to fish. If you want to say that Albania is part of
Macedonia I would concede that a lot more of our ancestors
were nobles who went as far as India under Alexander the
Great and defeated all those peoples with incredible difficulty.
From those men come these who you called sheep. But the
nature of things is not changed. Why do your men run away in
the faces of sheep?

That was a time when everyone was running way in the faces of the martial race of
Albanians, now it is the time for us to talk about that past and to clear things up from the
dust of the oblivion, because we won’t tolerate the Modern Greeks and philhellenes to
hijack our history, land and heroes. We won’t tolerate people of our own race who pose
themselves as Hellenes, a term that they never heard about before 19th century, to claim
Epirus a Greek land and Epirotes as Hellenes. We won’t stop arguing against these
people, named Hellenes today, a term that they hardly know the meaning, people who
find harmonious their reconstruction of history through lies and science. They are asking
a little too much from history and heroes, they are stressing out a little too much false
Greek superiority, based on the myths of the past, making capital on something not only
unreal but evidently not theirs. We are incapable to make propaganda because we don’t
need to, we are not ignorant as they sometime label our reaction regarding history, but we
don’t want to base our argument in lies and distorting as they do, and if they want to take
some knowledge of our common interpretation and political behavior about the ancient
history, I will bring a quote from that time:

An Athenian once told a Spartan that the people of Sparta were ignorant.

"What you say is true," the Spartan replied. "We have learned none of your evil ways."

We will face your evil ways and arguments with well-based arguments and real facts, and
a time will come that you will run way as sheep in our faces. This is just the beginning
for your run, not

THE END

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Prepared and written by Zeus10
In collaboration with AlbpelAsgiAn, and socio and
MAllAkAstrioti
helped by pirro, Arber, ArtA etc.
Video prepared by MAllAkAstrioti

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Homer, Iliad
2. Homer, Odyssey
3. Strabo, Geography
4. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War,
5. Pausanias, Description of Greece
6. Euripide, Orestes
7. Scymnus of Chios
8. Stephanus Byzantinus, Ethnica (Εθνικά).
9. AESCHYLUS, Suppliant,
10. APPIAN, The Foreign Wars
11. ARISTOPHANES ”THE BIRDS
12. POLYBIUS - 'THE RISE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE', HISTORIES
13. Prosodia Italiana ovvero L’Arte con L’uso degli accenti Nella Volgar Favella D’Italia,
Venecia 1820
14. The History of George Castriot, Surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albanie, London 1596
15. Pliny the Elder, translated by Lodovico Domenichi in the year 1515 AD
16. Descrittione Di Tvtta L’Italia, 1581
17. The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume III, Part III, The Expansion of the Greek World,
Eighth to Sixth Centuries B.C
18. The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume III, Part I, The Prehistory of the Balkans; and the
Middle East and the Aegean world, tenth to eighth centuries B.C
19. Singing for the Gods, Performances of Myth and Ritual in Archaic and Classical Greece

Dedicated to our parents and to all those intellectuals who worked so

hard that the name Epirus and Epirotes not to be confused and
manipulated, but to be used and revived where it originally belongs to,
ALBANIA.

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