Epirus region: Encyclopedia II - Epirus region - History

Epirus region - History

Epirus region - Early settlement

Epirus has been occupied since Neolithic times, when hunters and shepherds inhabited the region and constructed large tumuli to bury their leaders. The tumuli had many similar characteristics to those later used by the Myceneans, suggesting a possible ancestral link between Epirus and the Mycenean civilisation. Certainly, Mycenean remains have been found at two ancient religious sites in the region, the Necromanteion (Oracle of the Dead) on the Acheron river, and the Oracle of Zeus at Dodona.

The Dorians invaded Greece via Epirus and Macedonia at the end of the 2nd millennium BC (circa 1100 BC-1000 BC), though the reasons for their migration are obscure. The region's original inhabitants were driven southward into the Greek mainland by the invasion and by the early 1st millennium BC three principal clusters of Greek-speaking tribes had emerged in Epirus. These were the Chaones of northwestern Epirus, the Molossians in the centre and the Thesprotes in the middle.

Epirus region - Epirus and ancient Greece

Unlike most other Greeks of the time, who lived in or around city-states such as Athens or Sparta, the Epirotes lived in small villages. Their region lay on the edge of the Greek world and was far from peaceful; for many centuries, it remained a frontier area contested with the Illyrian peoples of the Adriatic coast and interior. However, Epirus had a far greater religious significance than might have been expected given its geographical remoteness, due to the presence of the shrine and oracle at Dodona - regarded as second only to the more famous oracle at Delphi.

The Epirotes seem to have initially been regarded with some disdain by the Greeks of the south. The 5th century BC historian Thucydides describes them as "barbarians" and the only Epirotes regarded as truly Greek were the Aeacidae, who claimed to be descended from Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. Plutarch mentions an interesting cultural element of the Epirotes regarding Achilles. In his biography of king Pyrrhus, he claims that Achilles "had a divine status in Epirus and in the local dialect he was called Aspetos" (Pyrrhus, 1, 3-4). The Aeacidae established the Molossian dynasty, who built a state in Epirus from about 370 BC onwards, expanding their power at the expense of rival tribes. The Molossians allied themselves with the increasingly powerful kingdom of Macedon and in 359 BC the Molossian princess Olympias, niece of Arybbas of Epirus, married King Philip II of Macedon. She was to become the mother of Alexander the Great.

On the death of Arybbas, Alexander of Epirus succeeded to the throne and the title King of Epirus. Aeacides of Epirus, who succeeded Alexander, espoused the cause of Olympias against Cassander, but was dethroned in 313 BC. His son Pyrrhus came to throne in 295 BC, and for six years fought against the Romans in southern Italy and Sicily. His campaigns gave Epirus a new, but brief, importance and a lasting contribution to the language with the concept of a "Pyrrhic victory".

In the 3rd century BC Epirus remained a substantial power, unified under the auspices of the Epirote League as a federal state with its own parliament (or synedrion). However, it was faced with the growing threat of the expansionist Roman Republic, which fought a series of wars with Macedonia. The League remained neutral in the first two Macedonian Wars but split in the Third Macedonian War (171 BC-168 BC), with the Molossians siding with the Macedonians and the Chaones and Thesproti siding with Rome. The outcome was disastrous for Epirus; Molossia fell to Rome in 167 BC, 150,000 of its inhabitants were enslaved and the region was so thoroughly plundered that it took 500 years for central Epirus to recover fully.

Epirus region - Roman and Byzantine rule

The Roman invasion permanently ended the political independence of the Epirotes. In 146 BC Epirus became part of the province of Roman Macedonia, receiving the name Epirus vetus, to distinguish it from Epirus nova to the east. Its coastal regions grew wealthy from the Roman coastal trade routes, and the contruction of the Via Egnatia provided a further boost to prosperity.

Epirus became the westernmost province of the Eastern Roman Empire (subsequently the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire), ruled from Constantinople when the empire was divided in two in 395 AD. When Constantinople fell to the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Michael Angelos Komnenos Ducas seized Aetolia and Epirus to establish an independent Despotate of Epirus. The rulers of the Despotate controlled a substantial area corresponding to a large swathe of northwestern Greece, much of modern Albania and parts of the modern Republic of Macedonia.

In 1318 Epirus was overrun by Serbs and Albanians in one of a series of uprisings. Following another Albanian uprising in 1359, in which the Despot Nicephorus II was killed, the Byzantines re-established a measure of control of the despotate by making it a vassal state. However, in 1430 the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Murad II annexed Epirus.

Epirus region - Epirus under the Ottomans

Ottoman rule proved particularly damaging in Epirus; the region was subjected to deforestation and excessive cultivation, which damaged the soil and drove many Epirotes to emigrate to escape the region's pervasive poverty. Nonetheless, the Ottomans did not enjoy total control of Epirus. In 1443 George Kastrioti Skenderbeg revolted against the Ottoman Empire and conquered Northern Epirus, but on his death it fell to Venice. The Ottomans expelled the Venetians from almost the whole area in the late 15th century.

In the 18th century, as the power of the Ottomans declined, Epirus became a virtually independent region under the despotic rule of Ali Tepelenë (known as Ali Pasha), an Albanian brigand who became the provincial governor of Ioannina in 1788. At the height of his power, he controlled much of western Greece, the Peloponnese and Albania. Ali Pasha's campaigns to subjugate the confederation of the Souli settlements is a well known incident of his rule. His forces met fierce resistance by the proud Greek warriors of the mountainous area. After numerous failed attempts to defeat the Souliotes, his troops succeeded in conquering the area in 1803. When the Greek War of Independence broke out, Ali tried to make himself an independent ruler, but he was deposed and murdered by Ottoman agents in 1822.

When Greece became independent, Epirus remained under Ottoman rule. However, the inhabitants of the region contributed greatly to the Greek War of Independence. Two of the founding members of the Filiki Eteria (secret patriotic society), Nikolaos Skoufas and Athanasios Tsakalov, came from the Arta area and the city of Ioannina respectively. Greece's first constitutional prime minister (1844-1847), Ioannis Kolettis, was a native of the Aromanian town of Syrrako in Epirus.

Epirus region - 20th century Epirus

The Treaty of Berlin of 1881 gave Greece parts of southern Epirus, but it was not until the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 that the rest of southern Epirus joined Greece. Northern Epirus was awarded to Albania by an international boundary commission, despite the presence of several Greek settlements in the region. This outcome was extremely unpopular in Greece, which regarded northern Epirus as terra irredenta.

When World War I broke out in 1914, Albania collapsed. Under a March 1915 agreement among the Allies, Italy seized northern Albania and Greece set up an autonomous Greek state of North Epirus in the southern part of the country. Although short-lived, the state of North Epirus managed to leave behind a number of historical records of its existence, including its own postage stamps; see Postage stamps and postal history of Epirus.

Although the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 awarded the area to Greece after World War I, political developments such as the Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War and, crucially, Italian lobbying in favour of its client state Albania meant that Greece could not sustain its claim to northern Epirus, and the area was finally ceded to Albania in 1924.

Italy occupied Albania in 1939 and in 1940 invaded Greece. The Italians were, however, driven back into Albania and Greece again took control of northern Epirus. The conflict, known as the Greco-Italian War, marked one of the first tactical victories of the Allies in World War II. Mussolini himself supervised the massive counter-attack of his divisions in spring 1941, only to be decisively defeated again by the poorly equipped, but determined, Greeks. Nazi Germany intervened in April 1941 to avert an embarrassing Italian defeat. The German military performed rapid military maneuvers through Yugoslavia and forced the encircled Greek forces to surrender.

The whole of Epirus was then placed under Italian occupation until 1943, when the Germans took over following the Italian surrender to the Allies. The highlands of Epirus became the major theatre of guerilla inter-fighting between the communist Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos (ELAS) and the republican Ethnikos Dimokratikos Ellinikos Syndesmos (EDES). Following the German withdrawal from Greece in 1944, the mountains of Epirus became the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the Greek Civil War. It was during this time that many Cham Albanians were forced out of Epirus, intitially by the forces of EDES and later by the greek government, as a reaction to the members of the Cham community collaborating with the Axis forces during the occupation of Greece.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki