"The Greeks call those people Illyrians who occupy the region beyond Macedonia and Thrace from Chaonia and Thesprotia to the river Ister (Danube). This is the length of the country. Its breadth is from Macedonia and the mountains of Thrace to Pannonia and the Adriatic and the foot-hills of the Alps. Its breadth is five days' journey and its length thirty -- so the Greek writers say. The Romans measured the country and found its length to be upward of 6000 stades and its width about 12002 APPIAN, The Foreign Wars ( The Illyrian Wars) Ill. 1.1 "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, [6] 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. [7] There were also a thousand Macedonians sent by Perdiccas without the knowledge of the Athenians, but they arrived too late." Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 2.80.1 "Now Hecataeus of Miletus says of the 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: Pelops {395} brought over peoples {396} from Phrygia to the Peloponnesus that received its name from him; and Danaüs {397} from Egypt; whereas the Dryopes, the Caucones, the Pelasgi, the Leleges, and other such peoples, apportioned among themselves the parts that are inside the isthmus--and also the parts outside, for Attica was once held by the Thracians who came with Eumolpus, {398} Daulis in Phocis by Tereus, {399} Cadmeia {400} by the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus, and Boeotia itself by the Aones and Temmices and Hyantes. According to Pindar, there was a time when the Boeotian tribe was called Syes. {401} {402} Moreover, the barbarian origin of some is indicated by their names--Cecrops, Godrus, Aïclus, Cothus, Drymas, and Crinacus. 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 Thesproti, the Cassopaei, the Amphilochi, the Molossi, and the Athamanes--Epeirotic tribes." Strabo- Book 7.7.1 And what," he said, "is that Greece from which you order me to withdraw, and how do you define Greece? For most of the Aetolians themselves are not Greeks. No! the countries of the Agraae, the Apodotae, and the Amphilochians are not Greece. 9 Do you give me permission to remain in those countries?" Polybius The Histories Fragments of Book XVIII, 4 "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 very much well farmed. And from this lake the Naron river flows. And from the Naron up to the Arion river is a days voyage: and from the Arion river [up to the Rhizous river] a voyage of a days half: and Kadmoss and Harmonias 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." Scylax of Caryanda

• published: 21 Jan 2010
• views: 5945