Travels in Greece and Albania

THE difficulty of collecting any accurate information respecting the history of Ioannina has been acknowledged by all travellers who have endeavoured to investigate it. Neither in its origin, nor in its early progress towards grandeur, was it of consequence enough to engage the particular attention of historians; who merely mention it casually, and in a very unsatisfactory manner. Many historical documents however are said to have once existed among the archives of the city; but I was informed that all or greatest part of them had been destroyed by Mahomet Effendi, Ali's prime minister, to show his sovereign contempt for the literature of the Franks. I paid a visit to that extraordinary character for the purpose of rescuing, if possible, some of these records from destruction; but he put me off with a declaration that he had none at all in his possession: the vizir himself had no better success, though he condescended to

VOL. II.

VIEW OF THE DIFFERENT NATIONS

make a personal application to the minister in my behalf. Just before we left Ioannina however I was fortunate enough to procure some extracts made at various times by a learned and respectable Greek gentleman, before the originals came into Mahomet's possession. To these and the Byzantine historians, after the classic authors fail, I am indebted for the following concise history.

In very early ages Epirus was inhabited by fourteen semibarbarous nations, intermingled with Grecian colonies. North of these lay the still more savage Illyrians, with whom the Epirotic tribes became insensibly intermingled.* They were long defended from invaders by their own. valour and the lofty chains of mountains which intersect their rugged country, and which prevented the Greeks from subduing them. In process of time the Molossi first emerged from the state of surrounding barbarism; Tharyps, a patriotic prince, improving both their manners and language: Philip king of Macedonia raised them into notice by his union with Olympias, sister of Alexander their sovereign, and Pyrrhus spread around them the glory of martial exploits and military skill. Before this time however the Illyrian provinces had been united, though with no very firm bond, to the Macedonian dynasty, under which they remained till the defeat of Perseus but the period approached when the Romans, those inveterate enemies of every thing great, and noble, and free in other nations, took a severe revenge for the invasion of Pyrrhus: after various and cruel ravages in the Illyrian, Ætolian, and Macedonian wars, the whole country was laid waste by the Consul Æmilius Paulus, whose fierce army sacked seventy cities, sold 150,000 of the wretched inhabitants into slavery, overthrew their

̓Αναμέμικται δὲ τούτοις τὰ Ἰλλυρικὰ ἔθνη, &c. Strab. l. vii. p. 502.

WHO HAVE INHABITED EPIRUS.

walls, and left them in a state of ruin which at this day attests the fury of those inhuman conquerors.

The Epirotic nations were thenceforward governed by Roman prefects, Macedonia being divided into four distinct provinces, called Macedonia the First, Second, Third, and Fourth; in which latter were comprised the Illyrian tribes. Under the reign of Constantine the Great, Illyricum and Epirus were comprised in the province of Pannonia and governed by an officer with the appellation of vice-prefect. In the division of the empire after the death of Constantine, Illyricum Macedonia and Greece, with Italy and Africa, acknowledged the sovereignty of Constans his youngest son, who put his elder brother to death and seized upon the throne of Constantinople: after his own murder by Magnentius, the veteran general Vetranio, who had been governor of the Illyrian provinces, usurped the purple. Epirus, with the rest of Greece, appears to have benefited by the taste and liberality of Julian, who repaired many of its cities, especially Nicopolis, where he celebrated and restored the Actian games.

No ravages which these countries suffered since the days of Æmilius Paulus, are to be compared with those inflicted on them by Alaric near the end of the fourth century, when he retreated from Peloponnesus: through

When Augustus separated the provinces into Imperial, and Prætorian or Senatorial, he left amongst the latter class Macedonia and Illyria, with Epirus, which, conjointly with Acarnania, Ætolia, Thessaly, and the rest of Grecia Propria, formed the province of Achaia. (Dion Cass. l. iii. § 12.) Tiberius took Macedonia and Achaia into the number of Imperial provinces; (Tac. Ann. l. i. c. 76,) but they were restored again to the senate by Claudius. (Sueton. c. 25.)

+ Rome and Constantinople at this time were governed by prefects, under whom vice-prefects administered justice in the provinces. Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 109. Pancirolus, p. 161. Cod. Justin. 1. xii. tit. 56 and 57.

VIEW OF THE DIFFERENT NATIONS

the timid policy of the Byzantine court this Gothic general was himself created prefect of Illyricum, from whence he issued to plunder the fruitful plains of Italy. In the middle of the fifth century, under the contemptible reign of Theodosius the younger, these provinces were again afflicted by the scourge of war in the hands of Attila; nor did they suffer much less in the devastations of Genseric and his Vandals. Near the middle of the sixth century they were laid waste, with the rest of the European empire, by a terrible incursion of Huns or Bulgarians, so dreadful, says Gibbon, as almost to efface the memory of past inroads.

On the contraction of the Byzantine empire after the death of Heraclius, it was divided into districts called Themes, seventeen in Asia and twelve in Europe, one of which comprised old Epirus and Acarnania: but of all the barbarians which overran that part of the Empire now called European Turkey, none sent forth such immense and continual hordes as the Bulgarians. From the middle of the sixth century to the fall of Constantinople, this fierce people, continually issuing from the vast plains of Russia, Lithuania, and Poland, spread themselves over the finest provinces, sometimes defeated with terrible slaughter, at others obtaining settlements by force of arms or the weak policy of the emperors. They occupied large districts in Epirus and Illyricum, establishing their capital at Achris or Ochris, the ancient Lychnidus, to whose ruler, named Peter, the emperor Romanus gave the title of king, with his grand-daughter in marriage but this capital was in the beginning of the tenth century sacked and destroyed by Basil II., surnamed the Bulgarian-Killer,* who found there a treasure consisting of 10,000 pounds weight in gold; but his

« 前へ次へ »

ブックス

Travels in Greece and Albania, 第 2 巻