Epirus on the right hand, from the Illyrian mountains and their inhabitants on the left.*

The different tribes of this Illyrian nation who occupied all the mountainous tracts behind the coast of the Adriatic, as well as many parts of the sea-coast itself, reaching northward from the neighbourhood of Epidamnus to the extreme corner of the Adriatic, where the Veneti, themselves included in the number, have still left their name, are mentioned by several writers, who are, for the most part, agreed in their enumeration.

The earliest writer who has left any detailed account of the nations inhabiting the coasts of the Adriatic is Scylax. "Next to the Heneti," says this writer, "in whose country is the river Eridanus, are the Istri or Istriani, and the river Istros, which flows into the Pontus by seven mouths." It does not appear why Scylax connected the Istri, who occupied the peninsula of Istria below Trieste, with the river Danube, from which they were far remote. The Istri are mentioned by Scymnus Chius, who terms them Thracians. It is possible that they may have been a Thracian colony from the Danube, but we have no further information respecting them. "Next to the Istri," continues Scylax," succeeds a nation termed the Liburni, to whom the following cities of the coast belong: Lias, Idassa, Attienates, Diyrta, Alapsi, Olsi, Petetæ, Hemioni. The Liburni are subject to the government of women. Opposite to the coast of the Liburni are several islands, and the river Catarbates here falls into the sea. The Liburni, a people famous for their shipping and light craft, are mentioned, as we have seen, by Pliny, as inhabiting likewise the opposite coast of Italy, where, in conjunction with the Siculi, they held possession of many tracts below Ancona.‡

Next to the Liburnians Scylax places the Illyrians properly so termed. That the nations already enumerated were of the Illyrian race has been inferred from the declaration of Herodotus regarding the Heneti, and from the testimony

* Strab. lib. vii. p. 323.

+ Scymnus Chius, v. 390. Ενετῶν ἔχονται Θρᾷκες Ιστριοι λεγόμενοι. Plin. H. N. iii. 14.

of Strabo, that the Iapodes who afterwards were masters of the Liburnian coast were a mixed race, descended from Celtic people intermingled with the Illyrian, that is, with the Liburnian inhabitants of the district. Scylax then enumerates several nations of the Illyrian race, as he expressly declares, giving to some of them the additional epithet of barbarians. He says that all the sea-coast from the Liburnian to the Chaonian territory, which last reaches towards Corcyra or the island of Alcinous, belonged to Illyrian nations: such were the Lotophagi, so termed, the Hierastamuæ, Palini, Hyllini, the Nesti, the Manii, the Autariatæ, the Enchelei, and the Illyrians properly so termed, in whose territory was the Greek city of Epidamnus."* The name of this tribe, as we learn from Thucydides, was Taulantii. The Oricii and

Amantini succeed, and here we come to the Keraunian mountains, opposite the Iapygian promontory: this is the entrance of the Adriatic, here separated from the outer Ionian Sea. The next nation are the Chaones, distinct, according to Scylax, from the Illyrian nations.

We find a still more limited meaning given to the name of Illyrians by Pomponius Mela, who seems, as M. Zeuss observes, to have derived his account from old documents. He says, describing the Illyrian tribes from the southward, "Partheni et Dassaretæ prima tenent; sequentia Taulantii et Phæaces. Deinde sunt quos proprie Illyrios vocant: tum Pyræi et Liburni et Istrii.”+ And Pliny, probably from the same authority, "Proprieque dicti Illyrii et Taulantii et Pyræi." These southern Illyrians, who were Illyrians in a stricter sense, are likewise termed Illyrians by Livy, to the exclusion of all other tribes of the same class; and their king Gentius, whose capital was Scodra, is styled "rex Illyriorum."§

Strabo in a decisive manner distinguishes the most powerful tribes of the three races who had occupied territories in the space between the Danube and the Adriatic. Among the Celtic nations who had introduced themselves in a compara

* Scylax Caryandens. Periplus, apud Hudson, p. vi. et seqq, † Mela, lib. ii. 3. Plin. Hist. Nat. iii. c. 23.

§ Tit. Liv. xliv.

tively late period into that region, he specifies the Boii and the Scordisci; among the Thracians, the Triballi; among the Illyrian nations, the Autariatæ, and the Ardiæi, and the Dardanii.* He places the Ardiæi on the river Naron, opposite the island of Pharos. The other two nations were on the frontier of the Illyrian country towards the east and south. The Dardanic territory, he says, borders on the Macedonian nation, and on the Pæonians towards the south. "Among the Dardaniats are likewise the Gulabrians, in whose land there is an ancient city; as also the Thunatæ, bordering on the Mædi, a Thracian people, towards the east."+ In another passage he mentions the Thracian tribe of Bessi as adjoining Mount Rhodope and the Pæonian country, and as neighbours of the Illyrian tribes termed Autariatæ and Dardanii.

In all these accounts, to which we might add those of Pausanias, we find the Illyrians clearly distinguished as a separate nation, or rather groupe of nations, both from the Thracians and the Epirots.

To the southward of the Illyrian nations were the tribes termed by Strabо—'Hπeiρwτikα ¿0vn, Epirotic nations—who inhabited a belt of mountainous country, stretching eastward from the Ionic Sea to the borders of Thessaly and Macedonia, and cutting off the Illyrian nations who bordered on it towards the north and the left hand from the Greeks, who were to the southward or on the right hand. The coast of this country. had a considerable extent, reaching from the Acroceraunia, which was its northern extremity, as far to the southward as the shore opposite Corcyra, and to the commencement of Acarnania, which was a part of Greece. Strabo makes the Ambracian gulf the southern limit of the Epirotic coast. To the left hand, he says, of one entering this gulf are the

Strabo says that the Grecian tribes adjoining the country of the Epirots and the Illyrians are the Acarnanes, Ætoli, Locri Ozolæ, Phocenses, and Baotians, who are all situated opposite Peloponnesus on the other side of the Corinthian gulf. (Lib. viii p. 332.) He evidently considers all these nations as Greeks.

Cassopæi, who are Epirots; to the right hand, the Athamanes, who are Greeks.* Above these, namely the Cassiopæi, were the Amphilochi, who were also reckoned among the Epirotic nations. To the same race are referred likewise by Strabo the Molossi, the Athamanes, the Aethices, the Tymphæi, the Orestæ, the Paroræi, and the Atintanes. Some of these are near the borders of Macedonia, towards the interior; others bordering on the Ionian Sea. Theopompust enumerated fourteen Epirotic nations; of these the Chaones and the Molossi were, according to him, the most noble. The Chaones had dominion over all the Epirot tribes, and after them the Molossi. Both these nations were governed by princes of the family of the acide; and the Molossi especially obtained influence by means of the oracle of Dodona, which was in their territory.‡

It seems that the Epirotic tribes were borderers on the northern Greeks, who occupied the narrow tract of mountainous country beyond the Corinthian gulf. The Acarnanians, the Etolians, Locrians, Phocians were the tribes in this region who claimed the Hellenic name. The Epirots were clearly distinguished as barbaric or semi-greek nations. Nor were they Pelasgi. The Chaones however were said by several writers, and by Aristotle in a passage already cited, to have been closely allied to the Oenotri on the opposite side of the Adriatic, and it is not improbable that the nations of Epirus may have been more nearly akin to the Italic nations than to the Greeks.

SECTION V. Further Inquiries into the History of the Thracian and Illyrian Races. Of the Nations who are supposed to be descended from them, namely, the Wallachs and the Albanians or Skipetares.

Paragraph 1.-Observations on the history of the Thracian language.

It appears from a passage of the Gothic historian Jornandes,

that the Thracian language was yet extant in his time. The Bessi, a Thracian tribe who inhabited Mount Hæmus, spoke in the age of that writer a peculiar idiom, in which they termed the Danube by its original name of Istros, probably derived by the ancient Greeks from the Thracians who dwelt upon its banks.*

Before the age of Trajan it is probable that the Thracian language was spoken throughout Dacia by the descendants of the ancient Getæ, who, as we have seen, were a Thracian people; but after the establishment of the province of Dacia it gave way to the idiom of the Roman colonists, and was finally extinguished by the invading nations, chiefly of Slavic origin, who permanently occupied the countries between the Danube and Mount Hæmus. The only specimens to be discovered of this ancient language are in the names of men and places, and in particular words scattered through the works of the classical writers or preserved by lexicographers, such as Suidas and Hesychius. On these data, scanty as they are, some opinions have been founded by modern writers as to the affinity of the Thracians with several nations of antiquity with whom they may be conjectured to have been allied in origin and in language.‡

* Jornandes de Rebus Get. c. 12.

+ Adelung has collected many such words and terminations of words. See Mithridates, ii. p. 344. He cites Apuleius de Herbis, and the Interpolator of Dioscorides. He observes, that the proper name of Cotys is found among Cimmerians, Thracians, Paphlagonians, and Lydians, and Cotiso among the Getæ. Names ending in cetes, in the feminine ceta, occur among Thracians, Getes, and Bithynians, as Doricetes, Miltocetes, Smethices, Deliceta, Etazeta. No ending occurs more frequently in local names among all the nations supposed to be allied to the Thracians than those of issa, essus, assa. That of dava occurs among the Getes, Mosians, and Illyrians, from which the proper Thracians have dama. Taba in the Lydian language meant "rock" or "hill." Thunmann has pointed out two places in the Illyrian territory bearing this Thracian termination in dava, namely, Thermidava, near Scodra, in Ptolemy, and Quemedava, in the Dardanian territory, mentioned by Procopius.

In particular it has been inferred that the ancient Cimmerians and their supposed descendants the Tauri of Herodotus, and the people subject to the kings of the Cimmerian Bosphorus, among whom the Thracian names of Cotys, Rhescuporis, Rhæmetalces, Masades, Berisades, Medosades are found, were of Thracian origin. See Cary's Hist. des Rois du Bosphore Cimmérien; and Adelung, Mithridat. th. ii. p. 352. et seqq.