Apollonia and Epidamnos - parts of Illyria
Date: Wednesday, June 21 @ 15:22:49 UTC
Topic: Albanian Heritage
Apollonia in Illyria (modern Albania), known as Apollonia (κατ' Εριδαμνον or προς Εριδαμνω), was
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The Theatre, Apollonia
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located on the right bank of the Aous, the ruins of which are situated in the Fier region, near the village of Pojan (Pojani), geographically located at 40°43′N 19°28′E. It was founded in 588 BCE by Greek colonists from Kerkyra (Corfu) and Corinth, and was perhaps the most important of the several classical towns known as Apollonia. The site was already used by Corinthian traders and the Taulantii, an Illyrian tribe, who remained closely involved with the settlement for centuries and lived alongside the Greek colonists. The city was said to have originally been named Gylaceia after Glyax, its founder, but the name was later changed to honour the god Apollo.
Aristoteles considered Apollonia an important example of an oligarchic system, as the descendants of the Greek colonists controlled the city and prevailed over a large serf population of majority Illyrian origin. The city grew rich on the slave trade and local agriculture, as well as its large harbour, said to have been able to hold a hundred ships at a time. Apollonia, like Dyrrachium further north, was an important port on the Illyrian coast as the most convenient link between Brundusium and northern Greece, and as one of the western starting points of the Via Egnatia leading east to Thessaloniki and Byzantium in Thrace. It had its own mint, stamping coins that have been found as far away as the basin of the Danube.
The city was for a time included among the dominions of Pyrrhus of Epirus. In 229 BC it came under the control of the Roman Republic, to which it was firmly loyal; it was rewarded in 168 BC with booty seized from Gentius, the defeated king of Illyria. In 148 BC Apollonia became part of the Roman province of Macedonia, later being incorporated into the province of Epirus. In the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar it supported the latter, but fell to Marcus Iunius Brutus in 48 BC. The later Roman emperor Augustus studied in Apollonia in 44 BC under the tutelage of Athenodorus of Tarsus; it was there that he received news of Caesar's murder.
Apollonia flourished under Roman rule and was noted by Cicero in his Philippics as magna urbs et gravis, a great and important city. Its decline began in the 3rd century AD, when an earthquake changed the path of the Vjosa river, causing the harbour to silt up and the inland area to become a malaria-ridden swamp. Christianity was established in the city at an early stage, and bishops from Apollonia were present during the Council of Ephesus (431) and the Council of Chalcedon (451). However, the city became increasingly uninhabitable as the inland swamp expanded and the nearby settlement of Vlora became dominant. By the end of antiquity the city was largely depopulated, hosting a small Christian community which built the 13th century Monastery and Church of Shėn Mėri (the Virgin Mary).
Monastery and Church of Shėn Mėri, ApolloniaThe city seems to have sunk with the rise of Vlora. It city was "rediscovered" by European classicists in the 18th century, though it was not until the Austrian occupation of 1916-1918 that the site was investigated by archaologists. Their work was continued by a French team between 1924-1938. Parts of the site were damaged during the Second World War. After the war, an Albanian team undertook further work from 1948 onwards, although much of the site remains unexcavated to this day. Some of the team's archeological discoveries are on display within the monastery, and other artefacts from Apollonia are in the capital Tirana. Unfortunately, during the anarchy that followed the collapse of the communist regime in 1990, the archeological collection was plundered. The ruins were also frequently dug up by plunderers for relics to be sold to collectors abroad.
The monastery of Pollina stands on a hill which probably is part of the site of the old city.
Epidamnos or Dyrrachim
The Greek city of Epidamnos (Strabo Geography vi.316), later the Roman Dyrrachium (modern Durrės, Albania, ca. 30 km W of Tirana) was founded in 627 BC in Illyria by a group of colonists from Corinth and Corcyra (modern Corfu). Aristotle's Politics several times draws for examples on the internal government of Epidamnos, which was run as a tight oligarchy that appointed a ruling magistrate; tradesmen and craftsmen were excluded from power, until internal strife produced a more democratic government. Then the elite exiles appealed to the mother-city Corinth, initiating a struggle between Corcyra and Corinth that is described by Thucydides. Individual trading with the local Illyrians was forbidden at Epidamnos: all traffic was through the authorized city agent or poletes. In the 4th century BC the city-state was part of the kingdoms of Cassander and Pyrrhus.
In 229 BC, when the Romans seized the city the "-damnos" part of the name was inauspicious to Latin ears, and its name became Dyrrhachium. Pausanias (6.x.8) says "the modern [Roman] city is not the ancient one, being at a short distance from it. The modern city is called Dyrrhachium from its founder." The name Dyrrachion is found on coins of the 5th century BC; in the Roman period Dyrrachium was more common. However, the city maintained a semi-autonomy and was turned into a Roman colony.
Dyrrachium was the landing place for Roman passengers crossing the Ionian Sea from Brundisium, which made it a fairly busy way-station. Here commenced the Via Egnatia, the Roman military road to Thessalonica that connected Roman Illyria with Macedonia and Thrace. In 48 BC Pompey was based at Dyrrachium and beat off an attack by Julius Caesar (see Battle of Dyrrhachium). In 345 BC the city was levelled by an earthquake and rebuilt on its old foundations.
The modern city is built directly over the ancient site, so it is primarily on the basis of inscriptions and serendipitous finds that some idea of its monuments has been formed. Inscriptions offer evidence on the following Roman monuments: an aqueduct constructed by Hadrian and restored by Alexander Severus bears a dedicatory inscription at Arapaj, a short distance from Durazzo: (CIL III, 1-709); the Roman temple of Minerva; the Temple of Diana (CIL III, 1-602), which is perhaps the one mentioned by Appian (BCiv. 2.60); the equestrian statue of L. Titinius Sulpicianus (CIL III, 1-605); the library (CIL m, 1-67). The last inscription mentions that for the dedication of the library 24 gladiators fought in pairs. The conjecture that there was an amphitheater in the city is confirmed by a passage from the 15th-century Vita di Skanderbeg by Marin Barleti: "amphitheatrum mira arte ingenioque constructum".
As a result of occasional discoveries, the following data are available: a 3d century mosaic pavement with a female head surrounded by garlands of vegetables and flowers, which brings to mind those painted on Apulian vases; remains of houses covered by other layers, the lowest of which, of the Greek era, was found at a depth of 5 m.
Columns with Corinthian capitals and sections of finished marble revetment, discovered on the nearby hillside at Stani, belong probably to the Temple of Minerva or to the Capitolium. In the necropolis east of the hills that stand above the city have been found a stele of Lepidia Salvia, a sarcophagus with a scene of the Calydonian Boar hunt (now at Istanbul), and numerous Roman tombs.
Classiclady June 21, 2006
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