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CHAPTER XLVI.
(46)
ILLYRIANS, MACEDONIANS, PAEONIANS.
Northward of the
tribes called Epirotic Uy those more numerous and
widely extended tribes who bore the general name of Illyrians;
bounded on the west by the Adriatic, on the east by the mountain-range of Skardus, the northern continuation of
Pindus,— and thus covering what is now called Middle and Upper Albania together with the more northerly mountains of Montenegro, Herzegovina, and Bosnia. Their
limits to the north and north-east cannot be assigned, but the Dardani and Autariatae must have reached to
the north-east of Skardus and even east of
the Servian plain of Kosovo; while along
the Adriatic coast, Skylax extends the race so far
northward as to include Dalmatia, treating the
Liburnians and Istrians beyond them as not Illyrian: yet Appian
and others consider the Liburnians and Istrians as Illyrian, and
Herodotus even includes under that name the Eneti, or
Veneti, at the extremity of
the Adriatic gulf. The Bulini,
according to Skylax, were the northernmost Illyrian
tribe: the Amantini, immediately northward of the
Epirotic Chaonians, were the Southernmost.
Among the southern Illyrian tribes are to be numbered
the Taulantii,— originally the possessors, afterwards
the immediate neighbors, of the territory on which Epidamnus was founded. The
ancient geographer Hecataeus (about 500 BC), is
sufficiently well acquainted with them to
specify their town Sesarethus: he also named the Chelidonii as their
northern, the Encheleis as their
southern neighbors; and the Abri also as
a tribe nearly adjoining. We hear of the
Illyrian Parthini, nearly in the same
regions,—of the Dassaretii, near Lake Lychnidus,—of
the Penestae, with a fortified town Uscana, north
of the Dassaretii,—of
the Ardiaeans, the Autariatae, and the
Dardanians, throughout Upper Albania eastward as far as Upper Moesia, including the range of Skardus itself; so that there
were some Illyrian tribes conterminous on the east with Macedonians, and on the
south with Macedonians as well as with
Paeonians. Strabo even extends some of the Illyrian tribes much farther
northward, nearly to the Julian Alps.
With
the exception of some portions of what is now called Middle Albania, the
territory of these tribes consisted principally of mountain
pastures with a certain proportion of fertile valley, but
rarely expanding into a plain. The Autariatae had the reputation
of being unwarlike, but the Illyrians generally were poor, rapacious,
fierce, and formidable in battle. They shared with the remote
Thracian tribes the custom of tattooing their bodies and of offering human sacrifices: moreover, they
were always ready to sell their military service
for hire, like the modern Albanian Shikipetars, in whom probably
their blood yet flows, though with considerable admixture from subsequent
emigrations. Of the Illyrian kingdom on the Adriatic coast, with
Skodra (Scutari) for its capital city, which became formidable by its reckless
piracies in the third century bc, we
hear nothing in the flourishing period of Grecian history. The description of Skylax notices in his day, all
along the northern Adriatic, a considerable and standing traffic between the
coast and the interior, carried on by Liburnians, Istrians, and the small
Grecian insular settlements of Pharus and Issa. But he does not name Skodra, and probably this
strong post—together with the Greek town Lissus, founded by Dionysius of
Syracuse—was occupied after his time by conquerors from the interior, the
predecessors of Agron and Gentius,—just as the coast-land of the Thermaic gulf was conquered by inland Macedonians.
Once
during the Peloponnesian war, a detachment of hired Illyrians, marching into
Macedonia Lyncestis (seemingly over the pass of Skardus a little east of Lychidnus,
or Ochrida), tried the valor of the Spartan Brasidas; and on that occasion—as
in the expedition above alluded to of the Epirots against Akarnania—we shall notice the marked
superiority of the Grecian character, even in the case of an armament chiefly
composed of helots newly enfranchised, over both Macedonians and Illyrians,—we
shall see the contrast between brave men acting in concert andobedience to a common authority, and an assailing host of
warriors, not less brave individually, but in which every man is his own
master, and fights as he pleases. The rapid and impetuous rush of the Illyrians,
if the first shock failed of its effect, was succeeded by an equally rapid
retreat or flight. We hear nothing afterwards respecting these barbarians until
the time of Philip of Macedon, whose vigor and military energy first repressed their incursions, and afterwards partially conquered them. It seems to have been about this period (400-350 bc) that
thegreat movement of the Gauls
from west to east took place, which
brought the Gallic Skordiski and other tribes into the regions between
the Danube and the Adriatic sea, and which probably dislodged
some of the northern Illyrians so as to drive them upon new
enterprises and fresh abodes.
What is now called Middle Albania, the Illyrian territory immediately
north of Epirus, is much superior to the latter in productiveness. Though
mountainous, it possesses more both of low hill and
valley, and ampler as well as more fertile cultivable spaces. Epidamnus and
Apollonia formed the seaports of this territory, and the commerce with the
southern Illyrians, less barbarous than the northern, was one of the sources of
their great prosperity during the first century of their existence,—a
prosperity interrupted in the case of the Epidamnians by internal dissensions,
which impaired their ascendency over their Illyrian neighbors, and ultimately placed them at variance with their mother-city Corcyra.
The commerce between these Greek seaports and the
interior tribes, when once the former became strong enough to render violent attack from the latter hopeless, was reciprocally
beneficial to both of them. Grecian oil and wine were introduced among
these barbarians, whose chiefs at the same time learned to appreciate
the woven fabrics, the polished and carved metallic work,
the tempered weapons, and the pottery, which issued from Grecian
artisans. Moreover, the importation sometimes of salt-fish,
and always that of salt itself, was of the greatest importance to these inland
residents, especially for such localities as possessed lakes abounding in fish, like that of Lychidnus. We hear of wars between the Autariatae and the Ardiaei, respecting
salt-springs near their boundaries, and also of other tribes whom
the privation of salt reduced to the
necessity of submitting to the Romans. On the other hand, these tribes
possessed two articles of exchange so precious in the eyes of the Greeks, that
Polybius reckons them as absolutely indispensable,—cattle and slaves; which latter were doubtless procured from
Illyria, often in ex change for salt, as they were
from Thrace and from the Euxine and from
Aquileia in the Adriatic, through the internal wars of one tribe
with another. Silver-mines were worked at Damastium in Illyria. Wax and honey were probably also articles of
export, and it is a proof that the natural products of Illyria
were carefully sought out, when we find a species of iris peculiar to the country collected and sent to Corinth, where its root was
employed to give the special flavor to a celebrated kind of aromatic unguent.
Nor
was the intercourse between the Hellenic
ports and Illyrians inland exclusively commercial. Grecian exiles also found
their way into Illyria, and Grecian myths became localized there, as may be
seen by the tale of Cadmus and Harmonia, from whom the chiefs of the Illyrian
Encheleis professed to trace their
descent.
The
Macedonians of the fourth century bc acquired, from the ability and enterprise of two
successive kings, a great perfection in
Greek military organization without any of the loftier Hellenic
qualities. Their career in Greece is purely destructive, extinguishing the free
movement of the separate cities, and
disarming the citizen-soldier to make room for the foreign mercenary,
whose sword was unhallowed by any feelings of patriotism,—yet totally
incompetent to substitute any good system of central or pacific administration.
But the Macedonians of the seventh and sixth centuries BC arc an aggregate only
of rude inland tribes, subdivided into distinct petty principalities, and
separated from the Greeks by a wider ethnical difference even than the Epirots since Herodotus, who considers the Epirotic
Molossians and Thesprotians as children of Hellen,
decidedly thinks the contrary respecting the Macedonians. In the main, however,
they seem at this early period analogous to the Epirots in character and civilization. They had some few towns, but were chiefly
village residents, extremely brave and pugnacious. The customs of some of their
tribes enjoined that the man who had not yet slain an enemy should be
distinguished on some occasions by a badge of discredit.
The
original seats of the Macedonians were in the regions east of the chain of
Skardus (the northerly continuation of Pindus)—north of the chain called the Cambunian mountains, which connects Olympus with Pindus,
and which forms the north-western boundary of Thessaly. But they did not reach
so far eastward as the Thermaic gulf: apparently not
farther eastward than Mount Bermius, or about the
longitude of Edessa and Berrhoia. They thus covered
the upper portions of the course of the rivers Haliakmon and Erigon, before the
junction of the latter with the Axius; while the upper course of the Axius,
higher than this point of junction, appears to have belonged to Paeonia,—though
the boundaries of Macedonia and Paeonia cannot be distinctly marked out at any
time.
The
large space of country included between the above-mentioned boundaries is in
great part mountainous, occupied by lateral ridges, or elevations, which
connect themselves with the main line of Skardus. But it also comprises three
wide alluvial basins, or plains, which are of great extent and well-adapted to cultivation, the
plain of Tettovo, or Kalkandele (northernmost of
the three), which contains the sources and
early course of the Axius, or Vardar,—that of Bitolia,
coinciding to a great degree with the ancient Pelagonia, wherein the Erigon flows towards
the Axius,— and the larger and more undulating
basin of Greveno and Anaselitzas, containing the upper Haliakmon with its confluent
streams. This latter region is separated from the basin of Thessaly by a mountainous
line of considerable length, but presenting
numerous easy passes. Reckoning the basin
of Thessaly as a fourth, here are four distinct inclosed plains on the east
side of this long range of Skardus and
Pindus,—each generally bounded by mountains which rise precipitously to an alpine height, and
each leaving only one cleft for drainage by a single river,—the Axius, the
Erigon, the Haliakmon and the Peneius respectively. All four, moreover, though of high level above the sea, are yet for the most
part of distinguished fertility, especially
the plains of Tettovo, of Bitolia, and Thessaly. The
fat, rich land to the east of Pindus
and Skardus is described as forming a marked contrast with the light calcareous soil of the Albanian plains and
valleys on the western side. The basins of Bitolia and of the Haliakmon, with the mountains around and
adjoining, were possessed by the original Macedonians; that of Tettovo,
on the north, by a portion of the
Paeonians. Among the four, Thessaly is the most spacious; yet the two
comprised in the primitive seats of the Macedonians, both of them
very considerable in magnitude,
formed a territory better calculated
to nourish and to generate, a
considerable population, than the less favored
home, and smaller breadth of valley and plain,
occupied by Epirots or Illyrians. Abundance of corn
easily raised, of pasture for cattle,
and of new fertile land open to cultivation, would suffice to increase the
numbers of hardy villagers, indifferent to luxury
as well as to accumulation, and exempt from that oppressive extortion of rulers which now harasses the same fine regions.
The inhabitants of this primitive Macedonia doubtless differed much in ancient times, as they do now, according as they dwelt on mountain or
plain, and in soil and climate more or less kind; but all
acknowledged a common ethnical name and nationality, and the
tribes were in many cases distinguished from each other, not by basing substantive names of their own, but merely by local epithets of Grecian origin. Thus we find Elymiotae Macedonians, or Macedonians of Elymeia,—Lynkestae Macedonians, or Macedonians of Lynkus, etc. Orestae is doubtless an adjunct name of
the same character. The inhabitants of the mere northerly
tracts, called Pelagonia and Deuriopis,
were also portions of the Macedonian aggregate, though
neighbors of the Paeonians, to whom they bore much affinity:
whether the Eordi and Almopians were of Macedonian race, it is more
difficult to say. The Macedonian language was different from
Illyrian, from Thracian, and seemingly also from Paeonian. It was
also different from Greek, yet apparently not more widely distinct than that of
the Epirots,—so that the acquisition of Greek was
comparatively easy to the chiefs and people, though there were always some
Greek letters which they were incapable of pronouncing. And when we follow
their history, we shall find in them more of the regular warrior, conquering in
order to maintain dominion and tribute, and less of the armed plunderer,—than
in the Illyrians, Thracians, or Epirots, by whom it
was their misfortune to be surrounded. They approach nearer to the Thessalians,
and to the other ungifted members of the Hellenic family.
The
large and comparatively productive region covered by the various
sections of Macedonians, helps to explain that increase of
ascendency which they successively acquired overall their neighbors. It w as
not, however, until a late period that they became
united under one government. At first each section, how many
we do not know, had its own prince, or chief. The Elymiots, or inhabitants of Elymeia, the southernmost portion of Macedonia, were thus
originally distinct and independent; also the Orestae, in mountain-seats somewhat north-west of the Elymiots,—the Lynkestae and Eordi, who occupied portions of territory on
the track of the subsequent Egnatian way,
between Lychnidus (Ochrida)
and Edessa,—the Pelagonians, with a town of the same name, in the fertile plain of
Bitolia,—and the more northerly Deuriopians.
And the early political union was usually so
loose, that, each of these denominations probably includes many
petty independencies, small towns, and villages. That
section of the Macedonian name who afterwards swallowed up all the rest and became
known as The Macedonians, had their original centre at Aegae,
or Edessa,—the lofty, commanding, and picturesque site
of the modern Vodhena.
And though the residence of the kings
was in later times transferred to the marshy Pella, in the maritime plain beneath, yet Edessa was always retained as the regal burial-place, and as the hearth to which the religious
continuity of the nation, so much reverenced in ancient times,
was attached. This ancient town, which lay on the Roman Egnatian way from Lychidnus to Pella and Thessalonika, formed the pass over the mountain-ridge called Bermius, or that prolongation to the northward of Mount Olympus,
through which the Haliakmon makes its way out into the maritime
plain at Verria by
a cleft more precipitous and impracticable than that of the Peneius in the defile of
Tempe.
This
mountain-chain called Bermius, extending from Olympus considerably to the
north of Edessa, formed the original eastern boundary of
the Macedonian tribes; who seem at first not to
have reached the valley of the Axius in any part of its course, and
who certainly did not reach at
first to the Thermaic gulf. Between the last-mentioned gulf and the eastern counterforts
of Olympus and Bermius there exists
a narrow strip of plain land or low hill, which
reaches from the mouth of the Peneius to the head of the Thermaic gulf.
It there widens into the spacious and fertile
plain of Salonichi, comprising the mouths of the Haliakmon, the Axius, anti the Echeidorus: the river Ludias, which flows from Edessa into the marshes
surrounding Pella, and which in antiquity
joined the Haliakmon near its mouth, has now altered its
course so as to join the Axius. This
narrow strip, between the mouths of
the Peneius and the Haliakmon, was
the original abode of the Pierian Thracians, who
dwelt close to the foot of Olympus, and
among whom the worship of the Muses seems to have
been a primitive characteristic; Grecian poetry teems with local
allusions and epithets which appear traceable to this early fact, though we are
unable to follow it in detail. North of the Pierians, from the mouth of the Haliakmon to
that of the Axius, dwelt the Bottiaeans.
Beyond the river Axius, at the lower part of its course, began the
tribes of the great Thracian race,—Mygdonians, Krestonians, Edonians, Bisaltae, Sithonians: the Mygdonians seem
to have been originally the most powerful, since the country still continued to
be called by their name, Mygdonia, even after the
Macedonian conquest. These, and various other Thracian tribes, originally
occupied most part of the country between the mouth of the Axius and that of
the Strymon; together with that memorable three-pronged peninsula which derived
from the Grecian colonies its name of Chalcidice. It will thus appear, if we
consider the Bottiaeans as well as the Pierians to be Thracians, that the Thracian race extended
originally southward as far as the mouth of the Peneius:
the Bottiaeans professed, indeed, a Cretan origin,
but this pretension is not noticed by either Herodotus or Thucydides. In the
time of Skylax, seemingly during the early reign of Philip the son
of Amyntas, Macedonia and Thrace, were separated by the Strymon.
We
have yet to notice the Paeonians, a numerous and much-divided race,— seemingly
neither Thracian nor Macedonian nor Illyrian, but professing to be descended
from the Teukri of Troy,—who occupied both banks of the Strymon, from the
neighborhood of Mount Skomius, in which that river
rises, down to the lake near its mouth. Some of their tubes possessed the
fertile plain of Siris (now Seres),—the land immediately north of Mount Pangaeus,—and even a portion of the space through which
Xerxes marched on his route from Acanthus to Therma. Besides this, it appears
that the upper parts of the valley of the Axius were also occupied by Paeonian
tribes; how far down the river they extended, we are unable to say. We are not
to suppose that the whole territory between Axius and Strymon was continuously
peopled by them. Continuous population is not the character of the ancient,
world, and it seems, moreover, that while the land immediately bordering on
both livers is in very many places of the
richest quality, the spaces between the two are either
mountain or barren low hill,—forming a marked contrast
with the rich alluvial basin of the Macedonian river Erigor. The Paeonians, in their
north-western tribes, thus bordered
upon the Macedonian Pelagonia,—in their northern
tribes, upon the Illyrian Dardani and Autariatae—in
their eastern, southern, and south-eastern tribes, upon the Thracians
and Pierians;
that is, upon the second seats occupied by the expelled Pierians under Mount Pangaeus.
Such
was, as far as we can make it out, the position of the Macedonians
and their immediate neighbors, in the seventh century BC It was first altered by the enterprise and ability
of a family of exiled Greeks, who conducted a section
of the Macedonian people to those conquests which their descendants, Philip and
Alexander the Great, afterwards so marvellously multiplied.
Respecting
the primitive ancestry of these two princes, there were different
stories, but all concurred in tracing the origin of the
family to the Herakleid or Temenid race of Argos. According to one
story (which apparently cannot be traced higher than Theopompus), Karanus, brother of the despot Pheidon,
had migrated from Argos to Macedonia, and established himself as conqueror at Edessa; according to another tale, which we find in Herodotus, there were three exiles of the Temenid race, Gauanes, Aeropus, and Perdikkas, who fled
from Argos to Illyria, from
whence they passed into Upper Macedonia, in
suchpoverty as to be compelled to serve the petty king of
the town Lebaea in the
capacity of shepherds. A remarkable prodigy happening to
Perdikkas, foreshadows the future eminence of his family and
leads to his dismissal by the king of Lebaea,—from whom
he makes his escape with
difficulty, by the sudden rise of a river immediately
after he had crossed it, so as to become impassable
by the horsemen who pursued him. To this
river, as to the saviour of the family, solemn sacrifices were still offered by
the kings of Macedonia in the time of Herodotus. Perdikkas
with his two brothers having thus escaped, established himself
near the spot called the Garden of Midas on Mount Bermius, and from the loins of this hardy young shepherd
sprang the dynasty of Edessa. This tale
bears much more the marks of a genuine local tradition than that of Theopompus. And the origin of
the Macedonian family, or Argeadae, from
Argos, appears to have been universally recognized by
Grecian inquirers,—so that Alexander the son of Amyntas, the contemporary of the Persian
invasion, was admitted by the Hellanodikae to contend
at the Olympic games as a
genuine Greek, though his competitors sought to
exclude him as a Macedonian.
The talent for command was so much more the attribute of the
Greek mind than of any of the neighboring barbarians, that we
easily conceive a courageous Argeian adventurer acquiring to himself great ascendency in the local disputes of
the Macedonian tribes, and transmitting the chieftainship
of one of those tribes to his offspring.
The influence acquired by Miltiades among the Thracians
of the Chersonese, and by Phormion among the
Acarnanians (who specially requested that, after his death, his
son, or some one of his kindred, might be sent from Athens to command them), was very much of
this character: we may add the
case of Sertorius among the native Iberians. In like manner,
the kings of the Macedonian Lynkestae professed to be
descended from the Bacchiadae of
Corinth; and the neighborhood of Epidamnus
and Apollonia. in both of which doubtless members
of that great gens were domiciliated, renders this tale even
more plausible than that of an emigration from Argos. The
kings of the Epirotic Molossi pretended also to a descent from the. heroic Aeakid
race of Greece. In fact, our means of knowledge do not enable us to discriminate the cases in which these reigning families were originally Greeks, from those in which they were Hellenized natives pretending to Grecian blood.
After
the foundation-legend of the
Macedonian kingdom, we have nothing but a long
blank until the reign of king Amyntas (about 520-500 bc), and his son Alexander, (about 480 bc) Herodotus gives us five successive kings between the
founder Perdikkas and Amyntas,—Perdikkas, Argaeus, Philippus, Aeropus,
Alketas, Amyntas, and Alexander,—the contemporary and to
a certain extent the ally of Xerxes. Though we have no means
of establishing any dates in this early
series, either of names or of facts, yet we see that the Temenid kings, beginning
from a humble origin, extended their dominions successively on
all sides. They conquered the Briges, originally their neighbors
on Mount Bermius,—the Eordi,
bordering on Edessa to the. westward,
who were either destroyed or expelled from the country, leaving a small remnant
still existing in the time of Thucydides at Physka between Strymon and Axius,—the Almopians, an inland
tribe of unknown site,—and many of the interior Macedonian tribes who had been at first autonomous. Besides
these inland conquests, they had made the still more important
acquisition of Pieria, the territory which lay between
Mount Bermius and the sea, from whence they expelled the original Pierians, who found new seats on the eastern bank of
the Strymon between Mount Pangaeus and the
sea. Amyntas king of Macedon was thus master of a very considerable territory, comprising the
coast of the Thermaic gulf as
far north as the mouth of the Haliakmon, and also some other territory on the
same gulf from which the Bottiaeans had
been-expelled; but not comprising the coast between the mouths of the Axius and
the Haliakmon, nor even Pella, the subsequent capital, which were still in the
hands of the Bottiaeans at the period when Xerxes passed through. He possessed also Anthemus, a
town and territory in the peninsula of Chalcidice, and
some parts of Mygdonia,
the territory east of the mouth of the Axius; but how much, we
do not know. We shall find the Macedonians hereafter extending
their dominion still farther, during the period between the Persian and Peloponnesian war.
We hear of king Amyntas in friendly connection with the Peisistratid princes at Athens, whose dominion was in part
sustained by mercenaries from the Strymon, and
this amicable sentiment was continued between his son Alexander and the
emancipated Athenians. It is only in the reigns of these two princes that
Macedonia begins to be implicated in Grecian affairs: the regal dynasty had
become so completely Macedonized, and had so far renounced its Hellenic brotherhood, that the claim of
Alexander to run at the Olympic games was contested by his competitors, and
he was called upon to prove his lineage before the Hellanodikae.
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