Listed 3 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "DURRES Town ALBANIA".
Dyrrhachium (Durrhachion, Steph. B.; Ptol. iii. 13. § 3, viii. 12.
§ 3: Eth. Durrhachios, Durrhachenos, Dyrrachinus), a city on the coast of Illyricum
in the Ionic gulf, which was known in Grecian history as Epidamnus. (Epidamnos,,
Strab. vii. p. 316.)
It is doubtful under what circumstances the name was changed to that
of Dyrrhachium under which it usually appears in the Latin writers. Some have
affirmed that the Romans, considering the word Epidamnus to be of ill omen, called
it Dyrrhachium from the ruggedness of its situation. (Plin. iii. 23; Pomp. Mela,
ii. 3. § 12.) The latter word is, however, of Greek and not of Latin origin, and
is used by the poet Euphorion of Chalcis. (Steph. B. s. v.) Strabo applied the
name to the high and craggy peninsula upon which the town was built, as does also
the poet Alexander. (Steph. B. s. v.) And as Dyrrhachium did not exactly occupy
the site of ancient Epidamnus (Paus. vi. 10. § 2), it probably usurped the place
of the earlier name from its natural features.
Epidamnus was founded on the isthmus of an outlying peninsula on the
sea-coast of the Illyrian Taulantii, about 627 B.C., as is said (Euseb. Chron.),
by the Corcyraeans, yet with some aid, and a portion of the settlers, from Corinth;
the leader of the colony, Phaleus, belonging to the family of the Heraclidae,
according to the usual practice, was taken from the mother-city Corinth. (Thuc.
i. 24-26.) Hence the Corinthians acquired a right to interfere, which afterwards
led to important practical consequences. Owing to its favourable position upon
the Adriatic, and fertile territory, it soon acquired considerable wealth, and
was thickly peopled.
The government was a close oligarchy; a single magistrate, similar
to the Cosmopolis at Opus, was at the head of the administration. The chiefs of
the tribes formed a kind of council, while the artisans and tradesmen in the town
were looked upon as slaves belonging to the public. In process of time, probably
a little before the Peloponnesian War, in. testine dissensions broke up this oligarchy.
The original archon remained, but the phylarchs were replaced by a senate chosen
on democratical principles. (Arist. Pol. ii. 4. § 13, iii. 11. § 1, iv, 33. §
8, v. 1. § 6, v. 3. § 4; Muller, Dor. vol. ii. p. 160, trans.; Grote, Greece,
vol. iii. p. 546.) The government was liberal in the admission of resident aliens;
but all individual dealing with the: neighbouring Illyrians was forbidden, and
the traffic was carried on by means of an authorised selling agent, or Poletes.
(Plut. Quaest. Graec. c. 29, p. 297; Aelian, V.H. xiii. 16.) The trade was not
however confined to the inland tribes, but extended across from sea to sea, even
before the construction of the Egnatian Way, and an Inscription (Boeckh, Corp.
Inscr. No. 2056) proclaims the gratitude of Odessus in the Euxine sea towards
a citizen of Epidamnnus.
The dispute respecting this city between Corinth and Corcyra was occasioned
by a contest between the oligarchical exiles, who had been driven out by an internal
sedition, and the Epidamnian democracy, in which the Corinthians supported the
former. The history of this struggle has been fully given by Thucydides (l. c.),
in consequence of its intimate connection with the origin of the Peloponnesian
War, but we are left in ignorance of its final issue. Nor is anything known of
its further history till 312 B.C., when, by the assistance of the Corcyraeans,
Glaucias, king of the Illyrians, made himself master of Epidamnus. (Diod. xix.
70, 78.) Some years afterwards it was surprised by a party of Illyrian pirates;
the inhabitants, on recovering from their first alarm, fell upon their assailants,
and succeeded in driving them from the walls. (Polyb. ii. 9.) Not long after,
the Illyrians returned with a powerful fleet, and laid siege to the town; but
fortunately for the city, the arrival of the Roman consul compelled the enemy
to make a hasty retreat. Epidamnus from this time placed itself under the protection
of the Romans, to whose cause it appears to have constantly adhered, both in the
Illyrian and Macedonian wars. (Polyb. ii. 11; Liv. xxix. 12, xliv. 30.)
At a later period, Dyrrhachium, as it was then called, and a free
state (Cic. ad Fam. xiv. 1), became the scene of the contest between Caesar and
Pompeius. The latter moved from Thessalonica, and threw himself before Dyrrhachium;
the Pompeians entrenched themselves on the right bank of the Apsus, so effectually
that Caesar was obliged to take up his position on the left, and resolved to pass
the winter under canvass. This led to a series of remarkable operations, the result
of which was that the great captain, in spite of the consummate ability he displayed
in the face of considerable superiority in numbers and position, was compelled
to leave Dyrrhachium to Pompeius, and try the fortune of war upon a second field.
(Caesar, B.C. iii. 42-76; Appian, B.C. ii. 61; Dion Cass. xli. 49; Lucan vi.29-63.)
Dyrrhachium sided with M. Antonius during the last civil wars of the Republic,
and was afterwards presented by Augustus to his soldiers (Dion Cass. ii. 4), when
the Illyrian peasants learned the rudiments of municipal law from the veterans
of the empire. The inhabitants, whose patron deity was Venus (Catull. Carm. xxxiv.
11), were, if we may believe Plautus (Menaechm. act ii. sc. i. 30-40), a vicious
and debauched race. The city itself, under the Lower Roman Empire, became the
capital of the new province, Epirus Nova (Marquardt, Handbuch der Rom. Alt. p.
115), and is mentioned by the Byzantine historians as being still a considerable
place in their time (Cedren. p. 703; Niceph. Callist. xvii. 3). Gibbon (Decline
and Fall, vol. v. pp. 345-349; comp. Le Beau, Bas Empire, vol. xv. pp. 133-145)
has told the story of the memorable siege, battle, and capture of Dyrrhachium,when
the Norman Robert Guiscard defeated the Greeks and their emperor Alexius, A.D.
1081-1082. The modern Durazzo represents this place; the surrounding country is
described as being highly attractive, though unhealthy. (Albanien, Rumelien, und
die Oesterreichisch Montenegrische Granze, Jos. Muller, Prag. 1844, p. 62.) There
are a great number of autonomous coins belonging to this city, none however under
the name of Epidamnus, but always with the epigraph DUR, or more rarely DURA,
the type, as on the coins of Corcyra, a cow suckling a calf; on the reverse, the
gardens of Alcinous. (Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 155.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
