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14. Epirus
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Acarnania and Epirus 111 situated inside the Peloponnese. For my part, now that I have briefly summarized the affairs of the Peloponnese and Attica in keeping with the plan of my work, I hasten on toward the west. 13 ACARNANIA 55. THE FIRST place one comes to is Acarnania, which lies between Epirus and Boeotia and seems to join or blend with Aetolia. Today it is called a duchy. Giovanni Ventimiglia, a native Sicilian, gave his daughter in marriage to the despot of Acarnania. When the Turks were harassing Acarnania and besieged his son-in-law, he crossed the sea with a small troop of horsemen, attacked the besiegers, and inflicted a slaughter that deserves to be remembered. For with only a small detachment he routed an enormous force and succeeded in saving his son-in-law. The latter, however, was captured in an ambush by the Turks soon after this and lost his kingdom , though they say that Epirus is still governed in his name.222 14 EPIRUS 56. ON ITS western frontier, Epirus begins at the Acroceraunian Mountains and extends eastward for one thousand three hundred stades to the Ambracian Gulf.223 Ptolemy reports that in the north 222. A reference to the Tocco family, who were the lords of Arta. In 1444 Alfonso of Naples sent troops to the region under Giovanni Ventimiglia’s command. The relationship between Ventimiglia, marquis of Gerace, and the despot of Arta, Carlo II Tocco (d. 1448), is unclear. Ryder describes Ventimiglia alternately as his son-in-law and brother -in-law in two different publications; either way, he does not appear to have been his father-in-law. Aeneas also conflates Carlo II and his son Leonardo, who was expelled by the Turks in 1449. See Alan Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, King of Aragon, Naples and Sicily, 1396–1458 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 303; idem, The Kingdom of Naples Under Alfonso the Magnanimous (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 272; see also Fine, LMB, 544, 563. 223. This paragraph is a paraphrase of Strabo, Geography, 7.7.5–6. 112 Epirus it adjoins Macedonia, in the east, Achaea, as far as the mouth of the Achelous River; its western side, he states, is bordered by the Ionian Sea.224 Strabo called this same sea the Ausonian Sea.225 In Epirus, Theopompus226 related that there were fourteen tribes, of whom the best known were the Chaonians and Molossians. For, once upon a time, first the Chaonians ruled the kingdom and later the Molossians, descendants of the Aeacidae through the lineage of their kings, who underwent an amazing expansion; the old and distinguished oracle of Dodona flourished under their control. The seaboard of this land is reportedly rich and fertile, and once there were many cities and well-fortified towns in Epirus. But owing to its peoples’ revolts, which brought them into conflict with the Romans, the country was laid to waste. According to Polybius, seventy cities of the Epirotes were razed by the general Aemilius Paulus after he had conquered the Macedonians and defeated King Perseus.227 The majority of these belonged to the Molossians, and one hundred and fifty thousand people were reduced to slavery.228 Pliny of Verona assigns this calamity to the Macedonians and adds two cities to the number destroyed.229 Since the Macedonians held sway over the Epirotes, I believe that Pliny subsumed both races under one name. In Epirus there occurred the world-famous battle of Actium, in which Caesar Augustus defeated Mark Antony in a naval action, together with Cleopatra, queen of Egypt; for she, too, was present and took part in this engagement.230 For this reason, the victorious Augustus founded a city in the Ambracian Gulf and named it Nicopolis, meaning the City of Victory. The mouth of the Ambracian Gulf is a little more than four stades in width, and its circum224 . Ptolemy, Geography, 3.13.1. 225. Strabo, Geography, 7.7.5. 226. Theopompus of Chios, a historian of the fourth century BCE. 227. Polybius, Histories, 30.15. 228. Consul L. Aemilius Paulus conquered Perseus in 168 BCE and ordered his troops to pillage the Epirote towns as punishment for their alliance with Macedonia. 229. Pliny, Natural History, 4.39. 230. September 2, 31 BCE. [54.237.223.125] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 08:46 GMT) Albania 113 ference comprises three hundred stades; in every part of it there is fine anchorage. In the past, as one entered the gulf, one encountered...