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Antigonea in Epirus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
The region in which Antigonea is to be sought is one of the most spectular in Europe. Its modern capital, Argyrokastro, is built on the steep and bare limestone mountainside to the west of the river Drin, which runs northwards through a narrow alluvial plain, enclosed on either side by roughly parallel ranges of great height. At this latitude the mountains of the Kurvelesh on the west, attaining heights over 5,000 feet, and the mountains of Llunxherië on the east, surpassing 6,000 feet, are relatively far apart; but as one proceeds northwards, the mountains converge and pinch the valley of the Drin between their towering masses. Here the Drin runs deep in a gorge, cut by its own waters in a shaley flysch formation, which is rich in springs, thickly wooded and deeply fissured. The modern road, which stays on the west side of the river, descends quite steeply through the gorge of the Drin. Below Lekel one enters an open flattish area, some 500 feet above sea-level, in which the Drin and the Bencë, emerging from an impassable limestone gorge, join the great river, the ancient Aous. The central point of the open area is Tepelenë, built beside the river. Below Tepelenë the Aous valley is relatively open, and the going is easy on foot, but the modern road climbs westwards and crosses the limestone mountain-sides on its way to the Bay of Valona. Above Tepelenë, or rather above Dragot, the Aous comes through a magnificent gorge, cut aeons ago by a much greater river. The floor is fairly level and bare of trees, and the river is confined in its conglomerate bed. The steep faces of the limestone mountains tower above one on either side, until one emerges from the gorge—the Aoi Stena—at Kelcyrë, where the countryside is open, undulating and wooded.
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- Copyright ©N. G. L. Hammond 1971. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
1 I described the Aoi Stena in JRS 66 (1966), 39 ffGoogle Scholar. and the whole region in Epirus (Oxford, 1967), 206 ffGoogle Scholar. The descriptions were based upon my travels in Albania before the war.
2 For the Roman road-system see Epirus 694 ff., and Map 18 on p. 700.
3 Prendi, Frano and Budina, Dhimosten, ‘La civilisation illyrienne de la vaileé du Drinos’, Communications de la délégation deja R.P. d'Albanie IIe Congrès international des Études du Sud-est Européen (Tirana 1970)Google Scholar. I am most grateful to Frano Prendi for sending me a copy. I was not present at the Conference.
4 Epirus 209 f. with Plan 18.
5 Communication 19–21 and Epirus 210.
6 Epirus 669 and Communications 21.
7 Epirus 211 and Communications 20.
8 See the table in Epirus 659.
9 Walbank, F. W., Philip V of Macedon (Cambridge, 1940) 149 fGoogle Scholar. with the Plan and the note on p. 149.
10 See JRS LVI, 47.
11 For this campaign see Epirus 279 and 117 f.
12 See the summary in F. W. Walbank, Philip V 149, n. 1, and his own identification of Antigonea with Tepelenë in his Commentary on Polybius 1, 156; he mentions my views in his Commentary II (1967), 555 and 630Google Scholar, but does not comment on them.
13 Epirus 220 f. and JRS LVI, 47.
14 Epirus 699 f.
15 It was suggested in 1912 by Oberhummer in P-W, RE VII, col. 2789, that in his list of five inland cities Ptolemy the Geographer wrote Hecatompedon, meaning Dodona; for there was at Dodona a famous temple called the Hecatompedon, as indeed there was at Athens. This suggestion has been accepted by many scholars and L-S-J9 even cites the passage in Ptolemy as the authority for there being a Hecatompedon temple at Dodona. A moment's reflection shows how absurd the suggestion is. How many authors, whether distinguished as geographers or not, have put in a list of leading cities Hecatompedon, meaning Athens, or even Parthenon, meaning Athens, or St. Paul's, meaning London, or St. Giles, meaning Edinburgh ? Or is the idea that Ptolemy knew of the Hecatompedon but not of the city in which it stood, i.e. Dodona, one of the famous centres of Greek tradition ? In fact, of course, Dodona even in its prime was not a great city but a small one, and in the second century of the Roman Empire, if we recall the description by Strabo, VII C 327 fin., it was probably desolate. Let us accept what Ptolemy said as what Ptolemy meant, that Hecatompedon was one of the leading cities in Epirus.