peror-making power, consisted mainly of Illyrian troops.

REFERENCES

BARBARICH, EUGENIO, Albania, Rome, 1905, pp. 155–168.
CASSIUS DIO, Rome, Books 8 and 10.

DIODORUS SICULUS, Book XXVI.

DURUY, V., History of Rome, Vol. I, Sect. 2, pp. 590-593.

HAHN, DR. JOHANN GEORG VON, Albanische Studien, pp. 301-309 and Notes pp. 328-332.

PLINY (THE ELDER), Historia Naturalis, Book III, Ch. 22.

PLUTARCH, Parallel Lives-Lives of Pyrrhus, Alexander, Demetrius, T. Quintius Flaminius, Paulus Emilius, Cicero, Pompey, Julius Cæsar and Antony.

POLYBIOS, Book IV.

STRABO, Books VII and IX.

TITUS LIVIUS, 26–45.

CHAPTER III

MEDIEVAL ALBANIA

I. BYZANTINE DOMINATION

WHEN the capital of the Empire was transferred from Rome to Byzantium (395 A. D.), Albania became a province of the eastern section on its disruption. She constituted a part of the Thema of Illyricum, and remained nominally a province of the Byzantine Empire up to the time when she regained her complete liberty of action under native rulers.

In reality, however, the emperors of Constantinople were unable to defend her against the inroads of the barbarians who made their appearance in the Balkan Peninsula at this time, and, at long intervals, she was either under the sway of the invaders or else she was leading an independent life after the expulsion of the barbarian hordes.

Byzantine influence has been very scanty in Albania. Apart from a number of old churches of Byzantine style, belonging to the eastern Orthodox rite, and besides some military walls, nothing else attests that the Byzantines have ever had anything to do with Albania. Greek Byzantine influence is nil on the intellectual side. Ethnically, politically, and socially the court of Constantinople was far more remote from its Albanian provinces than actual distance accounts for. It is only the southern portion of Albania that has been, and to some extent is still,

suffering the consequences of its attachment to the religious jurisdiction of the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople.1

II. THE INVASIONS OF THE BARBARIANS

The closing days of the fourth century (A. D.) witnessed the beginning of the dark and bloody period of the invasions during which the torrents of the barbarian hordes overflooded the Balkan Peninsula. Many a time was Albania submerged under the overwhelming waves of the invaders who, in the end, succeeded in displacing the Albanians from the territories now inhabited by the Jugoslavs, the Serbians and the Montenegrins.

The first to invade and ravage Albania were the Goths, who remained masters of the country for more than a century. In 535, however, the Albanians were reclaimed for the Empire by Justinian who, himself, was native of Central Albania. The Goths also have left behind a number of Teutonic words which are now in use in the Albanian language.

In 640, Emperor Heraclius called the Serb hordes into his realm in order to oppose them against the Avars, and, later on, he let them overrun Albania, from which they definitely wrenched the part that constitutes the Montenegro of to-day.

In 861, Central and Southern Albania were overrun and devastated by the Bulgarians. Shortly after, another Bulgarian wave enveloped the whole of Albania under Czar Simeon (892-927). The presence of a large number of localities bearing Bulgarian names, even in places where no traces of Bulgarian population exist, bears witness to the fact 1 See Ch. 9, pp. 94-100; also pp. 111-120.

that the invaders did make large settlements in the invaded country. In the course of time, however, the Bulgarians were driven out and those already settled were assimilated by the native population. At the present time there are very few Bulgarian settlements in Albania, scarcely a few villages.1

In 1081, the Normans, who had already established themselves in Southern Italy and Sicily, invaded, under Robert Guiscard, the territories of Central and Southern Albania. The invasion was undertaken as a means of reprisals against the Emperor of Constantinople with whom Robert had had a family quarrel. It is believed that the Normans are the sponsors of the name "Albania" under which the country has ever since been known to the world.

During the Crusades, Albania was a frequent thoroughfare for the Crusaders of France and Italy. In his "Conquête de Constantinople,” Villehardouin, the chronicler of the fourth Crusade, has to say many interesting things about the conditions prevailing in Albania at that time.

III. PERIOD OF NATIVE RULE

THE INDEPENDENT ALBANIAN PRINCIPALITIES

When the flow of the invasions subsided somewhat there arose three independent Albanian principalities ruled by foreign princes who had established their rule either at the invitation of the Albanians or with their full consent and coöperation. Inas

1 The vilayet of Monastir, however, is mainly inhabited by Albanians and Bulgarians in almost equal numbers, the minority consisting of Kotzo-Valachians, Asiatic Turks, Greeks, and no Serbians at all. But the easy triumph of the Balkan armies over the Turks in 1912 and the London Conference assigned to Serbia almost the whole of this vilayet.

much as these rulers had practically merged themselves with their subjects, and, as their several dominions extended over the whole of Albania, we may safely consider this long period of independence as one of native rule.

1. The Despotat of Epirus

(1204-1358)

On the dethronement and expulsion from Constantinople of the reigning dynasty of Comnenus by the Crusaders (1204), Michael Comnenus, a prince of the imperial family, rallied around him the Albanian nobility, and, with its assistance, entered upon a war against the Venetians who had brought about the downfall of his family. Eventually, he succeeded in driving them out of Southern Albania. He, thereupon, set up an independent principality in that portion of Albania, with Janina as its capital. The principality is known as Despotat (or Lordship) of Epirus. It remained under the rule of the Comneni up to the year 1318, when they were succeeded by the princes of the house of Orsini until 1358.

In the meantime, the Bulgarians had invaded the Albanian territories for the third time, but their onward march was checked by the rulers of the Despotat of Epirus. As soon as the fear of invasion was over, the restored imperial family of Constantinople sought to bring again the principality within the fold of the Empire, but the Despotat made good its claims of independence even as against the Emperor, and it remained an independent Albanian principality for a long time to come.