by Artur Vrekaj. Translation Petrit Latifi

Abstract

This study examines the Pelasgian oracle of Dodona as the earliest cult of Zeus, situating its origins in the territory of present-day Chameria and Epirus. Drawing on ancient sources such as Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, Strabo, and later scholars, the paper explores the continuity between the Pelasgians, Dodonians, Thesprotians, and later Epirote tribes. It analyzes competing theories regarding the location of Dodona and highlights its central religious and political role in Pelasgian society. The research further traces Pelasgian-Thesprotian migrations into Thessaly and their lasting influence on regional identity, cult practices, and historical memory, emphasizing the Pelasgian–Illyrian continuity in Epirus and Chameria.

Chameria is Threspotia, originally a Pelasgian, Illyrian and Albanian region

Pelasgian Dodona is the most ancient oracle of Zeus that was transmitted in the open sky in the areas of present-day Chameria since the first beginnings of pagan belief in Pelasgia. Before they were called Thesprotia, these Pelasgians were called Dodonians from the oracle they consulted.

One of its cults is said by some scholars to have been in the area populated by the Dodonians (later called Thesprotia) behind the Pindus mountains, which they later called Thessaly, where they named the country, neighboring tribes of Pelasgian blood.

The first of the Mediterranean islands, the land of continental Europe of Pelasgia is also called Epirus, which in Albanian means: upper, raised above the sea, higher or above. But the officialization of the name of Epirus comes later in time.

After the name Dodona for Epirus, we have the name Thesprot in whose territory the oracle of Dodona was followed by the inhabitants.

The location of Dodona, its capital, is still a mystery. But I am bringing it to illustrate what is thought even differently about its central temple or its other cults that became the religious center of Pelasgia, but which is also connected to the name of the ancient Pelasgian inhabitants of Chameria, the Dodonians who were later called Thesprots.

Here is what W. Smith writes: “Pindar describes Epirus as beginning at Dodona and extending from there to the Ionian Sea, from which we learn that Dodona was on the eastern front of Epirus and that it was near the numerous mountains of Pindus on the eastern front, which may be influenced by the way Aeschylus speaks of the mountains of Dodona, from the epithet “epirutos” attached to this place by the same poet, and from the “dhisheimeros” given by Homer. Il, XVI, 234.

The information about the destruction by the Aetolians shows that it was on the eastern front of Epirus. Polybius says that the Aetolians marched in the direction of the upper parts of Epirus, words which are the same as Upper Epirus or the parts much more distant from the sea in the central direction of the mountain ranges.”1)

A more detailed explanation of the possibility of the location of the capital of Dodona based on ancient authors is also given by The scholar Kujtim Mateli in the book “Dodona is located in Dëshnica of Përmet”, who, referring to the most prominent authors, ancient and modern, defines the mountain of Trebeshinë as Mount Tomar and the temple of Dodona is thought to have been on its banks, where today there is still an Illyrian fortress and where the waters of the Vjosa in the Këlcyra Gorge can be heard very well echoing as well as the two valleys of Dëshnica and Vjosa that create the six mountains of Përmet.

Meanwhile, the possibility of the location of a cult of Dodona according to the traditions and toponyms to date with the name of Dodona and even more so with the name of Mount Tomorr that we Albanians value and go on pilgrimage to even today as the mountain of the god that we have.

Meanwhile, a cult of hers is also near Ioannina, in the Carakovica valley where objects were discovered and Karapano considers Dodona to be the capital, but the findings and geographical location do not meet the main details of what was written by ancient authors.

So, from the above, the geographical territory of Dodona Pelasgica, which also includes the geographical territory of Chameria, is a unique unit with faith, population, territory and language and customs of the country.

Let’s see where Thesprotia, today Chameria, got its name from. Some authors estimate that the Pelasgian tribe of Pelasgus of Arcadia is the source of the names of the Pelasgian countries and tribes.

The region of Dodona Thesprotia is also considered to be the starting point of the migrations. We learn that Arcadia, populated by the Pelasgians, also withstood the Pelasgian-Illyrian migrations from the north down or even from the Mediterranean islands of the self-proclaimed Dorians to the mainland at the beginning of the Dark Ages after the Trojan War.

Of the kings of Arcadia, especially Lykaon (there are two of them), one of whom is also a contemporary of Cecrops, with his sons he became the protagonist of the population movements, geographical names in the mainland land of the Pelasgians, on both Ionian coasts (Thesprotus and Italy) or even on the Mediterranean islands. One of the fifty sons of Lykaon, Thesprotus, migrated from Arcadia and settled in the region where the oracle of Dodona was practiced.

Pouqueville writes that Thesprotus, son of Lycaon (son of Pelasgus), king of Arcadia, came and established his kingdom in the land which he named after himself, Thesprotia.

He was succeeded by his son Ambracus, who gave the name Ambracians to the Ambracians and founded the village of Ambracia. Ephyrys, son of Ambracus who succeeded him, founded and named the village of Ephyre in Thesprotia.2)

Thesprotus is by blood a Pelasgian, and the Pelasgian Arcadia from which he came was not first conquered by the so-called Dorians who came to border with them, when they moved further south as the first to declare themselves or to be called Hellenes.

Homer gives in the Iliad through Achilles the evidence of the existence of the Zeus of Pelasgian Dodona. Achilles was a Pelasgian and worshipped Dodona. In Pelasgian Thessaly where he lived, in the kingdom of his father, Phthiotis, the oracle of Dodona had great influence. Not far from him in Larissa, the capital of Thessaly, lived the Pelasgians who were allies with the Dardanians in the Trojan War. There may have been a cult of Dodona in Thessaly, because Dodona had some of them also because of the migrations of the Dodonians or later the Thesprotians to Thessaly.

There is no mention anywhere in Thessaly at the time of the Trojan War of the names of Hellas settlements or Hellenic inhabitants in the years 1200 – 800 BC. Homer’s work Iliad is full evidence of Pelasgian and Pelasgian tribes. Also, at this time we have information that Odysseus is placed at the head of the Thesprotians who fought against the Bryges, an Illyrian people who lived alongside the Dardanians in the western part of the Vardar River and in Thrace around Mount Bermion and later became famous for the famous empire in Asia Minor after the fall of Troy.

At this time, Thessaly was known for its four Pelasgian provinces alongside Thesprotia, which ended in the west with the Ionian Sea.

“The Thesprotes are the most ancient inhabitants of Epirus and are said to have taken their name from Thesprotus, son of Lycaon. They were Pelasgians and their country was one of the leading seats of the Pelasgian nation. Here was the oracle of Dodona, the greatest center of the Pelasgian faith. From the Thesprotes descended the Thessalians who possessed the territory that was later called Thessaly.

Thessaly proper is a vast plain lying between the Cambunian Mountains in the north and Mount Othrys in the south, the Pindus Mountains in the west and the Ossa and Pelion Mountains in the east. The only path was the valley of Tempe by which invaders could come from the west. The province of Thesaliotis, the southern part of Thessaly, was the territory where the Thesprotes who came from Thesprotia settled.

Bounded on the north by Hestiaeotis, on the west by Thesprotia, their homeland, where the Pelasgians of Thesprotia were, on the east from Pelasgiotis, from where the Pelasgians of Larissa took part in the Trojan War as allies of the Dardanians, south from Dolopia and Phthiotis, the possessions of Achilles’ father. The Thessalians, as we have already seen, are a Thesprotian tribe.”3)

According to Ridgeway, Herodotus tells us that the true Thessalians were the Thesprotians who crossed the Pindus range into Thessaly and settled in that part which is called Aeolis (Herodotus I,176) and eventually became overlords of the Achaeans, the Magnetes and the Perrhabians.

This advance of the Thesprotians into Thessaly was the cause according to Thucydides (I,12) of the movement of the people who in his time were called Boeotians into Boeotia who were chased from their lands and settled in the land of the Cadmians where some of this tribe had settled there.

The Thesprotians of Thessaly, even in their new homes under the shadow of Mount Olympus, long inherited the cult of Zeus of Dodona.

When in 196 BC the Thessalians issued their federal coinage, the wreathed head of Zeus of Dodona was a model for this coinage (Head.Hist. Num, p. 264).

At the time of the Homeric poems the Thessalians had not yet entered Thessaly, but the Thesprotians had completely conquered southern Epirus, which had taken the name Thesprotia from them.4)

There is no evidence to show that these Illyrian tribes above the Thesprotians (the Kaonians, the Mollians, and the Illyrian tribes further north) differed in any way from their southern neighbors who were called Thesprotians. 5)

According to W. Smith, the territory where the Thesprotes settled in Thessaly was the southwest of Thessaly and was bordered on the north by Hestiatotis, on the west by Epirus, on the east by Pelasgiotis, on the south by Dolopia and Phthiotis. 6)

So these new Thessalians had as neighbors the Pelasgians because Pelasgium was the whole of Thessaly.

Scholars say that, the Ephyraeans, the Ephyrans were a tribe among the Thessalians where Kranon, a city of Thessaly was anciently called Ephyre and its name was changed to Kranon by the king of that name…7)

Cramer underlines that, of all the nations that later were called Epirotes, that of the Thesprotes can be considered the most ancient. Herodotus also affirms that they were the ancestral home of the Thessalians who once displaced the Aeolians from the land that is later known as Thessaly. (Herodotus, VII, 176, Strabo, IX, p. 443)

Thesprotia appears to have been the greatest seat of the Pelasgian nation, from where the Thesprotians dispersed to several territories of present-day Greece and sent colonies to southern Italy. (Herodotus II. 56, Strabo. VII. 327, Dionysius of Halicarnassus I. 18.)

Even after the name Pelasgian became known on both shores of the Ionian Sea, the oracle and temple of Dodona Pelasgian, which are part of a religious institution originally founded in the territory of the Thesprotians, remained there to show the existence of the origin in this region.8)

According to Clinton, “at the time of the Trojan War the five states of Thessaly were led by Aeolian chieftains.”9)

“These inhabitants (Aeolians, note A.V) came according to Her”Odotus from Thesprotia.” 10)

After the Trojan War, Achilles’ son, Pyrrhus, takes as a prisoner the Dardanian prince, Scamander (Helen), who was a prophet with great authority in Troy, but also a confidant among the Pelasgian opponents of the Dardanians, and suggests to Pyrrhus that he reign in a new settlement that would later be called Mollos (after the name of Pyrrhus’ first son with Andromache, Scamander’s sister-in-law), in the territory between Thessaly and Thesprotia, within the latter which included Dodona.

Pyrrhus releases Scamander, who builds the city of Butrint, whose fortress resembles that of Troy, and calls it Kaon (after the name of his brother Kaon whom he accidentally killed while hunting in Troy), the coastal territory from Orikum to the port of Kestrin at the mouth of the Thyamis River (Kalama).

Kestrin, Scamander’s son with Andromache, built the city with his name on the banks of the Thyamis River (in the area where Philati is today) which was the dividing border at that time between Thesprotia and Chaonia.

So, historically we have independent Epirote tribes in the land that geographically has been called Dodona, Thesprotia, Chaonia, and Epirus in turn when

The Mollosians come to lead all the tribes after the Chaonians, after the death of Scamander they become a powerful tribe and preserve the Mollosian line up to Alexander and Olympus and Pyrrho and establish the Epirote connection in the land populated by fourteen tribes with Pelasgian-Illyrian roots as an inseparable part of the Pelasgian trunk with Illyria and Macedonia.

One evidence that Dodona was coveted by the Greeks of Athens comes precisely from the scholar Philhellen, Parke who tried to give it the Greek name, both the pagan Pelasgian faith of the Dodonians and the worship or attempt to formalize as Greeks, the cult of Dodona. This event, which has as protagonists the Athenians and the Illyrian queen of Epirus, Olympina, highlights the Pelasgian-Illyrian purity of Dodona in Epirus and its defense at all costs.

After 336 BC, the Athenians found it difficult to consult Delphi as before and they consulted the oracle of Dodona instead of Delphi. In 332 BC, Delphi refused to consult the Athenians until they paid a fine for having favored one of their athletes in the Olympic games.

Here is how Parke conveys this event: “This (happened) was illustrated by a paragraph in Euxenippus’ defense of Hyperides. This speech was delivered from 330 to 324 BC and in it, Hyperides mentions that “Zeus of Dodona had commanded the Athenians in an oracle to decorate the image of Dione. So the Athenians had made a face for the image and all this went very beautifully as far as was possible and they had prepared very expensive gifts for the gods and had established a sacred embassy with a sacrifice, at great expense.”

Alexander’s mother Olympias, queen of Epirus at this time, sent an indignant letter to Athens protesting that the land of Molossia in which the cult (of Dodona) stood was hers and the Athenians had no business interfering there.” 11)

This event was also an attempt by Athens to make Epirus its own in order to have it easier as a support in the war against Macedonia after the death of Alexander Mollos, the brother of Olympias in Italy.

The history of Epirus is continuously Pelasgian-Illyrian-Albanian. We see the Illyrian (Albanian) heroes having a language, a war dress and an almost common glory distinguished by their resistance. We know that even Alexander the Great of Macedonia grew up with his uncle, Alexander in Mollos and called Zeus as the god of Dodona.

During the entire time of the flourishing of Dodona, only Pyrrhus of Epirus made it more famous and is written in history as the greatest guardian of Pelasgian Dodona. Pyrrhus of Epirus grew up in the capital of Illyria in Shkodra under the guardianship of King Glaucus, who restored Pyrrhus as king of Epirus again.

In this spirit Skanderbeg also grew up heroic, whose weapons are the same as those of Alexander the Great and Pyrrhus of Epirus. In the 15th century, European historians also call Skanderbeg the king of Epirus, meaning all of Albania.

In 1463, Pope Pius II proposed and then gathered an army in Italy to cross the Adriatic because he decided to crown Skanderbeg as general-in-chief of the Christian forces and king of Epirus and Albania, Thrace and Romania, but in unclear circumstances he died even though he set out to do so.

Later, in the 19th century, the Albanians of the Vilayet of Ioannina, where Chameria was part, also became protagonists of the independence of Greece.

In the study “The Cham Albanians of Greece: A Documentary History, Robert Elsie, Bejtullah D. Destani, Rudina Jasini ” it is written that:

“The Pashalik of Ioannina with Ali Pasha Tepelena expanded with Thessaly up to The gates of Thessaloniki. In 1864, the Vilayet of Ioannina was created under Turkish administration and played a key role in preventing the Cham region from falling into Greek hands until 1912.

Cham Abedin Dino, Pasha of Preveza.

Only on October 18, 1912, the Greek army crossed the Albanian border of Arta and on October 21, 1912, they took Preveza.

On March 6, 1913, the Greeks took Ioannina by war, taking 33,000 Turkish and Albanian prisoners. The Greek dictator Metaxas, with his racist regime against the Albanian population of Chameria, reminds us of Sultan Abdyl Hamit, with his ban on speaking Albanian in public and on the use of Albanian books. For over a century, the use of the Albanian language in Chameria has been banned even today.”

Meanwhile, even though Greece does not recognize the Cham Issue, there is an awakening of the Cham Issue in the diplomatic world.

The settlement of Albanians from Albania as immigrants after the fall of the communist regime makes it easier to keep the Albanian national identity of Cham alive. So, history is repeating itself in Chameria that was never left empty by the Pelasgian-Illyrian-Albanians.

References

1) William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography: Abacaenum-Hytanis, page 783

2) François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville, Travels in Greece and Turkey, page 345

3) William Smith, Charles Anthon, A New Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, page 881

4) William Ridgeway, The early age of Greece, vol.1, page 341

5) ibid., page 342

6) William Smith, Classical Dictionary of Biography, Mythology and Geography, page 768

7) Abraham Moore, The odes of Pindar, page 336

8) John Anthony Cramer, A geographical and historical description of ancient Greece, , page 106

9) Henry-Fines Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, the Civil and Literary Chronology of Greece, page 51

10) John Lemprière, John David Ogilby, Bibliotheca Classica, or a Dictionary of All the Principal Names and Terms, page 305

11) H.W.Parke, The oracles of Zeus Dodona, Olympia, Ammon, pages 140-141