by Artur Vrekaj
(From the magazine “Rrënjët – Le Radici”, section “Mitologia”, Anno 13)
The Dardanians of Troy preserved the ancient custom of the tribes in Dardania (Illyricum) from which they had come, of giving their children names that reminded them of mountains, settlements, heroes of their lands, rivers or even the names of the gods who were called in their inherited Pelasgian language. Whenever we talk about the Trojan War, our mind goes to Scamander (Helenus), the only Trojan prince who survived and reigned in Epirus, in Lower Albania.
In Troy, one of the rivers where the Dardanian exiles settled in Asia Minor was called Scamander, which according to the Albanian (Pellagian) language means a man who no longer has dreams. The Scamander River was also called the river of the god, the son of Zeus. According to archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, we learn more about this river, after he verified it in Troy based on Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad.
“Here (on Mount Gargarus) a grove and an altar were consecrated to Zeus. And when Scamander is designated as the son of Zeus, where else should his sources be but on Mount Gargarus? In the poet’s imagination the river and the river of the god are mingled together in a single personality and the origin of both is referred as it were, to the great god-weather, on Mount Gargarus.”
“The Scamander flowed into the Hellespont (Dardanelles), in an easterly direction.” Thus, after the name of the divine river, the prince Scamander was also called, who is known in scholarly writings as Helenus. He is the son of Priam and Hecuba, king and queen of Troy in Asia Minor. Scamander was twin with Cassandra who was a priestess in the cult of Apollo at Troy.
Surprisingly, the most trusted for religious consultation by the Dardanians or even by the heroes of the Trojan War, both brothers and adversaries, was Scamander. “One tradition says that the original name of Helenus was Scamander (Skaman-drius) and he received the name Helenus from a Thracian soothsayer, who also instructed him in the prophetic art.” Scamander is described by Homer in the Iliad as “lord (god) and warrior”.
During the ten-year Trojan War, Scamander was one of the four captains of the war outside the walls of the city of Troy, along with his two brothers Hector, Alexander, and his first cousin Aeneas. In one of the attempts to repel the enemy’s ships, he was wounded in the hand by Menelaus. Homer gives us in the sixth book of the Iliad Scamander’s assessment of Hector and Aeneas as the main leaders of the military forces defending Troy.
The advice he gives to Hector and Aeneas: “to hold the front (outside the walls of Troy), to meet people everywhere, and to organize quickly at the gates” shows Scamander’s foresight as a warrior and a man trusted for his prophecies, whom Hector respects as such. After Alexander’s death, in the ninth year of the war, Scamander and his brother Deiphobus clashed over who would marry Helen, and after Deiphobus married him, Helenus flees to the sacred mountain of Ida where he is captured and taken prisoner by the opposing Trojans.
When he was taken prisoner in the opposing camp, Scamander used prophecy as a gift he had, with which he was equipped to predict the fall of Troy and the dangers of the opponents in their return. There are several versions of his departure from the city of Troy and his capture by Odysseus in the ninth year of the war. One of This is explained as follows: “The Trojan Scamander, when captured in battle with Odysseus, discovered that Troy could only fall if Philoctetes and Pyrrhus joined the Mycenaeans and the others.
The Thessalian Philoctetes was brought from Lemnos, where he had been abandoned after being wounded, and when he recovered from his wound by Machaon, with the bow and arrows of Hercules wounded Alexander. The young Pyrrhus, too, was brought from Scyros to Troy, and he drove the Trojans back within their walls. The next objective of the opposing forces of Troy was to possess the Palladium, a statue of Pallas Athena, which had been in the city for several generations and was a gift from Zeus or Athena.
Its presence in Troy ensured the city’s immunity from attack. The Trojans’ opponents were advised by Scamander to take the Palladium. Scamander was angry with the Trojans because he had not given him the hand of Helen after Alexander’s death.
Some authors point out Odysseus’ collaboration with Helen to obtain valuable information for the capture of the Palladium and the city of Troy. When he was away on Mount Ida, Scamander informed his (Trojan) people and friends that he did not leave his country (Troy) out of fear of death, but out of sacrilege that Alexander had killed Achilles in the temple and told them about the time and circumstances under which Troy might fall.
As a preacher of Zeus, he greatly respected places of worship. Three murders took place in temples: that of Achilles by Alexander and that of King Priam by Pyrrhus in the temple of Apollo in Troy, as well as the murder of Pyrrhus in the temple of Delphi organized by Orestes. After the fall of Troy, Pyrrhus took Scamander prisoner along with his sister-in-law, Andromache, Scamandro, the wife of Hector who Achilles killed.
To decide on the return route, to be safe, he advised Pyrrhus to return by land through Thrace and Thessaly since the sea voyage could bring dangers from storms. And Pyrrhus believed him. After they reached the kingdom of Pyrrhus’ grandfather, Scamander suggested to Pyrrhus that he should establish another kingdom away from his grandfather. Thus, they settled in Epirus, in the area where the Mollos reigned.
We must bear in mind that this suggestion of Scamander was also influenced by human ties of any nature, whether commercial, communicative from the movement of immigrants or based on their common origin that existed between the Dardanian Pelasgians of Troy and those of continental Europe.
After some time, Pyrrhus released Scamander and gave him his mother, Didamine, the wife of Achilles, as his wife. Pausians (i.II.1) mentions that Pyrrhus settled in Epirus in accordance with the oracles of Scamander and he had with Andromache: Molossus, Peleus, and Pergamus.
and Pyrrhus gave him (Scamander) his mother, Didame, as his wife. Scamander built Butrint, a fortress-city, in the south of present-day Albania, in the shape of a tree crown well protected by walls and waters. After the death of Didame, Achilles’ former wife with whom he had no children, Scamander took Andromache as his wife, with whom Pyrrhus had 3 children when they returned from the Trojan War and settled in Epirus. Scamander called the entire area he owned Kaon in memory of his brother, Kaon.
“Kaon was the son of Priam who was accidentally killed in a hunt by Scamander. However, it is very likely that this name was derived from the old Pelasgian tribe of the Kaons. Scamander was the founder of two cities: Butrint and Kaonia (from his brother Kaon). In one of the tablets found in Ioannina addressed to the temple of Dodona, a request from the “City of Kaona” is mentioned.
Buthrotum was the capital of Kaonia, the second most famous city after Dodona, which was the capital of Pelasgia where the most famous Pelasgian heroes of the Trojan War went on pilgrimage. The name Buthrotum, today’s Butrint, derives from an ancient legend that says that Scamander sacrificed a buffalo to ensure his entry into his new settlement. The wounded buffalo swam into the bay of Butrint and then walked ashore, towards the hill where the castle is today.
In the eastern part of the ancient city of Butrint, in the stone arch of a gate, we can still see a buffalo carved into it. Buthrotum is also the second Troy on the Mediterranean coast that amazed his cousin, Aeneas, on his way to Italy. Aeneas was amazed when he saw lions at the entrance like in Troy, a watchtower to catch any unexpected movement of the enemy, a surrounding wall that was difficult to knock down, etc. that reminded him of their homeland.
During his stay in Albania, Aeneas called Butrint “Little Troy”, because the castle was exactly like the Troy of their fathers. Here is what we learn from Virgil’s epic poem Aeneid, which documents Aeneas’ visit to Albania. “”Coming along the coast of Epirus and coming to the bay of Chaonia, we landed near Butrint, a hilly city. The Scamander of had asked Pyrrhus to give Andromache to him. who gave her back to her people. Aeneas felt a strong and wonderful desire when talking to Scamander to learn how it all happened. The story of Andromache is given by her own:
When Pyrrhus wanted Leda’s Hermione as his wife, he had
I gave it to Scamander and made me his slave wife.
a slave.” Virgil also gives us the clue of the passage
of Pyrrhus’s possessions after his death to Scamander
who Christianized the Chaonian plains and called the whole country Chaon after Chaon of Troy and rebuilt Troy, a very well-preserved fortress at the foot of the hill. Also, in the Aeneid we learn about the oracle that Scamander consulted with his first cousin Aeneas who was about to continue his journey to Italy. Scamander gave advice on the gifts that should be carried down to Aeneas’ ships.
The gifts were gold, silver and copper objects from Dodona and among them a helmet that had long ago belonged to Pyrrhus. Virgil presents that Aeneas. landed in Italy seven years after the fall of Troy. 14) This information assures us that Scamander made the dream of rebuilding Troy very quickly based on both his own wisdom, but also that of the Pelasgians of Chaonia.
The taking over of all Epirus by Scamander is connected with the death of Pyrrhus, Achilles’s son. When Pyrrhus returned from the Trojan War, he declared Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus, who had become the wife of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, her cousin, as his wife, after having promised her to Menelaus at Troy if Troy were captured. Hermione’s previous marriage to Orestes before she became Pyrrhus’ wife is known by Virgil (Aeneid,III,330.)
On the other hand, Homer says that Menelaus promised Hermione to Pyrrhus when he was in Troy and celebrated the marriage after his return to Sparta. Pyrrhus thus abducted Hermione from Orestes and “for this reason he was killed by Orestes at Delphi”. After this event in the temple of Delphi, Scamander became king of Epirus. Scamander had a son with Andromache who was named Kestrus.
Kestrine was the name of the city (modern Philately), a province, a tributary of the Kalama River, and a port in Epirus. The colony of Chaonia expanded after Kestrinus, the son of Scamander, founded a city, Kestrine, on the banks of the Kalama River, 12-15 miles from its mouth. The front of that part of Chaonia was named Kestrine, and the main village, the ruins of which are called Palea Venetia, seems to have been called Ilium or Troy in memory of their founders.
The tribe of the Chaons possessed the whole coast-line of Epirus and became the shield of Epirus. According to an Argive tradition, Scamander is buried in Argos. Pausanias ii.23. The Chaons, as we learn from Strabo (VII.324), were once the most powerful fighting people of Epirus until the Mollusi after them gained supremacy over the tribes of this country.
With King Scamander, the patriotism that was expressed in the likening of the fortress of Butrint to that of Troy also takes on meaning, as well as the naming of settlements in Epirus and across the Ionian Sea, in Italy according to the Dardanian tradition, Pelasgian. In Scamander, religious faith, the preaching of Zeus and the resistance of Troy stand out, even with his heroic war.
With his name begins a story that combines Pelasgian tribes, geographical names and kings, and most importantly, the preservation of the Trojan line and the consolidation of the foundations of Epirus as a sacred place of Pelasgia and the foundation of invincible fortresses. This is also shown by the Pelasgian purity of Epirus for several millennia, which confirms the Pelasgian-Illyrian-Albanian continuity even today.
When Scamander was dying, the kingdom of Epirus was given to Mollus, the first son of Pyrrhus with Andromache. Thus, Epirus, this entire part of Pelasgia along the Ionian Sea, was inhabited by the ancient Pelasgians, not only with Dodona, but also with the early settlements of the most famous tribes, the Kaones, Molloses, and Thesprotes, etc., who wrote glorious stories of resistance from the arrival of the Dardanian prince Scamander until the Second World War with Laberia and Chameria.
