Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/250

 2JJ4 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pindus. There was, however, much confusion in the appli* cation of the comprehensive name Epirot, which was a title given altogether by the Greeks, and given purely upon geo- graphical, not upon ethnical considerations. Epirus seems at first to have stood opposed to Peloponnesus, and to have signified the general region northward of the gulf of Corinth ; and in this primitive sense it comprehended the JEtolians and Akarna- nians, portions of whom spoke a dialect difficult to understand, and were not less v'.dely removed than the Epirots from Hel- lenic habits. 1 The oracle of Dodona forms the point of ancient union between Greeks and Epirots, which was superseded by Delphi, as the civilization of Hellas developed itself. Nor is it less difficult to distinguish Epirots from Macedonians on the one hand, than from Hellenes on the other ; the language, the dress, and the fashion of wearing the hair being often analogous, while the boundaries, amidst rude men and untravelled tracts, were very inaccurately understood.- In describing the limits occupied by the Hellens in 776 B. c., we cannot yet take account of the important colonies of Leu- kas and Ambrakia, established by the Corinthians subsequently on the western coast of Epirus. The Greeks of that early time seem to comprise the islands of Kephallenia, Zakynthus, Ithaka, and Dulichium, but no settlement, either inland or insular, farther northward. They include farther, confining ourselves to 776 B. c., the great mass of islands between the coast of Greece and .that of Asia Minor, from Tenedos on the north, to Rhodes, Krete, and Kythera southward ; and the great islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, and Euboca, as well as the groups called the Sporades and the Cyclades. Respecting the four considerable islands nearer to the coasts of Macedonia and Thrace, Lemnos, Imbros, Sarnothnice, and Thasos, it may be doubted whether they 1 Herodot. i. 146, ii. 56, vi. 127. Several of the Epirotic tribes were My^uoaot, spoke Greek in addition to their native tongue. See, on all the inhabitants of these regions, the excellent dissertation of O. Miiller above quoted, Ueber die Makedoner ; appended to the first volume of the English translation of his History of the Dorians.
 * Strabo, vii. p. 327.