Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/22

 4 HISTORY OF GREECE. B.C.), is sufficiently well acquainted with them to specify their town Sesarethus : he also named the Chelidonii as their northern, the Encheleis as their southern neighbors ; and the Abri also as a tribe nearly adjoining. We hear of the Illyrian Parthini, nearly in the same regions, of the Dassaretii, 1 near Lake Lych- nidus, of the Penesta?, with a fortified town Uscana, north of the Dassaretii, of the Ardiaeans, the Autariatae, and the Dardanians, throughout Upper Albania eastward as far as Upper Moesia, including the range of Skardus itself; so that there were some Illyrian tribes conterminous on the east with Macedonians, and on the south with Macedonians as well as with Paeonians. Strabo even extends some of the Illyrian tribes much farther northward, nearly to the Julian Alps. 2 With the exception of some portions of what is now called Middle Albania, the territory of these tribes consisted principally of mountain pastures with a certain proportion of fertile valley, but rarely expanding into a plain. The Autariatae had the rep- utation of being unwarlike, but the Illyrians generally were poor, rapacious, fierce, and formidable in battle. They shared with the remote Thracian tribes the custom of tattooing 3 their bodies and of offering human sacrifices : moreover, they were always ready to sell their military service for hire, like the modern Al It may be remarked that Hekataius seems to have communicated much information respecting the Adriatic : he noticed the city of Adria at the extremity of the Gulf, and the fertility and abundance of the territoi v around it (Fr. 58: compare Skymnus Chius, 384). 1 Livy, xliii, 9-18. Mannert (Geograph. der Griech. und Romer, part vii ch. 9, p. 386, seq.) collects the points and shows how little can be ascertained respecting the localities of these Illyrian tribes. 8 Strabo, vii, p. 315 ; Arrian, i, 5, 4-11. So impracticable is the territory, and so narrow the means of the inhabitants, in the region called Upper Albania, that most of its resident tribes even now are considered as free, and pay no tribute to the Turkish government : the Pachas cannot extort t without greater expense and difficulty than the sum gained would repay. The same was the case in Epirus, or Lower Albania, previous to the timo of Ali Pacha: in Middle Albania, the country does not present the like difficulties, and no such exemptions are allowed (Boue, Voyage en Turquie, vol. iii, p. 192). These free Albanian tribes are in the same condition with regard to the Sultan as the Mysians and Pisidians in Asia Minor with regard to the king of Persia in aucient times (Xenophon, Anab. iii, 2. 23).
 * Strabo, iv, p. 206.