There are few places where Alexander the Great's influence has not been felt His vast empire spread from the Atlantic shores of Spain to the plains of India His example has been admired and followed for generations to come, and his legacy has been deeply felt by the entire world It is said that Julius Ceaser himself began to weep as he stood under the shadow of a statue of Alexander the Great, for Alexander had conquered half the world by 19, and Ceaser not even made a name for himself by that age And how was he Albanian in any way? Well, first of all Alexander was son of Philip II and Olympia Olympia, was the princess of Epirus, a province in Northern Greece, considered to be modern day Albania, and an ancient territory of Albanian tribes This relation of Alexander having Albanian blood is considered somewhat feasible and acceptable by the history books, but we want to stretch out the enigma of Alexander Initially there is the question of where and to what people Alexander belonged to It is known that Alexander the Great, was really Alexander of Macedon, and the current flag of Macedonia is the ancient sun flag of Alexander's army This seems reasonable, but what really were the "Macedon" people As stated in the Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, "the Slavs, occupied much of the area Balkans by the 6th century AD", so it cannot be possible for the now largely Slavic Macedonia to be a descendant from Alexander the Great Slavic tribes did not come into the region of Northern Greece until well after Alexander's death, which leaves only two people left, the Albanians and the Greeks It is important tot note that the history books have not labeled Alexander Greek, and therefore he can only be Albanian. Albanian tribes are the earliest known to occupy northern Greece, and that allows Alexander only one nationality Alexander did not have Albanian blood, he was an Albanian To Albanians this fact seems very clear, for we have named our currency lek, after Leka I Madh The Barbaric war style of the Illyrians was deeply rooted in Alexander's spirit, which is good reason for his expertise as a general and a conqueror More proof of Alexander's Albanian ancestry would have to be the close relations he had with the King of the Illyrians, practically a man of his own kin There is an ancient legend that the Illyrian king gave Alexander a large, beastly, dog to commemorate his achievements The beast was so ferocious, Alexander decided to make it hunt bears The dog showed no interest in this endeavor and lay lazily without moving This angered Alexander and he had the dog killed When the king of the Illyrians heard of this he sent him another dog, this time with a message of "not wasting the dog's time with small things" This time Alexander had the dog fight a lion, which the dog quickly broke the back of, and then an Elephant, who the dog forced off a cliff The extensive diplomacy between Alexander and the Illyrians only suggests that Alexander was an Albanian himself Also, there is the conquered territory of Alexander When looking at a map of his advances, oddly enough Illirium and Northern Greece is not touched by his armies Yet, the Illyrian and Northern Greek tribes did not have armies capable of facing the Great Alexander But Alexander considered them as one, they were all Albanian Alexander could not possibly conquer his own land That is why this area remained untouched Accepting Alexander's Albanian ancestry opens a vast world of possibilities There is of course the long Ptolemy dynasty of Egypt that followed after Alexander's death, started by one of Alexander's generals and childhood friend Accepting Alexander as an Albanian, would mean accepting a big part of Egypt's history to be determined by an Albanian dynasty, that of Ptolemy Alexander's genius and accomplishments opened a great chapter in the history of Albania A chapter that has never been forgotten -----------

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2004

Answers

Alexander the Great a Mirdites Albanian

In a pamphlet written in 1416 by the Byzantine satirist Mazaris, ‘The Sojourn of Mazaris in Hades’, there is an imaginary letter dated 21 September 1415 and addressed from the Peloponnese to one Holobolos of the Underworld, which describes the condition then existing in the peninsula:

“In the Peloponnese … live pell-mell numerous nations, of which it is not easy nor very necessary to retrace the boundaries, but every ear can easily distinguish them by their languages, and here are the most notable of them: Lacedaemonians, Italians, Peloponessians, Slavs, Illyrians, Egyptians, and Jews (and among them are not a few half- castes) in all seven nations.”

John Fine, a specialist in medieval Balkans describes Albanian movement in Morea (Peloponesse) this way:

“A certain amount of disruption was caused by further Albanian migration and settlement, but this had benefits as well. Albanians, settled in deserted and mountainous regions, added to the number of farmers and shepherds and contributed to increased agricultural production and tax income. The Albanians also provided further, and excellent soldiers. However, the Albanians were also a source of disorder and brigandage. For though their settlement at times took place on vacant lands, at others it resulted in the ousting of already settled agriculturalists. And since many Albanians were shepherds and continued to be so, a portion of Morean (Peloponessian) farmland, went out of crop production to become pastureland. In March 1415 Emperor Manuel arrived in Morea, investing his son Theodore, who was now of age, with full authority…” (The Late Medieval Balkans – A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest, John V. A. Fine Jr.)

It must be paragraphs like this tempting Phil-Hellenes and Slavo- phones to paint the origin of Albanians as enshrouded into mystery. It is time we spread the clouds and let the eagle fly high on clear skies over peaks she once raised her eaglets. The Illyrians, Mazaris speaks of, are the same Albanians following Scanderbeg’s father, Gjon Kastrioti. By 1415 Gjon Kastrioti held Tirane and the territory north of that town to the Mati and beyond it(including Thkella), controlling lands as far east as Prizren, and by 1423 extended his dominance to the outskirts of Alessio (including Mirdite). Meanwhile, that same year, the Turks directed a major offensive into Albania and Gjon Kastrioti accepted suzerainty and sent his sons as hostages to Adrianople. Captured by Ottoman Turks and educated at Adrianople, the Turks nicknamed young Kastriot (Gjergj), "Scander-beg". Literally, "Iskander", Turkish for Alexander in reference to his illustrious forefather, Alexander the Great; and "bey" or general, lord.) Skender-bey quickly won the favor of sultan and served him loyally in campaigns both in Europe and Asia. He did well and rose rapidly to become a high-ranking Ottoman military commander. Seeing what was happening to Albania, Scanderbeg with three hundred loyal Albanian horsemen deserted the Ottomans and arrived at Kroia (Albania), recovered all his family holdings and set out to unite the Albanians chiefs into a league to resist the Turks. In March 1444 he called a congress at Alessio, where all the tribesmen willingly submitted to central discipline with Scanderbegas head of the League. A Mirdites by blood, he was able to overcome every difficulty in uniting his tribesmen. Scanderbeg’s heroics and his brilliant military leadership defending Albania from the Empire of the Turks became widely known in Europe. Proclaimed by the Pope as King of Albania and Macedonia, Scanderbeg died in 1468. Marlowe’s first work was titled ‘Scanderbeg’ as was one of Vivaldi’s operas and later Longfellow would describe the Great Lord Alexander of Medieval Albania this way:

Anon from the Castle walls the crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, the Black Eagle with double head, And the loud exultant cry that echoes wide and far, "Long Live Scanderbeg!" H W Longfellow Tales of a Wayside Inn, 1873

Scanderbeg’s name is closely linked with the League of Alessio (Alexiensis). Alessio, one of the principal seaports of Albania, favourably located near the mouth of Drin, was known through ages as Lissus, Alise, Alessio, Lesch and today as Lezh. Within the diocesan limits of Alessio was the quasi-episcopal abbey (abbatia nullius) of St. Alexander Oroshi or Orochi, the mountain stronghold of the small but brave body of the Catholic Mirdites of Albania. St. Alexander called Shen Llezh-dri is the saint protector of the Mirdites. There existed a legend about an Arc up at the top of Orosh, none could open, where the Saint’s head was believed to be found. It’s from Shen Llezh-dri (St. Alexander) that the modern name Lezh originates. Its medieval name Lesh is also Albanian deriving from the short Latin version for Alessandro, Alessio (root – Lesh). Lezhe (Alessio) had formerly five churches. The cathedral was dedicated to St. Nicholas and once held the mortal remains of Gjergj (George) Kastrioti, the immortal Skanderbeg. Local tradition relates that when the Turks took the town they opened his grave and made amulets of his bones, believing that these would confer indomitable bravery on the wearer. Transformed into a mosque, the cathedral was abandoned by the Ottomans after three dervishes had successively committed suicide from one of its towers. We may speculate that the saint’s head, at the Arc of Orosh, was in fact that of Gergj Kastrioti - Skenderbey, saved by the Mirdites not to fall in Ottoman hand. Alexander’s name in Indo-Pak. is Sikander, which comes from Iskender. The peoples of Asia Minor and the Middle East called him this because Alexander of Macedon conquered all their lands so quickly and when riding into battle tied horns to his head to look more menacing. The peoples of these regions believed these were real! In similar fashion Gjergj Kastrioti, Skender-bey (Lord Alexander in Turkish) wore a helmet with a goat’s horns standing out. It may be a coincidence that Alexander the Great of Macedon was turned into a latter-day saint, named St. George by Greek Orthodox Church, in Mirdite Shen Gjergji corresponding with Albania’s own medieval Lord Alexander named Gjergj Kastrioti.

The feast day of Saint George, April 23, marks the beginning of summer in Albania, and is associated with numerous popular customs, most of which are designed to ensure growth in children, farm animals and crops. In Kosova and Macedonia, Saint George's Day, celebrated on May 6 according to the eastern calendar, is associated with the eating of a flija. In Podujeva, nettles are picked from the garden, dipped in water and used to sprinkle the children with in order to give them strength. In Tetova (Macedonia), villagers at the foot of the Sharr mountains bathed their children in water from the Vardar River, which they fetched the night before and mixed with various ingredients (red flowers, red-colored eggshells, blossoms, etc.). The bath water was then thrown back into the river and all potential harm to the child with it. The tradition of bathing children in spring flowers and blossoms is still known throughout Kosova and Western Macedonia. Flowers are also put under children's pillows at bedtime. In Shala, shepherds gathered flowers and herbs on Saint George's Day and fed them to the farm animals, which were adorned with ivy leaves and "smoked" with incense. It was believed in the northern mountains that herbs and plants had a particularly strong healing effect if picked between the two Saint George's days. In Shkodra, children would decorate doorways with branches and flowers picked before dawn. In Mirdita it was believed that, should there be thunder storms between the two Saint George's days, there would be no snakes that summer. The Orthodox of Kiçnica in Upper Reka (Macedonia) also celebrate Saint George of the Winter (Shën Gjergj i Dimrit) on December 9. Edith Durham in “High Albania” when speaking of Albanians’ use of flags, points to a striking fact: “Only the Mirdites have a distinctive flag with a rayed-sun upon it.” (‘High Albania’, Chapter II London: Edward Arnold, 1909). The Rayed-Sun was the emblem of the Royal House of Macedon, and of course that of Great Alexander. The Rayed-Sun was used in Skanderbeg’s seal as “Dominum Albanie” (King of Albanians) and in a mandate sent to Pope Piu II the seal of his kingdom wrote “Sigilum o Regniae o Macedoniae o et o Albaniae” (Kingdom of Macedonian Albania).

Sir William Woodthorpe Tarn, of the British Academy, regarded worldwide as having written the definitive work on Alexander the Great, states in the opening paragraph of his book ‘Alexander the Great’ that "Alexander certainly had from his father (Philip II) and probably from his mother (Olymbia) Illyrian, i.e. Albanian, blood!" (ALEXANDER THE GREAT, W.W. Tarn, Beacon Press, Boston, 1956)

Aristotle, Alexander’s teacher, favored a “Timocracy” (rule by honor) – a combination of aristocracy and democracy, in which the suffrage would be restricted to property owners, and a numerous middle class would be the pivot and balance wheel of power, an idea very similar to the rule of inviolable trust in the history of Mirdites Albanians. However, Leonidas, the Epirote, rather than Aristotle was considered as Alexander’s greatest teacher.

“The care of his education as it might be presumed, was committed to a great many attendants, preceptors, and teachers, over the whole of whom Leonidas, a near kinsman of Olympias, a man of an austere temper, presided, who did not indeed himself decline the name of what in reality is a noble and honorable office, but in general his dignity, and his near relationship, obtained him from other people the title of Alexander’s foster-father and governor.” (The Life of Alexander the Great – Plutarch)

Alexander himself was quoted to have said:

“All mortals should live like one, united, and peacefully working towards the common good. You should regard the whole world as your country, a country where the best govern, with common laws, and no racial distinctions. I do not separate people, as many narrow-minded others do. I am not interested in the origin or race of citizens; I only distinguish them on the basis of their virtue. For my part, I consider all, whether they be white or black, equal.” (Alexander The Great )

We know for a fact that Alexander’s mother Olympia was an Epirote Princess. We also know that Philips’ mother Eurydice was Illyrian, which makes 3/4th of Alexander’s blood Illyrian. The question however is whether the Macedonian ruling house was of Greek or Illyrian descent?

Shala, Shoshi and Mirdita, says tradition, descend from three brothers, who came from modern Kosova (ancient Dardania). When they left, the first took a saddle (shala); the second a winnowing sieve (shosh); and the third had nothing, so he said ‘good-day’ (mir dit) and withdrew. Up to the days E. Durham visited the highlands of Albania, Shala, Shoshi and the three banners that constitute the original Mirdita brotherhood (Spach, Orosh and Kushnen) did not intermarry. Miss Durham saw this fact as proof of original close consanguinity. Shala, Shoshi and Mirdita are mainly Catholics and the most conservative culturally preserving the Gegh social system. Shala, Shoshi and Mirdita belong to the most important ‘fis’ of whole north Albania, known as the Dukagjins.

‘Fis’ comes from Pelasgian ‘phys-us’ meaning common origin. The ‘fis’ is an exogamus patrilineal kinship group, without geographical attachments; several whole banners (bairaks) may belong to one ‘fis’; on the other hand one small village may contain branches of several ‘fis’, some large and national, others small and local. The ‘fis’ is the body of descendants in the male line of one usually eponymous ancestor

The original ancestor of Mirdita triple brotherhood (Spach, Orosh, and Kushnen), youngest from the legend of the super-fis (Shala, Shoshi and Mirdita), came from the plain of Kosova (ancient Dardania) looking for refuge, at least 100 generations ago, according to popular tradition. This youngest brother, left with nothing but a ‘good-day’ (Mir-dita) greeting to come and live in the mountains of today’s Mirdite where he had three sons. When these three brothers set out to divide the land, the oldest took Orosh, that’s why the banner of Orosh is known as the leading banner, Spach took the second place and Kushnen the third. It’s of great interest to stop at the relationship of this triple brotherhood with the other banners of Mirdite (9 of them, altogether 12 banners).

Spach, Orosh and Kushnen together with Fan and Dibrri formed the League of Mirdite and later with the other 3 banners of Thkella (Thkella, Selita, Perlati) and 4 banners of Lezha highlands formed Mirdite with 12 banners. While Fani and the banners of Lezhe could be the most ancient inhabitants of these highlands, the other two major groups, Mirdita and Thkella, often times rivals, claim as their ancestral origin respectively Dardania and Ohrid area. Archaeological and historical findings, show that Mirdite in antiquity was inhabited by the Illyrian Pirustae. Pirustae, according to Ptolemy (Geogr., ii, 16, §5), dwelt in the eastern part of Albania, east of Dyrrachium (Durazzo); Pirustae, is Latin for Dardanian, since Pirus is Latin for pear, in Alb. would be ‘Dardhe’. The ethnic affinities of the Dardanians, from whose name, derives the modern Albanian word for ‘pear’ (dardhe), have been examined by Papazogly. Names of individual peoples may have been formed in a similar fashion. The name of the Delmatae appears connected with the Albanian word for ‘sheep’ (delme) and the Taulantii from ‘swallow’ (cf. the Albanian tallandushe). It is possible that just like Pirustae, the Taulanti are one of the many branches of the Dardani, and therefore referred by a different name at a particular place and westward movement in time. M.E. Durham pointed out that Bertius, mapmaker of Louis XIII of France, who marked the region "Pirustae" added to it "albanese". She also remarked that the name Dardania was used as late as 1770, as attested by a map published in Nuremberg (see Durham, Some Tribal Origins... pp.) Dardanians, were believed to be descended from the legendary king of Troy, Dardanus, who ruled over many tribes in Asia Minor and was responsible for settling the Dardani west of the Thracians. According to tradition, this Dardanus was founder of the Trojan ruling house from which Epirus, Macedonia and later Rome (from Aeneas) claimed Trojan ancestry. This son of Zeus and Electra (daughter of Atlas) survived the great flood and sailed to the area that later became known as Troy. He married the daughter of Teucer, who was king of the area, built a city, and named it after himself. When Teucer died, Dardanus succeeded him as king and renamed the entire area Dardania; the inhabitants of the region were known as Dardani. (Homer, Iliad 20.215-222; Apollodorus 3.12.1- 2; Diodorus Siculus 5.48.2-3). Family Tree 42.

John Wilkes, author of “The Illyrians- Peoples of Europe”, well-known British scholar concerned with the archaeology of Roman frontiers and Eastern Europe writes:

“Among groups who may have belonged to the Taulanti, known to Greeks for their method of preparing mead from honey, were the Abri, named by the sixth century writer Hecataeus as neighbors of the Chelidones, the ‘snail-men’, who may have lived on their northern borders towards the Mat or Drin valleys.Behind the coast Illyrians bordered the Chaones, the Epirote people of whom the Dexari or Dessaretae were the most northerly and bordered the Illyrian Enchelei, the ‘eel-men’, whose name points to a location near Lake Ohrid. According to Polybius (5.108), the Dassaretae possessed several towns, though none has yet been definitely located, including Pelion, Antipatrea (probably Berat), Chrysondym, Gertous or Gerous and Crenion. Livy’s refrence to ‘Pirustae of the Dassareti’ (45.26) in the second century BC may be an error of the manuscript…” (p. 98)

Going through Wilkes’ book, I found many fascinating facts, the author knew nothing how closely they relate to Albania and modern Albanians. I believe Wilkes to be a Phil-Hellene, however I must say his work is a great accomplishment in Illyrian studies. I have to disagree with his assumption that Livy’s reference to “Pirustae of the Dassareti” might be a manuscript error, because I don’t see why the Pirustae, one of the most powerful Illyrian tribes could not hold possessions in and around Lake Ohrid or why the Pirustae and the Dassaretis may not have been connected to a common ancestor as in the case of our talked about Gegh super-fis!

“... The Issenses, the Taulantii, the Pirustae of Dassaretia, the cities of Rhizon and Olcinium, shall be not only free politically, but exempt from all tribute ...” (Livy's History of Rome)

There were in fact other groups going by the same name as in the case of Atintanes of Epirus located among the hills on the right bank of Aous in the Mallakastra north of Tepelena and perhaps as far as Skrapar and the Atintani of Illyria located in the region of Chermenike, north of Elbasan. If we accept Livy’s reference as truth and not as a ‘manuscript error’ than there is a high probability or should we call it ‘evidence’, that those belonging to the Mirdites triple brotherhood (Spach, Orosh and Kushnen) are descendants of Illyrian Pirustae (Dardans) and the ones from Thkellas triple brotherhood (Thkelle, Selite, Perlat) descend from ‘Pirustae of the Dassareti’ (Southern Dardans), whose ancestor as we will see might be the same. According to tradition, Thkella, Selita and Perlati, known as ‘Thkellas’ or ‘Oherians’ (Ohrides), were three brothers that came from somewhere near Lake Ohrid, which corresponds to Dassarete’s location Livy has given us.

Being neither a historian nor a linguist I have no definite say on something so intriguing and fascinating as the origin of Macedonian dynasty but since our historians are not brave enough to step in, do the research and unravel the truth Slav-Macedonians and Greeks falsely claim as theirs in their daily fabrications, it is left to many of us simply taken by the connection between Albanian culture and antiquity, when this should be rather than a hobby, a scholarly challenge. Mixing facts with legends may seem foolish since all ancient people traced their origin based on some legend, but there is one truth Albanian highlands know best, that which has brought down from one generation to the next an oral tradition as unique as one can find, preserving their identity through thousands of years in midst of wars, fighting endless enemies up in their mountains. These highlanders were called “barbarians” by the new coming Greeks* whose name in fact is anything but Greek.

Greek was a name applied by Illyrians to an insignificant group of Dorians that passed through Illyria into Epirus and settled in a region of Thessaly called Graia. Gra – in Albanian literally means women or ladies. According to Pelasgian mythology ‘Graias’, were three gray haired, old ladies (representing three Dorian tribes), sisters of the monsters called Gorgons. The original name of Greeks was ‘Grae-ci’ originally given to them by Illyrians and then modified by Romans, adding the Latin suffix (- ci) just as in the Illyrian case, ‘Illyri-ci’. I’ll try not to get any further into the roots of Greek mythological origin because then I’d have to explain a whole different connection having nothing to do with Macedonians and the Illyrian ‘barbaric’ war style deeply rooted in Alexander’s spirit. Velleius Paterculus, officer in the Roman army and an eyewitness of the Roman campaign to crush the Illyrian uprising of the Pirustae and neighboring tribes, makes this comments:

“…for the Pirustae and the Desidites, Dalmatian tribes who were almost unconquerable on account of their position of their strongholds in the mountains, their warlike temper, their wonderful knowledge of fighting, and, above all, the narrow passes in which they lived, were then at last pacified, not now under the mere generalship but by the strength in arms of (Tiberius) Caesar himself, and then only when they were all but exterminated” (2.115).

Alexander the Great, Alexander III of Macedon (356-323 B.C.), king of Macedonia, born in late July 356 BC in Pella, Macedonia is one of the greatest military genius in history. He conquered much of what was then civilized world, governed by his divine ambition of the world conquest and creation of universal world monarchy. Arrian describes Alexander: the strong, handsome commander with one eye dark as a night and one blue as a sky, always leading his army on his faithful Bucephalus, accompanied by the best military formation of the time, the Macedonian Phalanx which was armed with sarisses, the fearful five and a half meter long spears. He was the first great conqueror, which has reached Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Asia till the river Indus in India.

Like all ancient kings, Alexander claimed that the gods were his ancestors. Already in the fifth century, the Macedonian kings said that they descended from Temenos, a king of Argos; great grandchild of Hyllus (Alb. Star), the son of Heracles. The oldest source for this family tree can be found in book eight of the Histories of the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus.

Herodotus in his work “The Histories” gives us this account on Alexander’s ancestry:

“This Alexander was descended, in the seventh generation, from Perdicass, who won the lordship of the Macedonians in the following way. Three brothers, Gauanes, Aeropus, and Perdicass, descendants of Temenus, had been expelled from Argos and had taken refuge in Illyria. Thence they crossed into upper Macedonia and went to the town of Lebaea, where they hired themselves out to do menial work for the king, one tending the horses, another the oxen, and the youngest, Perdicass, the sheep and goats.

In the old days it was not only the common folk who were poor; even the reigning houses were of slender means, and in Lebaea the king’s wife cooked the food. Now it happened that every time she baked, the loaf intended for the boy Perdicass swelled to double its proper size. She said nothing for a while, but when it went on happening every time, she told her husband. At once it occurred to the king that it was portent from heaven of some important event, so he sent for three servants and ordered them to leave the country. The young man in reply, said they had a right to their wages, and would go as soon as they were paid. The sun was shining through the smoke-hole in the roof of the house, and the king, when he heard wages mentioned, was inspired to his ruin, crying out: ‘I give you the wages you deserve – there they are?’ – and pointed to the sun. The two elder brothers Gauanes and Aeropus, were struck dumb; but the boy, who had a knife in his hand, scratched a line with the point of it around the patch of sunlight on the floor, and said: ‘King, we accept what you offer us.’ Then three times he gathered the sunlight into the folds of his tunic, and left the town together with his brothers.

When they were gone, somebody who was in attendance upon the king mentioned what a significant thing the boy had done, and suggested that the youngest of the three knew what he was doing in accepting the offered wage. The king was angry and ordered men to ride in pursuit of the brothers and kill them.

In this part of the country there is a river to which the descendants of these three men offer sacrifices as their savior – for when the sons of Temenus had crossed it, it suddenly rose so high that their pursuers were unable to get over. Once safe on the other side, the brothers went on to another part of Macedonia and settled near the place called the Gardens of Midas, the son of Gordias, where roses grow wild – wonderful blooms, with sixty petals apiece, and sweeter smelling than any others in the world. According to the Macedonians it was in these gardens that Silenus was caught. Above them rises Mt. Bermium, the heights of which are so cold that none can climb them, and it was from the slopes of these mountains that the brothers conquered, first, the land in the immediate neighborhood, and afterwards the rest of Macedonia. From the Perdicass of this story Alexander was descended: he was the son of Amyntas, Amyntas of Alcetas; the father of Alcetas was Aeropus; of Aeropus, Philippus; of Philippus, Argaeus; and of Argaeus, Perdicass – who first won the sovereign power.” (Herodotus – The Histories, p. 549)

It is not how the legend of Shala, Shoshi and Mirdite relate to the one of Gauanes, Aeropus and Perdicass, told by Herodotus that convince us about the connection between the two legends, but the mounting material showing Macedonians as a pre-Hellenic stock, whose might together with the Epirote and Illyrian kingdoms formed Pelasgian bastions in the sea of Hellenic assimilation within Greek cultural piracy. In Albanian “Argat” is a servant working the fields since “Ar-a” means field just as in ancient Pelasgian “Aras”, meant flat land. The plot as told by Herodotus takes place first in Illyria where three brothers have taken refugee which for Herodotus must have been a territory next to upper Macedonia, either Dardania or Dassaretes’ land. There is hard to find a town called Lebaea in upper Macedonia but in Wilkes book I came across Labeates, a small Illyrian tribe later absorbed by the Autariates living around Lake Shkoder.Coins with the legend ‘LABIATIAN’ were produced by the Labeatae of the Lacus Labeatis (Lake of Shkoder) and, like other pieces of Scodra (legend SKODRI-NON), bear on the reverse a galley, a traditional image dated in Illyria around 211-197 BC. If our three brothers followed an itinerary from Argos (will explain later which Argos we’re talking about) to Dardania and then onward to the house of Labeates’ king we might be able to imaginatively construct a fictional way of their escape through Mirdite passing onto a great river called Emathia (modern Mat), whose name later was brought to Paeonia by one of the Macedonians kings named Emathion (Mation/Matian, people from Mat).

Thkella as a brotherhood in its history has not always sided with Mirdite, at times those two brotherhoods would appear as rivals, other times Thkella would act alone or side with Mat tribesmen, but when facing enemies Mirdite and Thkella were always one. What separated Mirdite (with Thkelle) from Mat tribesman was the river Mat, other than that every aspect of their tradition is almost identical. If the story of the young Temenaid, named Perdicass and his older brothers was that of Shala, Shoshi and young Mirdite than the Illyrian connection between Mirdite and Thkelle might indicate a migration of the Pirustae to the south from where they probably launched their attack on Paeonia establishing themselves as rulers of not only Illyrian Paeons but of Thracian tribes as well, and giving rise to a new identity, that of Macedon.

The fact that Macedonia’s ancient name was Emathia (Alb. Emadhia) meaning ‘great one’ indicates that the river crossed must have been Mat (ancient Emathia). Emathia, [Hom.Il.14.226; Nonn.48.77; Ov.Met.5.313, 12.462; Strab.Frag.7.11]. In winter Mat raises so high that quite often accidents happen to those who try getting from one side to the other. Greeks place a strong emphasis on the Royal House of Macedon as Heraclids and therefore true Hellenes, an attempt by the ancient Greeks to make it easier the idea of subordination to a foreign leadership. If Royal Macedonians were Heraclids and therefore Greeks then all Illyrians are Hercalids therefore “Greeks” but we know that ancient Greeks and Illyrians spoke a different language and we also know that Illyrians were named Hercalids, after Hyllus, son of Heracles. In Periplus or Coastal Passage attributed to Scylax of Caryanda, we find this description:

“22. …The Illyri dwell by the sea as far as Chaonia, which lies opposite Corcyra, the island of Alcinous. There is situated the Greek city called Heraclea, with a harbour. There dwell the Lotus-eaters, barbarian peoples with the names Hierastamnae, Bulini, and Hylli who are neighbors of the Bulini. This people tell that Hyllus the son of Hercules had his dwelling among them. They are a barbarian people occupying a peninsula a little smaller than the Peloponenese. The Bulini are also an Illyrian people. The voyage along the land of the Bulini as far as the river Nestus takes one day. 24 … Then from the river Arion (to the river Rhizon) the voyage is a half-day. There are the rocks of Cadmus and Harmonia and a shrine, not far from the river Rhizon….” (Periplus, Coastal Passage).

There is no doubt that Hylli were named after Hyllus, the adopted son of Heracles. According to legend, Hyllus was the son of Cadmus and Harmonia, the first king of Illyrians, worshiped as ‘The Star’. To this day ‘Hyu’ has entered the Albanian vocabulary as ‘God’, where in ancient Greek, understandably ‘Hyus/Hyos’ meant ‘Son/Son of God’. Modern Greek claims of Macedonians as Heraclids and therefore Graecis/Grakois are false and scholars today make the distinction between Dorians and Heraclids, two different groups purposely confused by the ancient ‘Hellenes’ to lay claims upon Pelasgian land and culture.

Based on legends and accounts given to us from story-tellers of old and new ages, we can see the truth behind this “based on a real story” legend. As we all know myth is part truth and part fiction, a reason why Herodotus, claiming a Dorian ancestry, was known not just as ‘Father of History’ but as ‘Father of Lies’ as well. It’s one thing claiming Alexander’s heritage and another to back it up with facts.

The legendary origin of the Macedonians from Argos in Peloponnesus, was invented by King Alexander I Macedon (498-454 B.C.). When as a Phil-Hellene he wanted to take part in the Olympian games, he was rejected, since "the games are not meant for the barbarians, but only for the Hellenes." The Macedonian king, for the sake of his own prestige and to fulfill his desire to take part in the Great Games, tried cunning: he stated that, according to tradition, his family originated from Argos on Peloponnesus and not from Western Macedonia. Consequently, he became the first Macedonian at the Olympic Games; but this is a questionable statement. There is no evidence that any Macedonian took part in the Olympic Games before Philip II. And the assertion that Alexander I Macedon won in some events should be completely rejected because his name is not included in the lists of the victors, the Olympionics. Alexander I had done a great favor for the Greeks prior to the Battle of Plataea in 479 B.C., and was therefore known as a Phil-Hellene, "admirer of the Greeks" or "friend of the Greeks." But it is obvious that Alexander could not have been a Greek, if he was called a "Greek friend" and not referred to as a Greek.

Alexander I, the Phil-Hellene, misrepresented the fact that Temenid legend spoke not of Argos in Peloponnesus, but of Argos Orestikon in Upper Macedonia. Herodotus stated that the three brothers Gauanus, Aeropus and Perdiccas, descendants of Heraclides Temenus and therefore called the Temenids, had fled from Argos in Upper Macedonia and arrived at the town of Lebaia. Herodotus does not say where Argos was located; however, the historian Apyanus asserts that it was Argos in Oresteide.

The name 'Argeads' has created the impression that the Macedonian kings traced their descent back to Argos in the Peloponnesus, but today most scholars believe that this impression is the result of confusion between Argos in the Peloponnese and Argos Orestikon south of Kastoria. Just south of Keletron was Argos Orestikon, a mountain city, founded by the Orestae, a Molossian tribe that in Late Bronze Age moved from the north into the upper Haliakmon river valley. Orestides lived in Epirus in their land called Orestis, which was part of Molossia. The Orestae were the tribe from which the Argeadae Macedones sprang. They became the leading tribe of Macedonia forming the Macedonian royal house that reigned until the death of Alexander III (the Great). Their territory was found between rivers Aous and Achelous and they claimed to be successors of legendary Orestes of Mykenaea, son of the Dannan leader, Great Agamemnon. Orestes’ name comes from Oros / Orae, (offspring of “Gaia”) which in Pelasgian was a mountain god/goddes, and in today Albanian Or-e is a mountain nymph. Edwin E Jacques in his book on Albanians among other place- names found in Iliad mentions Maleiaon Oros (Nymph’s Mountain - Malin Orosh). In Aggamemnon’s kingdom we find the ancient city of Or-neai. The Greeks of classical world would say, “we will say that we died fighting the enemy at Orneai.” ‘At Orneai’ in classical Greek is a pun meaning (bird), i.e. ‘At Birdland’, and the town of Orneai, which lay between Korinth and Sikyon, underwent a bloodless one-day siege in 416. Aristophanes uses this classical Greek expression, in his play “The Birds”, to remind Greeks not to undertake their Sicilian expedition against natives of that land. It’s a fascinating fact that for as long as it can be remembered Arvanites of Greece referred to their language as “The language of the Birds”. The oldest brother in the Mirdita brotherhood was also called Orosh (Mali Orosh) and strange enough in “Twelfth Nights” Shakespeare, the Duke of Illyria is named Orsino.

The issue of how the term "Macedonian" originated is dealt with by J. R. Ellis:

"One of the significant sites which illustrates their presence [the presence of the Illyrian tribes] is the one in the vicinity of the neighboring villages Vergina [Kutlesh in Macedonian, in Aegean Macedonia] and Palatitsia, at the foot of the Pirin Range, which projects above the southwestern corner of the Emathia Plain, twenty kilometers from Methone on the land and seven or eight kilometers in the south from the coasts of the lower Haliacmon River. The archaeological picture there shows the presence of an Illyrian population from 800 B.C. until the middle of the seventh century. Further to the south, on the slopes of Mt. Titarion and the Pirin Mountains as well as the northern extensions of Mt. Olympus lived Macedons, who gave their name to the region Macedonia."

J.R. Ellis assessment of the Macedonian background gives us an understanding of the “barbarian” identity, highlighted in Curtius’ famous dialogue between Alexander and Philotas.

Curtius(2) Hist. Alex. Magni Maced., IV, I11.4.:

The general Philotas was accused by one of his compatriots of not feeling ashamed,

" . . . Macedonatus, homines linguae suae per interpretem audire," ". . . born a Macedonian, to hear the men of his language through an interpreter,"

Alexander asks if Philotas will speak in the language of their fathers,

"... Macedones ... de te indicaturi sunt, quero an patrio sermone sis apud eos usurus," "... the Macedonians who will judge you, I ask if you will use the language of [our] fathers with them,"

The response:

"Praeter Macedonas ... plerique adsunt, quos facilius quae dicam percep-turus arbitror, si eadem lingua fuero usus qua tu egisti, non ob aliud, credo quam ut oratio tua intellegi posset a pluribus," "[Above and] beyond the Macedonians ... there are many present whom, I feel, will more easily grasp the things I say if I use the same language you did, for no other reason, I believe, than that your speech might be understood by many."

Greek was for the classical world the international language of trade, as English is in modern times, and the elite Macedonians as well as the elite Illyrians spoke it but Alexander and the rest of Macedonians could not help but feel offended when Philotas, one of their own, addressed them in a tongue different from that of their fathers. The language of Macedonians was the “barbarian - Pelasgic” tongue, spoken by the Illyrians of Epirus (Toscans) and Illyria (Gegenes - Homeric Hymns) and Plutarch indirectly proves it, when he says that young Alexander retired in Illyria after the quarrel with Philip:

“At the wedding of Cleopatra, whom Philip fell in love with and married, she being too young for him, her uncle Attalus in his drink desired the Macedonians would implore the gods to give them a lawful successor to the kingdom by his niece. This so irritated Alexander, that throwing one of the cups at his head, ‘You villain,’ said he, ‘What, am I a bastard then?’ Then Philip, taking Attalus’s part rose up and would have run his son through, but by good fortune for them both, either his over-hasty rage or the wine he had drunk, made his foot slip, so that he fell down, on the floor. At which Alexander reproachfully imsulted over him: ‘See there’, said he, ‘the man who makes preparations to pass out of Europe into Asia overturned passing from one seat to another.’ After this debauch, he and his mother Olympias withdrew from Philip’s company, and when he had placed her in Epirus, he himself retired into Illyria.”

Polyxena Myrtale, Alexander’s mother later called Olympia, claimed descent from Achilles, and met Philip’s infidelities by intimating that the real father of her son was god Zeus (Ammon). In the excavations of Dodona conducted in 1875, Karapanos found carved on the stone of the temple a two-headed eagle, which the ancients used to represent the messenger of Zeus. In the Iliad we find Zeus sending an eagle as a divine sign to the Pelasgian combatants (Iliad 8:97; 12:155). Homer also likened those brave warriors to a swift eagle. Queen Olympias of Epirus later took this symbol with her to Macedonia, and her son Alexander the Great made it known throughout the ancient world as a true messenger of Zeus. Achilles, son of Peleus and goddesses of the sea Thetis (Alb. Deti) led in Troy his Myrmidons, which after their king’s death followed his son Pyrrhus to Epirus where Achilles was known by the name Aspetus (alb. Swift), and labeled by Homer "Swift footed Aeacides". Pyrrhus Neoptolemy, son of Achilles, had three sons by Andromache (Hector’s wife): Molossius, Pictus and Pergamon. While they were still young, king Pyrrhus was assassinated at the temple of Delphi. Meanwhile Elin, Priam’s son taken a slave in Troy’s war, married the twice-widowed Andromache and ruled as king of Chaonia, his kingdom extending from the present-day town of Saranda southwest including the region called Chameria (Molossia). Elin established himself at the Albanian town of Butrint, giving it the name of Buthrotum-Troy. Upon the death of Elin of Butrint, the throne went to Pyrrhus’s son Molossius and from him to his son Neoptolemy whose daughter was Polyxena Myrtale (Olympia). The Athenian orator Hyperides gives us an account on the possessive trait and pride of Olympias as Athens found out when the city decided to renovate the temple of Dodona in Epirus:

“The land of Molossus is mine. It is not for you Athenians to lay a finger upon a stone of that temple.” (Hyperides)

Molossians called Xanthus River the Skamander, for Plato wrote about the river that “the gods call Xanthus, and men call Skamander” (Plato 1952, 7:89), in Albanian meaning ‘I have no dreams’ (S’kam-anderr). Having read Iliad several times I felt compelled to read some more about the authors who translated this great work into English and I came across “A Companion to the ILIAD – Based on The Translation by Richmond Lattimore” by Malcolm M. Willcock, and on page 225, I stopped and tried to make sense of what was written:

“Iliad, 74. For different names for the same thing in the language of gods and men, see 1.403-4 n. Perhaps in this case Xanthos and Skamandros result from separate attempts to put into Greek the same non-Greek name, a confusion which may also be discerned in the names of Alexandros and her sister Cassandra.”

I asked myself, - what’s in the name Alexander?

Alexander was the name given to Olympia ‘s son. The night before her wedding, Olympias dreamed she was penetrated by a thunderbolt, so that fire gushed out of her womb, spreading far and wide before it was extinguished. On the night of Alexander’s birth, tradition alleged, the temple of Artemis was burnt down. The local Persian Magi interpreted this as an omen of further disasters to come. They ‘ran about beating their faces and crying aloud that woe and great calamity for Asia had that day been born’, a firebrand that was destined to destroy the entire East. A month or two later Philip also had a dream: he was sealing up his wife’s vagina, and the wax bore the stamped device of a lion. Some of the palace seers took this to mean that Philip should keep a closer watch on his wife. But Aristander of Telmessus — who afterwards accompanied Alexander to Asia — had a more acceptable explanation: Olympias was pregnant, and with a spirited, lion-like son. One did not, he told Philip, put a seal on an empty jar. The name “”Alexander” was used by Homer for Paris in Iliad, and in Pelasgian, (alb. Aleksanderr) meant ‘Newborn Dream’ – ‘A Le Ksi Anderr’ or ‘Le-Ka Si Anderr’. Lek-e and Llesh are the abbreviated Albanian forms of Alexander widely used in Mirdite. Llesh indicating influence from the Western (Latin) form “A-less- ander” and Leka from the Eastern (Hellenic) form “A-leks-ander”. It doesn’t surprise me that Phil-Hellenes will voice their skepticism and say there is no Albanian explanation in Alexander’s name, that is why I would like you to judge for yourselves. Let’s look at the names Alexander (Paris), Alexander (Macedon), Cassandra (Kassandra), Aristander (of Telmessus), Menander (at Alexander’s Death), Leander (Hero and Leander). If there is a connection between the Albanian word for dream (Anderr) and the story behind each of these character’s birth and life then I think we hit the nail right on.

Paris, called by Homer in Iliad Alexander (A le kesi ander – newborn dream), was the second child of Queen Hecabe 1 of Troy. Just before his birth, Hecabe 1 dreamt she had brought forth a firebrand that destroyed the city of Troy. When this dream was known, the diviner Aesacus 1, who had learned to understand the meanings of dreams because he had been taking lessons in this art from the seer Merops 1, the father of King Priam 1's first wife Arisbe, advised to expose the child, prophesying that Paris was to become the ruin of the city. So, when Paris was born, King Priam 1, following Aesacus 1's interpretation of the dream, gave his and Hecabe 1's son to a servant Agelaus 2, with instructions to expose him on Mount Ida, near Troy. Agelaus 2 did as he was told, but when he returned after five days, seeing that the child had survived because a bear had nursed him in the wilderness, carried him away, and bringing him up as his own son, he named him Paris. This boy grew up to be a very handsome and strong young shepherd who also defended the flocks from robbers.

Cassandra (Ka ca andra – has dreams) according to J.G. Frazier, referring to a couple of scholiasts, acquired her prophetic power (reading dreams) when she, as a child, was left overnight in the temple of Apollo Thymbraeus and in the following morning serpents were seen licking her ears. Others have said that Apollo himself, wishing to gain her love, promised to teach her the prophetic art. But Cassandra, having learned it, refused her favours, and then the god, not wishing to take back his gift, deprived her prophecy of the power to persuade. This is why she, later in life, lamented:

"Apollo, my destroyer, for you have destroyed me ..." [Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1080]

... and acknowledged:

"I promised consent to Apollo but broke my word ... and ever since that fault I could persuade no one." [Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1208ff.]

Accordingly no one listened when she recommended to destroy Paris, her ill-omened brother, shrieking:

"Kill him! Kill the destroyer of Priam's city! Kill that child!" [Cassandra. Euripides, Andromache 293]

When Paris finally sailed to fetch Helen in Sparta, Cassandra uttered new fiery prophecies, saying:

"Where are you going? You will bring conflagration back with you. How great the flames are that you are seeking over these waters, you do not know." [Cassandra to Paris. Ovid, Heroides 16,120]

And when on Paris' return, Cassandra saw Helen coming into Troy, she tore her hair and flung away her golden veil; but the city nevertheless received this woman as a jewel meant to enhance its beauty.

Aristander (Arrish te Anderr – grasping, reaching a dream) of Telmessus, who later served as Alexander’s seer during his campaigns, interpreting Olympia’s dream declared that Olympias must be pregnant, since men did not seal up what was empty, and that she would bear a son whose nature would be bold and lion-like. Alexander had many precognitive dreams that benefited his career. The most famous of his dreams occurred while he laid siege to the city of Tyre. Alexander dreamed that he had captured a satyr dancing on a shield. Aristander interpreted the dream as an acronym of the words "Sa Tyros", meaning, "Tyre is yours." After a seven month siege, it became his prize. He also had a dream in which he saw Heracles reach out and call from the walls of Tyre. Thus inspired, Alexander won the city on the next day.

Menander: (Men Anderr – dream thinker) had the following dream, and saw this vision: he saw a lion loaded with chains and cast into a pit. A man spoke to him: "Menander, why dost thou not descend with this lion, since his purple is fallen? Get thee up now, and seize him by the neck of his purple." Menander's grief at this dream, and his conviction that the lion signified his master, were not mistaken - in the morning a messenger announced the death of Alexander at treacherous hands. This story of Menander’s dream has come down to us in fragments of a Coptic romance the fabulous Life of Alexander.

Leander (Dream born) is the Romeo of ancient world, his name reflecting his good looks in a superlative scale. The beautiful Hero lived in a tower by the Hellespont (a sea), administering to Venus and Cupid. Across the Hellespont lived Leander, a handsome young man. They met at a festival honoring Adonis, and fell in love. Leander agreed to swim the Hellespont each night to visit her, and she agreed to light a lamp to guide him to her tower. Thus, during the summer the two enjoyed many secret nights of love. But when the fierce weather of winter arrived Hero could not resist lighting the lamp anyway to guide Leander to her bed. When Leander saw the lighted lamp he attempted to swim across the Hellespont despite the weather, and drowned in the attempt. The next morning Hero looking down at the wave-battered rocks saw the mangled body of her lover, and threw herself from the highest crag onto the rocks below, uniting with Leander in death.

Alexander the Great was Albanians as was his name.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2005

Here is a site that shows the Mycenaean gods and there continuation into the Archaic period. Mycenae was a Greek power that dated from 1500 B.C.E until around 1000 B.C.E. They had influence over most of the region known as Greece today, including Thessaly, Attica, Macedonia and Epirus as well as the entire Peloponnesos all the way to Crete. For a list of the gods that survived from them to the later "Greek" people. This shows that many of the Greek gods were not taken from the Illyrians or the Hittites or the Trojans. The Mycenaean words are from Michael Ventris who deciphered the Linear B dialect to show that the Mycenaeans were "Greek".

The site is: http://www.csun.edu/~hcf11004/mycen.html the site is from the University of California Northridge

Once you see the site Genti you will see that I am not curious as to the "meanings" in Illyrian. These names have been in the region for many centuries before the Illyrians ever moved into the region.

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2005

According to that logic, we all developed from elsewhere and we all borrowed from other people. Do you think the Hittites were the first people in Anatolia? I bet they probably borrowed their culture from other ORIGINAL inhabitants, the same has happened all over the world.

The discussion is about wether of not Macedonia and Epirus were Illyrian or Greek from descent, not who the original inhabitants of the region were. Not all the Greek mythology was borrowed from the Pelasgians, much of it was brought with them to the region. The descendants of the Pelasgians have mixed in with greek blood probably more than 3000 years ago. So they are now Greek. Genetically speaking they are most likely 99.9% greek blood now.

Now for the meaning of Aphrodite- Afro=sea foam Dite=came out of, from. This follows exactly with the legend of her birth. Apollo=to drive away(evil,etc.) Please look up original transliterations then give me meanings. As you can see I can give you direct greek translations all day.

Even thought we don't agree, I still find this discussion very interesting and educational. I am learning more this way than I could by only reading books. So no matter how frustrated you or I get, let's keep it civil and keep learning. I have learned more about Albania and Illyria than I have ever known before, so something good does come out of the discussion. I am also learning more greek than I expected, which will help me later in my career.

Anyways happy holidays and safe travels!

-- Anonymous, December 25, 2004

Well my logic will be like this.greeks when came into BAlkans were "barbarian" people or lets say THEY WOULDN'T LEAVE CAUCASUS IF THEY WERE A LITTLE BIT DEVELOPED ECONOMICALY,POLITICALY , CULTURALY.NOW ACCORDING TO HISTORIANS ITS WELL KNOWN THAT THEY FOUND SOME PEOPLE WHO CALLED THEMSELVES PELASGIANS IN THAT AREA.

NOW MY LOGIC WILL BE THIS that how could the "barbarians" develop a culture while escaping from their homelands.I think they assimilated and borrowed much of pelasgian s culture even in ILIAD of Homer its written "The divine Pelasgian Zeus".You see i am referring to greek books but unfortunally greeks especially like to think that they gave culture to the World and THAT CULTURE IS OF 100 % greek.

The same with Alexander is happening.I would like to show that He was not a pure greek but chose what he liked more. I have never mentioned to you about the massacres of greek general Zerva in Chameria were 200 000 Albanians were driven out of their Homes.

You see even 2000 years later Epir didn't change his population structure.

Well I am travelling somewhere so I will be away for a while.

Merry christmas and a Happy New Year

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

Genti, you should look at the map one more time! Because I see Epirus just above Thesprotia and to the left of Hestiaeotis. I may not be understand what you are trying to say here.

Now just to state something else about the Illyrians not being in the region at the time. Where did you get this notion from? I know I never stated it.

I am glad that you are realizing that there are many words that could have been borrowed by the Illyrians from the Greeks. There is also the fact that both languages are from the Indo-European family of languages, thus giving even more words that may be somewhat similiar.

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

First of Cassander (kassandras) Kas=Kasis-brother of sister, Andras=man. It is not ander, that is the the Latin/English spelling.

Alexander- Alexandros, all the ancient incriptions show it this way and this is how the Greeks spell it today also. Once again it is not 'Ander' that is the Latin/English version. So if you want to do an etymology of the word use it's original form.

Now 'Paris' meaning the "first boy". News flash, he was the youngest son of Priam, Hector was the "first boy".

Before you start giving meanings to words you need to use some logic.

Also why are the comparisons between modern Greek words and ancient Illyrian words? Why isn't it compared to the ancient Greek words? There are many word form ancient Greek that are not used today. Also there were many dialects of ancient Greek. So there are many variations of the same words between the dialects. I also showed you what Homer meant in greek in another post.

No one ever clained that the Illyrians weren't around during the time of the Iliad. No one is claiming that you came after the Slavs. Saying that is a faulty argument. I am just claiming that the "Greek" speaking people have been in the region much longer than the Illyrians, that is why there are some similiar words. The greeks were already powerful in the region (you have heard of the Myceneans?) they were not only influential in the Peloponnese but also into Macedonia and Epirus.

Use some logic here. You claim the Illyrians are the same people as the Trojans, but yet you are tying to claim ACHAENS(Greeks) Achilles and Odysseus as being Illyrian. Does this make any sense? No Greek ever tried to claim that the Trojans were Greeks!

Truly think about what people claim as fact before you use it as evidence. Ex. the Paris meaning first boy. Even though hector was the first boy. And the versions of a word that you use. Ex. Andros instead of Ander. And the Epiriots to call themselves "The Drunken"? Many more examples can be posted and I will if you keep using faulty arguments.

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

Genti, you can post all the Etymilogical versions you want, but the fact remains that all the ancient Greek names have remained the same throughout time and are still pronounced and spelled the same today. The greeks have no reason to use etymology to find a POSSIBLE meaning of a word. We have the same words unchanged. I can make a japanese word greek, Ex. Kimono, means a robe. In greek we have Xeimona 'x' is an 'H' it means winter. And what do you wear in the winter when you get out of the bath in the winter "a robe" thus the word Kimono is originally derived from Greek. If you have to keep using etymology to show that a Greek name is Illyrian, then don't you think that it might not be an Illyrian name? Think about it, the Illyrians came into the region around 1000-1200 B.C.E. The greeks have been in the region since at least 2200 B.C.E Isn't it at all probable that the Illyrians borrowed some of these words from the Greeks. I wonder why you have to change words to make them fit while the Greeks still use the original version.

Please explain why almost every word you claim to be Illyrian has to be changed in order make it fit into the Illyrian(Albanian) language?

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

Genti, interesting verions of the names. I do think all the Epiriot names are important.

Let me start:

1)Pyrrhus(Purros)"the 'u' is an 'ee' sound. It means fire coloured or red. His hair colour. 2)Epirus(Epiros)- Epi= on, at, near, beside Rus(ros)= stream, current, flood, wave. Combined they mean= on or at a stream. The Greeks also loved there wine especially the Spartans who drank it un-cut. I.E Dorians. Only the Athenians considered drinking uncut wine barbarous. All the rest of the Hellenic people drank their wine un-cut. You did know that Genti?

3)Achilles is not the Greek version (Axilleos) is the greek version. Axil= I am not certain of, due to my small dictionary, but Leos(Lewn) = Lion.The 'w' is a long 'o' sound. This is why Alexander wore the lions pelt. It was a symbol of Achilles. Now his name which the people of that country called him (Aspetus)=unspeakable, incessant, or Immense(most likely)

4)Pelasgus- Pelas=neighbor, fellow man. Gus(yoos)= incantation. The 'y' is 'g' sound The name means incantation of the fellow man.

Here are many other names that are either Epiriot or Macednon.

5)Antigone an Antigonus- Antigone is his wife and Antigonus is the son of his sister Deidama

Anti=for the sake of, for. gone(gonus)= a beggetting(to become the father of; Sire), birth, origin, descendant, offspring, seed.

6)Ptolemy(Ptolemos)- it is also Polemos= which means warrior, fighter.

7)Neoptolemus- Neo=new, young. Ptolemos=fighter, warrior.

8)Macedon(Makednos)- Tall or slender.

9)Myrtilus/Myrtali-Myrton(mupton)=myrtle berry. The 'u' is an 'ee' sound and the 'p' is an 'r'. He is Pyrrhus's cup-bearer.

10)Deidamia- Dei=one must, one ought. Damia(damaw)=to tame, break; to give in marriage. The 'w' is a long 'o'. She is Pyrrhus's sister.

11)Polysperchon- Poly=very, many and Sperchon(Spercho/Sperxon)= angry The 'x' is an 'h' as in 'hot'. He was one of Pyrrhus's best soldiers.

12)Cleopatra-Cleo(Kleos)=glory, good repute, honour. Patra(patris) =one's country, fatherland, native city.

13)Phaethon- shining or beaming. The first king of Epirus. The son of Helios(Sun).

Now the names of the men who saved Pyrrhus's life. They were from Epirus also.

14)Androclides- Andro=man and clides(kleos)=glory, good repute, honour.

15)Hippias(ippias)=rider of horses.

16)Neander(Neandros)- Ne(neos)=young, new. Andros=man

17)Angelus(Angelos)=the one who brings news.

I could go on and on with these Epiriot names, but I hope you can see that they all have Greek meanings and I'm quite certain most would favor the greek meaning of Achilles since everyone knows his symbol is a lion. Next, why would someone name there son "Drink and Live" It makes more sense to name him after his hair color.

Next, why would you call your land "Epir" "The Drunken" That is an insult. It would make more sense to call the land by it's natural geography, thus, "at or near a stream".

I think we need to have a poll as to which definitions sound more likely or accurate.

So everyone post a "Yes" for James or a "Yes" for Genti.

Finally Genti, there is racism happening but it is from both sides. None of my motives are racist. Most Greeks are not racist, they are only tired of having there heritage attacked at every turn. We also have the African-Americans claiming everything Greek is also theirs. As for myself I am only showing that there are greek meanings to the names you claim to only be Illyrian(Albanian). I think you need to see if you can find meanings for the rest of the names I posted before you absolutely decide that none are Greek.

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/MapGreece.html

You see James No Epirus Included.Is Not Albanian Map

I have other names which have meanings in Greek like more than 1/3 of Greek Mythology Gods like Zeus,Athena,poseidon but they are ethymological and I think we don,t need them for our subject don't we?? The names explained to you are not All which I wanted to write down because I haven,t got much timebut if you want more I can make you suspisciuos what about the Greek history told in your Schools or whatever.

Are you already suspisious ???? :):):)

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

Priam => Prijam => Prijes jam => "I lead" in Albanian

Kasandra => Ka ca andra (I think you know that she used to see scary dreams a and predicted the destroy of the troyan war ). => (She) Has some dreams in Albananian (the word ANDER = dream appears in Aleksander name)

Parid => Pari => The first boy in Albanian

Troy is pure Albanian we use it even today it means "Land" refered to what is ours

Dardan refers to word "Pear".I think you know who he was, don't you??

Hector => Hek tore => "I move everybody" or better explaind to you He was the leader of the trojan army which means "I command everybody"

Hecuba => Hek ube => Hek kuje => Which means "Suffer a lot".If you have read the Iliad you will point that she suffered a lot because she had all of his kids and husband killed by Acheans and became a slave

Oddysseus => Odisea (greek) => Udhesheu (Albanian) = > means "The traveler".You know his story don't you????

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

Aristidh Kola was an arvanites from Kalavrita, a village in Beotia near Thebe. He studied the arvanite language and their history. He wrote many books, one of them beeing "Arvanites i dori tu neoteru elenizmu" or in english "The arvanites and the origin of greeks".

Among other things of importance, he prooved the autochtony of our albanian people. Among other things, he prooved there are many things in common with the greek language Homeros spoke and albanian language. How is it possible we borrowed greek words (or the other way around) if we came after the slavs? Borrowings from modern greek or neo-greek are understandable, but homeric greek? The only explanation seems to be that we lived here since the days of the Iliad!

I will present here some of the similiarities taken from Aristidh Kolas book bwteeen the greek language Homeros (In Albanian Homer which means "The Poor one" which is supposed to mean the man who suffers from the missing physological needs like Blindness") used, words that are not even found in new greek!

Nr. Albanian Homeric Bizantian (New Greek)

1 Ai që nëm, nëm (folje) Neme-sis, neme-sao Katara

2 Anda, ënda Andha-no Efkharistisi

3 Arë, ara Arura Horáfi

4 Bashkë ec Vask ithi Porevume

5 Dera Thira Porta

6 Deti Theti-s Thalasa

7 Dhe, dheu (tokë) Jea, dhor, dha Ji

8 Dor-ë, dor-a Ekedeka-dor-o Qheri

9 Dru Dris, drimos, driti Ksilo

10 Edhe, dhe Idhe, te Qe

11 Elbë, elbi Alfiton Krithari

12 Enë (veshje) Enimi Ruho

13 Errët, errësirë Ere-vos Skotos

14 Ethe (kam ethe) Ethir, ethae Piretos

15 Flas Flio, fliarae Milao, omilae

16 Fryma, frima (dialekt jugor) Frimao Fisima

17 Hedh Heo Rhino, tinazo, sio

18 Heq (helkj = tërheq) Elko Travae

19 Iki, ike Iko Fevgo

20 Kale, kali Kelis-tos álogo

21 Kall (djeg) Kileo Qeo

22 Korr Kiro Thiro

23 Krua, kroi Krunos Vrisi

24 Krye, krie Krithen, kari Qefali

25 Lehem (lind) Leho, lohia Jenieme

26 Lepur Leporis Lagaes

27 Lesh Lasios Malå

28 Lig (i lig) Lig-ios, lig-aes Adhinatos

29 Loz, ljoz (arbërisht) Lizo Pezo

30 Lutem Litome Parakalae

31 Marr, mar Mar-pto Perno

32 Marrë (i marrë) Margos Trelaes

33 Më duket Dhokei mi Nomizo

34 Mend, mendoj Mendohem Medhome Sqeftome, nus

35 Mëri, mëni (dialekt verior) Minis Thimos

36 Mi, miu Mis Pondå**

37 Mjeshtër Mistor Tehnitis

38 Mjet Mitos Nima hondrae

39 Ndaj, daj (dialekt verior) Dheo, deo Horizon

40 Ne (neve) Noi Emis

41 Nisem Nisome Ksqinae

42 Nuk Ni uk Dhen

43 Nuse Nisos, nios Nifi

44 Para (përpara) Paros Mbrostá

45 Për ty Par ti Ja sena

46 Për-hapa, për-hapsh Apsh, aps Piso

47 Punë, puna Ponos Dhuliá

48 Qas, kias Qio, kio Simono

49 Qen, qeni Qion Sqilos

50 Re, retë Rea (perëndia e reve) Sinefo

51 Rrah Rahso, raso Dherno, htipae

52 Rri (qëndroj) e-ri-dhome Kathome

53 Rronjë (rroj, jetoj) Rronio, rronimi Zo, akmazo

54 Ruaj, rojtar Rrio, rritor Filáso

55 Shkel Skel-os Patio, patae

56 Shkop Skipon, skiptro Ravdhi

57 Sy O-se Máti

58 Tata, ati, i jati Tata, ata, jetas Pateras

59 Ter (thaj) Ter-so Stegnaeno

60 Thërres, thrres, thrras Threo, throos Fonazo

61 Torrë Tornoo Jiro

62 Udhë, udha Udhos Dhromos

63 Vanë (shkuan) Van Pigan

64 Vend, ved Ved-os, vedh-os Edhafos, topos

65 Verë (stina e Verës) Vear Kaloqeri

66 Vesa, versa Versi Dhrosos

67 Vesh, vishem Ves-this, vesnimi Forae, foráo

68 Zien Zei Vrazi

These are just some. My point (and Aristidh) is that, if we werent here when Homer lived, how did we borrowthose words (or how did they borrow those words), and these are just some, I didnt have time to write them all. Note some of ancient toponyms in Greece may have alb- homeric greek ethymology, like Arkadia, ancient Drunor, from the word "dru" meaning wood.

I´m not implying we are the descendants of Homeors, however I believe we lived here in those times, linked to Troy, the descendants of Dardan, founder of the city.

Other words which seem to be similiar is for instance our ancient word Hyllus=Yll-i, meaning star close to the greek word for sun=Helios=Ilios!

I wrote the greek words in the way they´re pronnounced and written by us albos!

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

Aphrodite * Afro , afer in albanian means: close, near, the attempt, la tentative, l'approche in french ) * Dite in albanian means : The day, le jour So Afërdita means near or close to the day ------ Penelope Pen ( wire, le fil ) e ( female form, she, elle), Lypë ( asking, elle demande ) The wire that she ask, le fil elle demande, Pen e Lypë .... ------ Ptoleme: the so called greek philosoph Albanian - Ptol mend - Lot of intelligence, sciences ------ Apolloni was the god of prophesy, music and healing. apolloni = A-po-loni - "You are playing" which is supposed to mean the man who likes to play and entertain other people

more to come....James

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

I will give you just the meanings of the names mentioned from Plutarch and the most important we are disscussing.I don't see a reason to give you some explanation about Antigonus or Deucalionus or whatever.Here you have the explanation and meaning if you want

Pyrrhus (Greek) - Pirro (Albanian) - Means "Drink and Live".You know that the Epirots were great drinkers of wine,don't you James??

Epirus (Greek)- Epir (Albanian) Means "The Drunken" is supposed to mean about a man who loves to drink and have fun: Achilles (Greek) - Akile (Albanian) - From ethymology "Ak i leht" means "So Light" which is supposed to mean about his speed while running and attacking for exapmle "He is so light on his feet"

Aspeti(what the Epiriots called him) Aspeti (Albanian) means "The Fast" Wanna check???Open the Dictionary.

Pelasgus (Greek)- Pellazg (Albanian) means "the settle man" or to explain for you to understand better "the people who settle at a location where nature and everything is very friendly to them"

And now that all the names were explained to me with the normal Albanian LAnguage and not with Ethymology may give an answer to you.

Your web pages are Greek I have seen them and they are just Propaganda.

Now you answer me about what I gave you or shall we end the discuss??

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

Everything you have said is true James, and I don't think the Albanians know what to do. Finish them off!

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

Genti,

Before I answer what I think about the sites you posted, I want to ask you to do something for me! I want you to give me the Albanian (Illyrian) meaning for the following names. Cleopatra, Pyrrhus, Neoptolemus, Phillipos, Cleander, Olympias, Epirus, Demetrius, Antigonus, Achilles or Aspetus(what the Epiriots called him),Cleodaeus, Phaethon, Deucalion.

Now I want to point something out to you in Plutarch's Life of Pyrrhus. It states;"Of the Thesprotians and Molossians after the great inundation(an overwhelming number or amount, i.e. a migration of many people), the first king, according to some historians, was Phaethon, one of those who CAME INTO Epirus with Pelasgus. Others tell us that Deucalion and Pyrrha, having set up the worship of Jupiter(Zues) at Dodona, settled there AMONG the Molossians. In after time, Neoptolemus, Achilles's son, planting a COLONY, possessed these parts himself, and left a succession of kings, who, after him, were named Pyrrhidae:"

From this one paragraph it seems to me there was a migration of people into Thesprotian and Molossian lands. From those immigrants came the first kings of Epirus.

When you give me the meanings of the names(in Illyrian or Albanian) I listed, I will give you the rest of my argument.

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2004

I am sorry James but you did't share with us your thoughts about the web pages I gave to you first.I want to know if you think that Plutarch Biography of Pyrrus of epir where is a lot of information about EPIR and the Molssians is worse than the today's Greek web pages and a history written with all this Rasizm beetwen our countries.Don't you think this is logic James

-- Anonymous, December 22, 2004

Ok PLEASE READ THIS WEB PAGE AND ALL SHAL BE ANSWERED..BUT PLEASE MAKE SHURE YOU READ THE WHOLE PAGE BEFORE COMING BACK TO REPLY ON THE BOARD..I WOULD APRECIAT IF YOU GAVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS AFTER YOU READ... http://www.macedonia.com/english/history/hellenism/

-- Anonymous, December 22, 2004

PLEASE READ THIS WEB PAGE AND ALL SHAL BE ANSWERED..BUT PLEASE MAKE SHURE YOU READ THE WHOLE PAGE BEFORE COMING BACK TO REPLY ON THE BOARD..I WOULD APRECIAT IF YOU GAVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS AFTER YOU READ... http://www.macedonia.com/english/history/hellenism/

-- Anonymous, December 22, 2004

OK Lets stay with that what we believe

-- Anonymous, December 22, 2004

PLEASE READ THIS WEB PAGE AND ALL SHAL BE ANSWERED..BUT PLEASE MAKE SHURE YOU READ THE WHOLE PAGE BEFORE COMING BACK TO REPLY ON THE BOARD..I WOULD APRECIAT IF YOU GAVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS AFTER YOU READ... http://www.macedonia.com/english/history/hellenism/

-- Anonymous, December 21, 2004

Sorry I wasn't able to respond sooner, but I got a Virus on my computer and I had to replace my hard drive. I got the virus doing research on the topic. I am back now, with a new and better hard drive. I haven't had a chance to look at the sites you posted recently, but I will when I get a chance.

I will agree with you that neither one of us is going to change our minds anytime soon. So why don't we just agree to disagree;) I always liked Socrates quote "A wise man is one who realizes that he knows absolutely nothing." I am not certain if that is the exact quote but I know it's close. This one quote is very true when it comes to history, considering that new evidence is discovered everday by archaeologist. Maybe one day evidence will be uncovered that would either prove or disprove either one of our beliefs. So right now why don't we just stay with what we believe.

-- Anonymous, December 21, 2004

hej james morgan where are you man i didn't here you voice last times

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2004

james morgan i gave you albanian and not-albanian internet sites to judge who were the Molossians from which the Mother of Alexander the Great was.

Now if you will read most of these sites (they are not too long) you will find sth related with Plutarch Biography of Pyrrhus of Epir.

I am not gonna say anything about the GREEK WRITER WHO KNEW BETTER THAN YOU AND ME, WHO WHERE THE MOLOSSIANS.SO IF YOU DON"T BELIEVE THE HISTORIANS WHO LIVED THAT EDGE WHY ARE YOU SO UN-SCIENTIFIC TO BELIEVE THE NOWADAYS GREEK HISTORIANS ABOUT WHAT THEY MAKE UP OF EPIR.

JUST read it and find out the saying of Socrates "The more I learn the more I am consciuos how stupid I was before"

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2004

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/people/a/pyrrhus.htm

http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_plutarch_pyrrhus.h tm

http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm? zi=1/XJ&sdn=ancienthistory&zu=http://www.albanian.com//main/history/i ndex.html

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2004

http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_albaniaancient.htm

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2004

hej morgan you keep saying the same things.You know what??

I know sth. We are never going to agree so let's stop arguing about his nationality.You keep your beliefs i will keep mine.

So who cares.This conversation is never going to end and I learned sth that ots hard to convince sb who is your opposite

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2004

Gneti, I never said that linguistics isn't important, I said "Linguistics is important in tracing ancestry and areas of Origin for a people. It doesn't help when establishing who rightfully should belong to a land." An example would be the Slavs, who even though they have been living in the Balkans for nearly 1400 years and can trace their language in the Balkans to that time, doesn't mean they are originally from there. Through their language though, we can trace their ancestry to the Steppes.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2004

Genti, that sites version of the Illiad is laughable. First off Homer is not part of the Illiad or the Odyssey, he was just the first to write the story down. 2nd no one knows where Homer was from, just that he wrote the Epics down sometime in the 8th century B.C, in ancient Greek, not Illyrian. So if he was Illyrian why wouldn't he write it down in Illyrian since Illyria still existed and had their own language.

It's funny how you talk about facts when there is "ABSOLUTELY" no evidence of an older Illyrian version of the Epics, just congecture.

Further no greek ever used the word Ulysses his name was Odysseus. So this site taking the latin transliteration of Ulysses and saying it came from the Hittite Wilusa is completely absurd. Odysseus was the king of Ithaca(Greeks). The people who attacked troy were the Achaens (greeks). "Odyo" is a LATIN word for "Hate" not Greek! The ancient greek word for hate is "miseo" shorter "miso" like in "misogynist"= woman hater. This guy has taken latin words and claimed they are Greek.

One thing that really makes me laugh is he states "Illyrians otherwise Albanians(mountain people) had a tendency to abbreviate long indo-european names, so Hillusya became Illyria, Hattusili became Hylli." What the hell is he talking about. The Illyrians were indo-europeans, so why would they shorten their own words? Second don't you find it far fetched that those words can even be the same. Also he says the Trojan nome Ilus+Ilios. Why would the greeks add an I to the word when it would be acceptable phonetically to the greeks to say Ilos. Now further why would the greek word for sun(ilios) have an added "L" to it to change it into Illyrian. If it was from the word "Ilios" the greeks would have called your people Ilyroi with one "L" not two. In greek the word for sun is pronounced i-lios unlike Illyroi which is pronounced Il-lyroi. So it would not mean "the people of the sun" it would only mean to the greeks "the people of Illyria".

This guys etymology is a joke. He grasps at any possible connection of Hittite and Greek names and words to come up with a possible connection to Illyrian words. He is obviously blinded by his dillusions of trying to make everything Illyrian(Alabanian)

Now for the name Homer. In greek it is Omiros(Homeros)which is Greek for "Hostage". it is believed that his name was extracted from the name of a society of poets called the "Homeridai", which litteraly means the sons of hostages i.e. the descendants of prisoners of war. These men were not sent into the battlefield because of the uncertainty of their loyalty, thus they were given the duty of remembering the epic poetry of an area and to remember past events. This was done before the the tradition of writing stories down.

Now for the word Hylli was "Possibly" an abbreviation of the word Hattusili. Once again just speculation as with most of his derivitives and tranliterations. He further states that "The name Kanesh was 'OBVIOUSLY' an Egyptian distortion of Hittite King appelation of Hattusili I, the conqueror of Hattusa, the land of the Hurrians. The Egyptians could not distinguish the old indo-european laryngeals; hence to Egyptians the Hittite laryngeal H- seems like K" Does this make sense to you? If this is so then the name "Hattusili" would have been to the Egyptians "Kattusili", not Kanesh.

Now for the Hittites. He states that the "Hittites actually called themselves people of Nesa(an abbreviation of Kanesh)"WHAT?"

From the University of Texas site http://www.utexas.edu/cola/dept/lrc/iedocctr/ie-lg/Anatolian.html

It states "Their kings called their land "Hatti Land" and Hittite scribes called there land "Nes(h)ite". = Nes-hite or Nes-ite

This proves the site you are getting your information from is biased and innacurate. You really need to go to nuetral sources in order to check the B.S he is stating. Like the University of Texas or any other non Albanian University.

If you want to present a case don't use Albanian sources, go somewhere that has no bias. Whenever I have refuted or posted an argument I have listed sources. The only time I have not was to show some of the Arguments against your views, in which those sites had sources to back their claims.

And finally YES I can tell the difference between FACTS and ARGUMENTS. I have tried to be civil here but it is starting to feel like it isn't going both ways.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2004

you cant really know for sure........but just because he was born in Northern Greece doesnt mean hes albainain.....whos to say he was even born there....well w/e he might be or he might not......i dont see any use in argueing about it now because you cant go back into the past and actually see him being born. So you can make any claim you want. Like Jesus wrote the bible

lmfao

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2004

Hey umm i had many spelling errors and i know what nationality is i meant so say i dont know what nationality Alexander is for sure. Knowone can be sure.But Dracula was a crazy ass romanian bitch man.

YUUUPPPPP

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2004

Yeah im juss writing in because mikel alia were wondering wat nationality Alexander was.I personally dont really know what nationality is and ill take the albanian story. But im romanian and thats all good. Mikel Alia Sugi dai pula!!!!Coaie tarfas

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2004

Yeah I saw the site.But what ??it doesn't tell any facts that the Molossians were Greek.GOT ANY FACTS???????

If no stop saying The Molossians were Greek and Epir is Greek

In that Site kept repeating the words::EPIRUS IS GREEK.BUt sorry no facts found about it.

I am not saying he was Illyrian by heart he was greek by heart.

But guys you have to accept Aleksander was Illyrian by blood and greek by heart.

As to knowledge the post i did before isn't my self-speech but if you open the site http://www.geocities.com/protoillyrian/ you will find the information you need about THE PROTO-ILLYRIANS.

And don't say bullshit that all the Languages have too much of common words.AND EXACTLY THESE KIND OF WORDS ARE NOT USED BY ETHYMOLOGY.

IF YOU SAY ETHYMOLOGY IS NOT A SCIENCE VERY HELPFUL WHAT KIND OF HISTORIAN YOU ARE.

http://www.geocities.com/protoillyrian/

http://www.geocities.com/protoillyrian/

I read your site now you can read mine.

And if you really want to have a conversation present and share with us just FACTS.They can be from different SCIENCES and not by pseudo- ones.I don't need ARGUMENTS.

Can you distinguish the difference beetwen FACT and ARGUMENT

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2004

Here is another site that talks about, and makes good points, as to whom the Macedonians were originally. This isn't neccesarily fact but it does show more of the argument from the Greek side.

http://www.macedonia.com/english/origin.html

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2004

Yea idk i saw this internet so i wanted to send it to u guyz. you guyz are pretty smart i like intellectual convo's but idk how u can be certain of the past but you know w/e i wanna see who wins this arguement!!

It is not surprising that filmmakers or even historians cannot capture the whole picture of Alexander the Great.

First of all, his mother was from an Illyrian (Albanian) tribe. The original name of Macedonia was "Emathia," which in Albanian means "the great land," hence the appellation Alexander the Great. (The same was true with Constantine the Great and Justinian the Great, all from the general area of Macedonia. Sometimes the area was more inclusive during the Roman times).

To capture Alexander the Great as a soldier, one need only look to the successive generations of Illyrians to witness their exploits. The Albanians literally took over the Ottoman Empire with the Kuprili family -- of obscure origin from Albania.

In Greece in the early 1800s, Lord Byron witnessed the Albanian families fighting for Greek independence, and the first president of Greece was George Kondouriti of Hydra, an Albanian. In Egypt, Mohammed Ali, who made himself king in the early 1800s, was of obscure Albanian origin. The first prime minister of Italy, Fancesco Crespi, was an Albanian.

It would be difficult to change the understanding of Alexander the Great as a Greek, but it is fiction and not fact. The truth would be told if one would understand what Alexander the Great was by ethnic birth -- an Illyrian (Albanian) -- and the research exposed the characteristics of the ethnic Albanians throughout the centuries.

It would be a remarkable accomplishment to put to film and book alike in a more truthful light. Audiences would really come to know the fact and not the fiction.

Sun-Sentinel

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2004

you know wuts funny is all you guyz keep sayin the same thing to each other who gives a fuck man, i'm not tryin to act like idc but there is no way u can be certain if alexander the great was an albanian or if he was greek, to me we are all people he was one of us and thats all that should really matter, as long as he is a human we should be proud he existed. it doesn't really matter wut fuckin country we came from why cant we all juss look at each other n juss have respect cuz it doesn't really matter wut fuckin piece of land you came from. i am albanian n i could care less cuz i'm a human n thats all that matters. we are superior to everythin on this planet. we should all juss get along n try to help each other cuz ur never gonna find out wut alexander is. You can only think you know. There is no way to be certain of the past, so change the subject and talk about something else cuz u'll never be certain about the past unless you were there!!!i love ya'll pimps n pimpette's hope you respect my opinion cuz we are all friends i love all of you as friends

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2004

Genti,

The greek numbers for 2 and 3 are very similiar to Illyrian. 2=dio (theeo) and 3=tria(treea). It is so obvious looking at the Etymology of the languages that since we originally come from the same group of Early Indo-europeans that we would have certain words that are similiar. Further, the linguistic experts have shown that Dorians were an Hellenistic speaking people not Illyrian. It can be claimed by Illyrians because of the common descent of the two people. But the Illyrian(Albanian) historians and Linguist are not looking at both languages and are only looking at ancient Illyrian. I am quite certain that if they looked at the Ancient Achaen and Doric dialects they would see more similiarities between those two than they would with Illyrian. It may also be possible that we are more alike than we would like to admit and say "we all, the Achaens, Dorians and Illyrians are actually the same people, but were only divided by our different cultures. Wouldn't that be wild?

Before any further claims are made about the names being derived from Illyrians keep in mind of our common descent.

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2004

Genti, Here is a site that discusses the origins of the Indo-Europeans in the Balkans. It discusses the Greek(Achaens), the Italic-Etruscans, the Dorian(Greeks), the Illyrians. It breaks all gorups down into a time frame. It shows as both of our people "basically" being invaders into the areas we presently occupy. We are both of the Indo-European races.

This shows a timeline for our people moving into the our present lands.

Under the "Greek" list it shows:

2250BC Achaens come to Greece 2000BC Doric Greek tribes settle in Illyria(this is refering to the region, not the people. I will show more in a minute to explain this) 1900BC Mycenae founded by Achaens in Greece. The list continues, but is not important for our discussion.

The next list is the "Balkan" list

2500BC Indo-Europeans appear in Europe 2000BC Doric tribes settle in Illyria(same as above) 1300BC Illyrians spread from Pannonia(Central Europe, South West of the Danube, parts of modern Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro) to Dalmatia.

This site bases it's evidence on Archaeological evidence, as well as, linguistic evidence. The site is http://indoeuro.bizland.com/tree/balk/illyrian.html Go to the bottom of the page and click on (Indo-European Chronology (Balkan). This will show you the chronology.

According to this the Dorians and Achaens were Greek speakers of the Indo-european Languages. They were the first of the Indo-Europeans to move into our present countries. Next came the Illyrians who were Italic-Illyrian speakers of the Indo-European languages. They settled in the lands that were already settled by the Dorians around 700 years later. So from this I learned 4 things. 1) That both of our people the Dorians and Illyrians are from the same ancestry(from sometime in the distant past.) So we shouldn't really argue about land and History that we now claim. We should just accept each others present histories.

2) That both our people are invaders of anothers land.

3) That your people have the right to claim all the lands mentioned in the above list(Austria, Hungary, Croatia,etc.) This I will always support. 4) That the Greek history is correct and that since the Macedonians claim descent from Argos(Dorians) and the first Indo-European speakers in that region were also the Doric speaking people then they were also Greek.

I will give you this though, his Grandmother was Illyrian(possibly Doric and Illyrian mix?) as you pointed out before. But in the whole scheme of things we are both the same people. Alexanders situation is identical to my two nephews(Ari and Alexander). My father is American and my mother is Greek, which makes myself and my sister half Greek. Now My sisters husband is pure Greek, which makes her two sons, 3/4 Greek(like Alexander). The question which arrises is: What do they consider themselves, American or Greek? They both consider themselves Greek, just like the rest of the family considers them. So since Alexanders grandmother was Illyrian what would he consider himself? Greek or Illyrian?

Now let me discuss your independance. I am proud of your people gaining their independance after close to 2000 years(from the Romans and the Turks), just like I am proud of my people gaining theirs after close to 2000 years(from the Romans and the Turks). The Greeks have only truly gained their independance since they kicked King Constantine and his family(Who were Bavarian and Danish, related to the Royal family in England) out of Greece in the late 1960's. So the Greeks have only been truly self-ruled for 40 years. Greece is an extremely young nation, so we are very proud of our ancestry and heritage, as you are with yours. We have so much in common that we shouldn't be insulting each other and fighting over such small areas of land.

Next, let me bring up something of the Conference of London in 1913. Do you know why 2/3rds of Modern Albania was not recognized by the major powers? There was over 90 thousand Greeks living in the southern part of Modern Albania at that time and many still do. Many were kicked out of their homes by your government and in return Greece did the same. The reason they were kicked out was they wanted to join with Modern Greece. Both of our countries have done wrong and we shouldn't be pointing fingers at each other and calling each other names. A good example of how most Greeks look at Albanian is; Last year during the Aniversary of the Greek Revolution against the Turks on March 25th an Albanian boy was allowed to carry the Greek flag for his school. There were some Greeks who did protest, but the educated Greeks prevailed. This was not to Hellenize him, this was showing acceptance of him and Albanians in Greece, considering we both gained our independance from the Turks. Infact Epirus and Macedonia were the last Greek areas to gain their independance from the Turks. This helped your country gain their Independance in return. Many Greeks (the ones who were still in Albania during your Independance) fought the Turks by your side.

Now, let me talk about the word "Greek". The "Greeks" never called themselves "Greeks". They have always since ancient times called themselves Hellenes. The word "Greek" was originally a Latin(Roman) word "Grecus" which was derogatory toward the Hellenes, but was not commonly used. It means "Thief or Swindler". It was later passed throught the Byzantines and adopted by the Turks who used it to demean (put down) the Hellenes. From the Turkish period on, all the other languages and countries started using the word "Greece" in their own derivitives(forms). The reason why the country is called Greece, was because the Brits, French and Germans and the Russians called it Greece when the Hellenes gained there independance. The official name recently was changed to Hellas or in Greek 'Ellas". The Hellenic people "NEVER" used the word Greek to describe themselves. They have always used the word Hellene, and more than anything they called themselves, Athenians, Spartans, Thebans, Macedonians, Corinthians, etc. This was because they had, first and foremost, allegiance to their own polis(city-state) and Region(this still occurs today), then their ethnicity(Attic, Achaen, Dorian, Ionian, etc.). Finally, they gave their allegiance(most of the time) to other Hellenes.

Finally, you mention the names as being Illyrian(Example Hylleis, Alb. Star or Sun). Knowing that both of our ancestors are from Indo- European descent both Illyrians and Greeks shared many words (but different forms). Look on the site I posted under the "Paleo-Balkan Languages(Essay) and the "Illyrian Glossary" you will see that many of the word have a common etymology(same language descent). So knowing this isn't completely possible that both languages had the same word for Sun? Linguistics is very important in tracing ancestry and areas of Origin for a people. It doesn't help when establishing who rightfully should belong to a land. Like you mentioned before there is conquest and the conquered people are usually absorbed into another group and are soon lost.

What you stated "The invaders would often adopt the gods of the conquered slaves in order to break their spirit and erase their momories", is backwards. The conquerors through time have always destroyed any trace of the enslaved or conquered people, thus enculturating them into the invaders culture. This was the only way to break their spirits and erase their memories. Think about it this way, if your country was conquered now and you were still allowed to keep your religion, wouldn't you still have faith and the will to resist since you still had your god or gods(who will always support you against the invaders)? Now imagine the same happened, but this time you were forced to believe in the invaders god or gods and 100 or more years past and your people have been worshipping the new gods and adopted their culture since then, would you feel united with the conquerors or would you still want to resist? In many cases neither of these scenarios can take place. I say this because if the conquered people have a very strone Identity and Culture it could never be extinguished or erased. A good example of this is the Greeks, who even though they were conquered by the Romans(who adopted greek culture) and later the Turks(who would not allow the Greeks to get an education), Greek culture still survived and is still present today. Just as the Illyrian culture survives today after 2000 years of occupation. The best example is the Jewish culture. So saying that the Greeks stole the Mythologies and the Illiad from the Illyrians wouldn't be logical, considering what I said above and that the Illyrians were never really conquered by the Greeks only subdued.

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2004

James Morgan all the speculations in history of the Illyrian Penisula or the Balkans one is made by greek and serbs just to justify their actions of killing innocent people and ethnic cleanings just because they are living in their homes and are more ancient than they.Just to fullfill their ideas of "Megaloidea" and "Nacertania" from the Congress of Berlin 1878 to the Conference of London in 1913 were about 2/3 of the Albanian Lands were not recognized to the Independece Declaration in 1912 made by Ismail Qemali.

The sadest day in our History were we were judged not-fair.It was nothing it could help us even the vote of president Wilson couldn't help us.

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2004

LIST OF ILLYRIAN TRIBES

Ardiaei

Abri

Agrianes

Amantini

Andizetes

Arrianes

Atintani (Atintanes)

Autariates (Autariate)

Azali

Boii

Breuci

Bylliones

Carni

Catari

Celegeri

Chelidones

Colapiani (Colapani)

Cornacates

Daesitiates

Daorsi

Dardani

Dassarstae (Dassarenses,Dassaretae)

Daversi

Delmatae (Delmetae)

Deraemestae

Deuri

Dindari

Ditiones

Docleatae

Encheleae (Enchelleae)

Eravisci

Glintidiones

Grabaei

Histri

Iapode (Japodes)

Iasi (Jasi)

Labeatae (Labeates)

Latobici

Liburni

Maedi

Maezaei

Melcumani

Moesi

Molossi (Molossii)

Naransii

Oseriates (Osseriates)

Paeones

Parthini

Perestae (Penestae)

Pirustae (Pipustae)

Plearaei

Sardeaties

Scirtari

Scordisci

Seleiitani

Siculotae

Soirtones

Taulanti (Tallanii)

Triballi

Vardaei

Veneti

Achaeans versus Illyrian Dorians

Greeks were not the first perpetrators to design a device that could eventuate in stealing historical events and twist the accounts of other people. Among the most despicable acts of theft has been the masterminded plan to plagiarize the Iliad. What would be considered a translation in modern times, was permissible rendering of Illyrian mythological elements into Greek official ideology. The custom of depriving subjugated people of their own gods was practiced from the dawn of civilizations. The invaders would often adopt the gods of the conquered slaves in order to break their spirit and erase their memories. Yet no other invaders apart from Greeks has ever stolen the whole mythology of another people. Not only Greeks stole the Iliad from Illyria but they even changed their own name from Greek into Helens 'people of the sun'. Why did Greeks escape unnoticed for their transgression? The Roman invasion of Illyria the distraction of Illyrian royal records and libraries made the Greek theft invisible. Unable to deal with the rising power of Illyria, weakened Greek city states invited Rome to destroy their annoying Illyrians and only after the fall of the culturally superior neighbors did Greeks change the name into Helens. The acceptance of the name Helen was not an indiscriminate act of surrender before the falsification of history. The very seeds of Greek civilization did not share the same genetic make up. The so-called Dark Ages of Greece, the pouring of Dorian tribes in Peloponnesus was actually an act of retribution for the distraction of Troy. Hence Achaeans finally paid a heavy price for destroying the Illyrian colonies in Asia Minor. The creation of Homeric songs and their impact on Greek psyche corresponded to the destruction of Mycenaean civilization in Greece by Dorian tribes. But were Dorian people Greek by descent? The names of Dorian chieftains show that their origin was actually northern Illyrian where they rushed forth towards Greece. Among Hylleis, Pamphyloi, and the Dymanes, the name of Hylleis (alb. hyllus 'star, sun') is not Greek at all while Dymanes is typically Illyrian, similar to Dymalus : 'two mountains'. Illyrian dynasties used to add the numbers dy- 'two', tri- 'three' in front of their names to symbolize the unique royal line of succession. The method of naming the leaders according to the royal parentage was typical of ancient monarchies. Because Greek people were actually a mixture of invading Achaeans and liberating Dorians the name Helen was considered to be a restoration of 'people of the sun' in their native land. Despite of common Indo European origin Achaean and Dorian were two different cultures. Not only language was different but even the architecture and burial customs were not the same. In the list of Hellenic tribes and cities, Illyrian names can be detected easily.

Hellenic Illyrian Tribes Greek civilization grew out of a welter of various Hellenic Illyrian tribal nations which had occupied the region from time immemorial or had entered from elsewhere at an early date. Not much is known of this complex group of interrelated peoples.

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ÆTHIKES They lived in northern and northwestern Thessaly, on Pindos and Karvounia mountains, near the Peneios river. They were neighbours of the Athamanes and the Tymphaioi and were first mentioned by Homer. They were regarded by other Hellenic peoples as barbarians and thieves. Their towns were Metsovo and Malakasio (nowadays within the administrative division of Ioannina). They disappeared after the Roman annexation of Greece in the 2nd century BCE.

AGRÆOI They lived in the Agrapha Mountains, between the rivers Achelous and Agraphiotes. They called their land Agraea or Agrais. Important cities were Agrinio (capital city of the administrative division of Aetoloakarnania) and Ephyra. They created their own kingdom.

Salynthios.........................................fl. c. 430 BCE To the Ætolian League... AKARNANES They lived in Akarnania, having arrived there from Argos. Their cities were Amphilochia, Amphilochikon Argos, Limnaea, Stratos, Oiniades, Anaktorio, Echinos, Aktio, Solion, Alyzea, Astakos, Phoitia, Medeon, Thourion, and Metropolis.

Alkmeon Akarnan, with... Amphoteros The Akarnanian League..................................5th cent. Allied to the Amphilochians Allied to Athens.............................5th cent.-391 To Sparta..........................................391-371 To Thebes..........................................371-300 To Epirus..........................................300-273 Allied to the Ætolian League.......................270-245 To the Ætolian League..............................245-231 2nd Akarnanian League..............................230-225 To Macedonia.......................................225-197 Within the Roman State from 197... Mnasilochos...................................190-189 ALMOPIA They were located northwestern Macedonia, nowadays adm.div. of Pella, between the rivers Loudias and Axios and between the regions of Eordaea and Pelagonia. The region was inhabited by few people, who were isolated - therefore it was one of the first regions occupied by Macedonia. The primary cities were Orma, Apsalos, Europos, and Notia.

Almopas To Macedon AONES Ancient inhabitants of Boeotia after the Ektines, regarded by other Hellenes as barbarians. They lived near Thebes, and came from Sounion (Attica) to Boeotia, together with Temmikes, Leleges, and Yandes.

Aon (Aonia - later called Boeotia - was named after him) Defeated by the Cadmians Afterwards they lived between north of Thebes and Lake Yliki. APERANDOI They lived between the rivers Agraphiotes and Megdovas, to the Agrapha mountains, neighbours of the Agraeoi. They were an Ætolian sub-tribe.

ATHAMANES They lived in northeastern Epirus, on Tzoumerka mountains and in part of the administrative division of Trikala. They were regarded by other Hellenes as a semi-barbarian tribe. Important cities of this tribe: Argothea (capital city) and Theodoria.

Athamas To the Corinthian League........................c. 395-378 To the 2nd Athenian League.........................378- During the 2nd Sacred War allied to Macedonia Opposed to Phocis 354 Opposed to Macedonia 323 Under the control of Macedonia Alliance with Pyrros of Epirus Theodoros..........................................fl. c. 205 Amynandrus.........................................fl. c. 201 Formed an Athamanian League ATINDANES They lived in the region between Chaonia and Dodoni, in northwest Epirus.

Allied to the tribe of Molossoi...................c. 429 Allied to Rome....................................c. 229 Allied to Macedonia..............................225-221 To Macedonia..............................................205 AVANDES They lived in Euboea. They were a protohellenic tribe that came into Greece appr. 2100-1900 BCE. They had lived initially in Phocis (Avai) and some of them in Argolis, Sicyon, Epirus, and Asia Minor.

Avas Elephinor Chalkodous After the Trojan war they colonized Illyria. They disappeared after the Ionian invasion on Euboea... BOEOTOI The region of Boeotia is northwest of Attica, nowadays one of the 52 administrative divisions of modern Greece.

Boeotus Itonus Hippalcimus, with... Alector, and... Areilycus Leaders of the province during the Trojan war: Peneleus Leitos Arcesilaus Prothenor Klonios Three generations after the Trojan War the region was inhabited by the Boeotian tribe. They lived initially on the Boios mountain of Pindos, between Epirus and Macedonia. From there they moved to Arne between Thessaly and the Pagasitikos bay (till the end of the late Hellenic era). They claimed to be an Ætolian sub-tribe.

Boeotos Opheltas......................................fl. 1150-1100 Xanthos By the end of the monarchy, the tribe had colonized the whole region, by c. 950. 1st Boeotian League................................525-480 This consisted of the city-states of Thebes, Koronea, Aliartos, Tanagra, Thespies, while Orchomenos and Plataea remained independent, and Eleutheres and Erythres went to Athens. Allied to Persia..............................490-479 2nd Boeotian League................................479-447 3rd Boeotian League................................447-387 Boeotia was divided into districts in this era. These were: a.) Thebais (including the cities of Thebes, Knopia, Ogchestos, Potniae, Kalydna, Therapnae, Schoinous, Peteon, Teumissos, Glisas, Yla, Foinikis, Tropheia), b.) Orchomenia or Phlegyandis or Andreis (Orchomenos, Askledon, Tegyra, Yettos, Achmones, Kyrtone), c.) Chaeronea, d.) Kopon (Kopes, Akraefnio), e.) Levadeia, f.) Koronea (Koronea, Alalkomemes, Tylfossion), g.) Aliartia (Aliartos, Medeon, Okalea), h.) Thespiki (Thespies, Eutrisi, Lefktra, Kerissos, Nisa, Askre, Ippotes, Thisvi, Korsies, Sifoi), i.) Plataeis (Plataea), j.) Tanagraea or Poimandria (Tanagra, Delio), k.) Parasopea (Eteonos, Skolos, Ysies, Erythres), l.) Tetrakomia (Phires, Aulis, Mykalessos, Arma, Eleion, Yrea), m.) Anthedon (Anthedon, Isos, Salganeas), n.) Larymna (Karsea, Ales), o.) Oropos 4th Boeotian League................................378-338 To Macedon.........................................338-245 5th Boeotian League...........................336-146 To Aetolia.........................................245-236 To Macedon.........................................236-146 To the Roman Republic..............................146-27 6th Boeotian League.......................146 BCE-3rd cent. CE To the Roman Empire (dist. of Achaea 85 BCE)....27 BCE-395 CE CHAONES Ancient protohellenic tribe with a Pelasgian root. They lived in Epirus, between the Keraunia mountains and Kalamas river, therefore the first name of Epirus was Chaonia. They were related the the Chaones of southern.Italy. Important cities: Vouthroton, Ilion, Foenice, Panormos, Ogchismos, Amandia, Antigonea

Chaon They developed a system relying on an annual leader. By the 5th century they had combined to a large degree with local Thesprotean and the Illyrian peoples. Allied to Ambracia against the Akarnanes..........428 Photios and... Nikanor To the League of Epirus............................232-170 To Rome................................................170 DOLOPES An ancient Aetolian tribe, related to the Magnites. They lived in Acarnania, southern Thessaly, and Phthia. Their borders were Phthia and Aenianes (East), Eurytanes-Agraeoi (South), Amphilochia (West), Athamanes-Thessaliotis (North). Their capital city was Ktimeni; other important cities were Dolopeis, Ageiai, Menelais, and Ellopia.

Dolops Ktimenes To Phthia Phoinikas Allied to Persia during the Persian Wars Opposed to Herakleia 420. To Pheres 374 To Macedonia 344 Allied to Athens 323 To the Aetolian League To Macedonia Independent........................................189-174 DORIANS A major Hellenic group of closely related tribes or septs, the Dorians are regarded both in archeology and in legend as the conquerors of the Peloponessus. Initially they lived in the area near Mount Olympus, in the land of Doris. In the 12th century they began migrating southward, and three separate Doric tribes (Hylleis, Pamphyloi, and the Dymanes) settled in eastern and southern Peloponnesus, displacing the native Achaeans. The mythological account of this has it that these three groups were the descendents of three Herakleides (children of Herakles), Temenus, Aristodemus, and Cresphontes, who successfully recovered an inheritence lost to a cousin, Eurysthenes of Mycenae. They were a rather dour, plain- spoken, and harshly disciplined people - as their best-known branch, the Classic Age Spartans, personified greatly. The tension between themselves and the other great Hellenic people, the Ionians - who regarded Dorics as barely-literate, ill-mannered martinets - is at the heart of a great deal of Greek historical development.

Doros Ægimios Yllos Colonization of the Peloponnesus..................from c. 1100 Afterwards the Dorians colonized Megara, Argolis, Laconia, Messinia, Aegina, Milos, Thera, Crete, Rhodes and Corinth.

DRYOPES Related to the tribe of Leleges, they were a barbaric tribe. They lived in the area between the mountains Oiti and Parnassus. They called their land Dryopis. Owing to Dorian pressure they evacuated their land and colonized Euboea, Karystos, Styra, Cyprus, Kythnos, Argolis (Asine, Nemea), Messinia, and Epirus. Main city: Drys.

Dryops Melaneus EKTINES The first inhabitants of Boeotea.

Ogygos EORDAEA Ancient region (and tribe) in western Macedonia near the lake Vegoritis. Eordaea’s borders were Almopia-Lyngistis (North), Elimea (South), Imathia (East), Orestis (West). Inhabited during the late Bronze Age, the Eordoi were a proto-Hellenic, Indo-European that came to Eordaea appr. 2200 BCE. Nowadays there is the administrative division of Kozane. Main cities were Eordaea, Arnissa, Vegora and Kellas. Eordaea was the birthplace Ptolemy Lagos, the Macedonian general who gained the throne of Egypt.

Eordos Destroyed by the Timenides of Macedonia Allied to the Greeks during the Persian wars EPEIOI A Pelasgian tribe in the western Peloponnesus, they lived in Elea, Pisatis, western Achaea, and the Echinades islands. Their cities: Vouprasion, Elida, Yrmine, Myrsinos, Olene, Dyme, Ephyra, Kyllene, Pylos, Aleisio.

Epeios During the Trojan War there were 4 different kingdoms... Polyxenos and... Thalpios and... Andimachos and... Diores Many conjoined with Kaukones and Ionians and lived in Achaea (the Larissos River district). The Epeioi of Pisa combined with the Arcadians and dwelt lived in Pisatis. Agorios The remaining eventually melded with the Ætolians and lived in Elea; Elean sequence thereafter... EURYTANES An Ætolian sub-tribe, they lived in the district of Karpenissi (today:capital city of Evritania), between the mountains Panaitolikon and Tymfristos. Their borders were Aenianes (East), Dolopes (North), Aperandoi-Akarnanes (West), Aetolians (South), Thestians (Southwest), Ofionians (Southeast). During the prehistoric era they had probably lived in Thessaly. Their capital city was Oichalia.

Eurytos Allied to the Ætolians From time to time to the Achaeans of Phthia, to Thessaly or to Macedonia To Rome 146 GEFYRAEOI A non Hellenic tribe (Poinicians) They lived in Boeotia in the town Gefyra. Afterwards they moved into Attica It is claimed that they brought the alphabet into Greece. Homeland of Armodios and Aristogeiton, murderers of the Athenian tyrants Hippias and Hipparchus

IDONOI They lived in western Thrace, between the rivers Strymon and Nestos (nowadays there are the cities Drama and Zichne). Their land was called Idonis or Andandros. Important cities were Myrkinos (capital-city), Draviskos and Amphipolis.

Idoneus Lykurgos Getas..............................................fl. c. 500 To Persia during the Persian wars IONIANS One of the great pan-Hellenic tribal groups. They lived initially in southwestern Thessaly, but at a very early date migrated south. Some of them remained in southwestern Thessaly and others moved to west Locris, Achaea and Pisa. Afterwards they colonized Attica and Asia Minor. They also extensively settled the Cyclades, Euboea, Corinth, Megara, Epidaurus, and by the end of the Mycenean era they were in Attica, Megaris, Epidaurus, Troezin, Kynourua and Achaea. Defeated by the Achaeans, Minyes, Phlegyes and Lapithes, they remained largely in Attica, some of the islands, and most especially in western Asia Minor, which became known as "Ionia". They are to a large extent responsible for Greek literature, philosophy, and much Hellenic art (the Ionian dialect is the foundation upon which standard Classic Greek developed, which in turn gave birth to "Koine" (Common speech - the language of most of the New Testament), Byzantine dialects, and ultimately modern Greek. In acquiescing to Persian hegemony in Asia Minor during the 6th and 5th centuries, they earned the scornful contempt of the Peloponessian Dorians, who regarded Ionians as weak, compliant, mendacious, and very likely treasonous. It is this tension between the two groups which is at the heart of much of Greek historical development.

Ion Partitioned into four sub-tribes: Geleondes, Oplites, Aegikoreis and Argadeis. KIKONES They lived between the Evros river and the Vistonis lake. They came there appr. 1300-1200 BCE. Their cities were Xantheia, Maronea, Ismaros, Zone and Kyzikos.

Allied to Trojans Euphimos Mendes Their capital Ismaros was conquered by Ulysses after the Trojan war After the Mycenean era they disappeared as an identifiable people. KRESTONES The Kristones lived in Krestonia a Macedonian district between Chalkidicia and the Strymon river. They were a Pelasgo- Thracian sub-tribe. Important cities: Antigonea, Xylopolis, Terpyllos, Karavia, Kreston.

To Mygdonia from 480 BCE LAPITHES The main inhabitants of early Thessaly, together with the centaurs (Northern Pelasgia-Perraivia). Their main cities: Argissa, Gyrtone, Orthe, Elone, Olossoi. They colonized Perraivia. In the 10th cent. they built a lot of cities in other regions (Koronos of Koronea, Phaliros of Phalara, Elatos of Elateia in Arcadia, Boeotia and Phocis, Phorvas and Triopas in Rhodes).

Lapithus Ypseus Ixion Peirithous Kaeneas (his succestors were the Kypselides of Corinth) Koronos (his succestors were the Phylaides of Attica) with... Polypoites and... Leondeus (during the Trojan War) They were defeated by Ægimios, king of the Dorians... LELEGES Prehistoric tribe, they were nomads.

Leles (from Laconia or Egypt) They colonized the Cyclades islands, Asia Minor, Aetolia, Acarania, Megara (King Leles), Locris, Leukas, Euboea, Boeotia and Lacedaemon (King Eurotas) Leleges from Sparta colonized Messinia (King Polykaon) Leleges from Megara colonized Pylos (Messinia) and Pylos (Elis) Leleges in Epirus were neighbors of the tribe of Molossoi In Thessaly they succeeded the Pelasgoi Evacuation of Ionia due to the Greeks 1200-1100 BCE Altis (King during the Trojan war - allied to the Trojans) After the Trojan war they inhabited Chios and Samos Evacuation of Caria owing to pressure from the tribe of Cares LYNGISTES They lived in Macedonia, in the Lyngystis Region (nowadays: Florina) and their capital-city was called Herakleia. An Illyrian tribe, they were neighbours of the Dassarites. Main cities were Herakleia, Kella, Vevi.

VAKCHIADES Aeropos Vromeros Arrabaius..........................................fl. c. 423 Argaeus............................................fl. c. 391 To Macedonia appr. 338 MAGNITES They lived on Thessaly, in Magnesia, they were a Macedonian sub-tribe. Important tribe during the Neolithic, Bronze, Minoan and Mycenean ages. Their cities were: Mithone, Thaumakine, Melivoia, Olizon and Minyai.

Magnes Prothous Philoktetes and... Medon (during the Trojan War) Continued independence until the 6th cent. To Thessaly..................................6th cent.-363 To Pheres..........................................363-c. 342 To Macedonia....................................c. 342-194 Founding of Demetrias, capital city of Magnesia 293 BCE The Magnesian League...............................194-171 Eurylochos........................................193 To Macedonia.......................................171-168 To Rome - (within the Magnesian League)...........from 168 MALIEIS They lived in southern Thessaly, a Dorian sub-tribe. The Malians were partitioned into three sub-tribes: Trachinioi, Paralioi, Iereis. Their capital city was Herakleia and afterwards Lamia.

Within the Malis region (their land was named after them) from c. 1100 Malos To the Amphictiony of Delphi.................8th cent.- ? Opposed to the Phoceans end 6th cent. To Thessaly To Sparta..........................................427-c. 371 To Pheres.......................................c. 371-370 To Thebes..........................................370-343 To Macedonia.......................................343-220 To the Ætolian league..............................220 To Thessaly appr. 27 BCE MOLOSSOI An Epirote tribe dwelling in the north, who succeeded in gaining control over all of Epirus in late Classical times. They were best known for a breed of huge war-mastiffs they used in military operations.

For their rulers, see the earliest (pre-Aeacid) leaders of Epirus. Molossus, their eponymous ancestor, was said to have been born of a union between Neoptolemus and Andromache. Established the Kingdom of Epirus, 6th or 5th centuries ? Epirus to the Aeacid dynasty 395. A League of Molossoi formed c. 300, within Epirote and then Roman jurisdiction. MYGDONES A Thracian tribe living in southern Macedonia between the rivers Axios and Strymon, in northern Chalkidicia, near the Thermaikos Gulf. Their cities were Therme, Sidos, and Chalestri.

To Paeonia......................................to the 350's BCE To Macedonia thereafter... OETAEOI They lived on the mountain Oeti in southern Thessaly and in the 5th century in the valley of Aspos river. Important cities: Antikera, Anthile, Herakleia, Trachis.

Opposed to Dorians and Trachineans Formed the Oeteanid League To the Aetolians...................................280-168 To the Achaean League..............................162-146 Free and independent for a time; then... To the Thessalian League thereafter... ORESTES They lived in Epirus in their land called Orestis, which was part of Molossia. They inhabited the northern and northwestern borders of Greece between the rivers Aous and Achelous. They claimed to be successors of Orestes of Mykenaea. Important cities were Orestia and Argos Orestikon.

To Macedonia To the Orestian League of Orestes within Roman hegemony To the Roman district of Macedonia PAETOI A minor tribe living in the region called Paetike. Their most important city was Zerenia.

To Persia and against the Greeks during the Persian wars appr. 500- 480 To Macedonia, 336 Against the Persians 334 PELASGOI An Indo-European tribe, that came into the Hellenic region appr. 3000 BCE. They lived in western Thessaly and Epirus. Afterwards they colonized not only Argolis and Arcadia, but also some of the Aegean islands, Attica, Crete, Ionia, Achaea, Phocis, Phthiotis, Euboea, Kristonia and Sicyon.

Pelasgos Chloros Most of them disappeared after the end of the Mycenean era, but some Pelasgian communities survived till the beginning of the 5th century BCE in Kristonia and Propontis.

PERRAIVOI They lived in northern Thessaly, initially in the district of Istiaiotis. Their cities were Gonnoi, Olousson, Phalanna, Doliche, and the Perraivean Tripolis (3 cities) consisting of Azoros, Polichna, and Pythion.

Triopas Karkavos............................................c. 1500 BCE Gouneus (during the Trojan war) To the Amphictiony of Delphi To Larissa To Archelaos of Macedonia Defeated by the Aetolian League........................199 Members as free tribe in the Delphian Amphictiony......196 They created a Perraivean League...................196-191 To Macedonia.......................................191-185 THE SEA PEOPLES Students of European history will be familiar in a general way with the phenomena of the devolution of Classic cultures, the swarming forth of innumerable barbarian tribes, and the subsequent emergence of the so-called "Dark Ages", together with the slow re-emergence of a vibrant civilization in the Mediaeval and Renaissance eras. Such a model is an oversimplification of what occurred, but it is valid at least in broad descriptive outline. What is perhaps less well recognized is that such a pattern has happened, albeit on a smaller scale, before. Before the 1200's BCE, the Eastern Mediterranean played host to a variety of sophisticated civilizations. For a variety of reasons, the 17th to 13th centuries BCE saw a general retreat, one which did not begin to reverse itself until the 9th century BCE (leading to the eventual flowering of Classic-Age civilization by the 5th century). One important factor in this process was the sudden emergence of a group of barbarian tribes known collectively as the Sea-Peoples. These raiders critically damaged the ancient civilizations of Greece, Anatolia and Syria, and seriously threatened the southern Levant and Egypt. The origins of these peoples are unknown, though it is believed that they emerged from the Aegean and may have been Minoan or Greek in origin. They referred to their own homeland as Ahhiyawa, which seems to be related to the word Achaean. The Hittites described their home as an island near Milawanda (Miletos, on the Ionian coast); which may refer to Rhodes, while the Bible describes their origin-point as Caphtor, which is believed to be Crete. They were technologically and artistically sophisticated, being one of the first groups in the Levant to use iron weapons. The following is a list of the documented Sea Peoples, and what linguists and archeologists believe about their origins and eventual fates...

DANYA / DANNUNA They have been identified with the Danaoi, mentioned in Homer's Iliad; another, far-fetched explanation is that they are related to the Gaelic Celts (Danaan). Some historians and archeologists have suggested that the Danya invaded Canaan in alliance with the Philistines but then joined the Israelite tribal confederation as the tribe of Dan. The original territory of that tribe bordered Philistia, and the Philistines seemed to bear a particular grudge against the Danites, who eventually relocated to the Galilee.

EKWESH This name is very similar to the Hittite name for Greeks (Acheans). Very little is known about them.

LUKKA These are believed to have hailed from Lycia, and probably returned there after several unsuccessful invasions of Egypt.

PELESHET These are the Philistines who settled in the southern coast of Canaan and established the pentapolis of Gaza, Gath, Ekron, Ashkelon and Ashdod. They may have invaded Canaan originally in alliance with the Israelites, who settled in the inland areas, but any collegiality quickly disappeared if Biblical records are anything to go by. The name Palestine, given to Judea by the Romans after the Jewish Wars, is believed to be derived from Philistine, although some scholars have suggested that it actually (ironically) comes from a derogatory Greek epithet for Jew.

SHARDANA Formerly, it was thought that this people migrated out of the Hellenic region, crossed the central Mediterranean, and conquered Sardinia, which still bears a variant of their name. Recently though, it has been suggested that the migration was in the opposite direction - that they were aboriginal inhabitants of Sardinia who traveled eastward into the Hellenic littoral.

TJEKER / SHEKELESH The Tjeker are of uncertain origin, but they raided Egypt repeatedly before settling in northern Canaan. They may originally have been the Teucri, a tribe inhabiting northwest Anatolia around Troy. They conquered the city-state of Dor and turned it into a Tjeker kingdom. They are one of the few of the Sea Peoples for whom a ruler's name is recorded - in the papyrus account of Wenamun, an Egyptian priest...

· Beder (Prince of Dor)........................mid 1000's BCE ?

· Dor fell to King David of Israel in the 990's, and the Tjeker are not mentioned after that date.

Besides the Dorite Tjeker, some scholars believe that the Tjeker may have been connected in some way with the Israelite tribe of Menasseh.

TYRSENNOI May be related to the Etruscans, since their name is similar to Tyrrhennoi, the Etruscans' name for themselves (hence the Tyrrhian sea).

WESHESH Their origins are unknown, though there is some evidence that they may have come from the area of Caria. Some have theorized that they, like the Danya, became part of the Israelite confederacy (as the tribe of Asher).

TEMMIKES A barbarian tribe living in Boeotia before the Cadmians and the Boeotians. They came to Boeotia along with the Aones, Leleges, and Yandes.

THESPROTIANS Their region was called Thesprotia. Nowadays Thesprotia is one of the 52 administrative division (nomoi) of Greece (capital- city: Preveza). They lived in Epirus between the Amvrikikos Bay and the Kalamas river and between Pindos mountains and the Ionian Sea.

The first inhabitants.................................................Early Bronze Age Beginning of the middle Hellenic period the region had been inhabited by the tribes of Elopes, Greacians, Kassopaeoi, Dryopes, Dononians. They moved and colonized afterwards Ithaca, Leucas, Akarnania Partial colonization of Thessaly and S.Greece 12th-11th cent. Thesprotos Kallidice Isolated until appr. 730 BCE South Thesprotia was occupied by Eleans 7th cent. Allied to Corinth................................. ? -5th cent. Allied to Athens and the kingdom of Molossoi.......415-404 Occupation of Kassopaea, Dodoni, East Thesprotia by Molossoi after 400 BCE To the 2nd Athenian league.........................375-c. 350 The Thesprotian League middle 4th cent. (cap-city: Elea, afterwards Titane) To Macedonia.......................................343-300 To the League of Molossoi..............................300 To Macedonia.......................................300-220 To the Epirote League..............................220-167 To Epirus..............................................167 The Thesprotian League........................167-148 Assigned as a district of Macedonia within Rome....148-27 Assigned as a district of Achaea within the Roman Empire from 27 BCE The Thesprotians were divided into many sub-tribes: Aegestaeoi, Dodonians, Eleaeoi, Elinoi, Ephyroi, Ikadotoi, Kartatoi, Kestrinoi, Klauthrioi, Kropioi, Larissaeoi, Onopernoi, Opatoi, Tiaeoi, Torydaeoi, Fanoteis, Farganaeoi, Fylates, Chimerioi. Their main cities were Ephyra, Chimerion and Torine.

VISALTES They lived in Macedonia, east of the Mygdonia region, between the Volvi lake and the Strymonas river Their cities were: Verge, Euporia, Kalliteres, Oreskia, Visaltia (capital-city). Before the 5th cent. Visaltie and Kristonia had a common history

Mosses..........................................c. 500-480 Demetrius..........................................fl. c. 450 Vastareas..............................................c. 350 To Macedonia..............................4th cent. to 179 Part of Mygdonian territory (within Macedon and then Rome) from 179... VISTONES They lived in the Rhodopi district to the Aegean sea, near Abdera. Their land was called Vistonea and it was between the Kikones and the Sapes regions.

Vistonas Orpheus Diomedes (during the Trojan war) YANDES Proto-Hellenic tribe inhabiting Boeotia alongside the Aones, Leleges, and Temmikes. They lived near Thebes, and in later times colonized East Phocis (building the city of Yambolis), West Locris, and Aetolia.

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2004

To all who believe that Alexander was not a Greek, go to http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm

This is an article written by a man named Marcus A Templar. He is not a greek and has no reason to lie. He gives many sources(ancient and modern) to back his points. He also gives FYROMian sources as well as Bulgar sources.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2004

Genti, do you realize you just attacked me for supposedly being one- sided and that I am only relying on "Greek" sources. What did you just state? You said that Albanian Historians presented the "Facts". Now isn't that being biased. You based your entire argument on one "Greek" historian not being able to come up with evidence.

Just because during the time of Greek independance there were so many Arvanites and Chams in modern day Greece does not mean that they were there during ancient times. There are close to 260 million white men in North America today, but does that mean that North America always was inhabited by white men? No, it means that they migrated there at later time. The reason there were so many Arvanites and Chams in Present day Greek territory is due to a migration during the Byzantine and Ottoman rule.

There were Slavs and Albanians in the Peloponnese during the Greek war for Independance, so does that mean that even the Peloponnese belongs to the Arvanites, Chams or Slavs?

And for the "Greek" historian you mentioned, he must be a very bad historian, because there are plenty of sources talking about Epirus being the source of the Dorian(Greek) migration to the rest of present day Greece. I don't have them off hand, but I promise you I will be posting them.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2004

i want you to prove me that Epir was greek. And with facts not with arguments.

As for message you said that these territories were always inhabited by GREEKS.

what kind of historian you are????

Do you know the percentage of todays greek territories during their indipendence war.

well i have to say that there were more minorities than greeks.about 500 000 arvanites and chams expelled from their homes during all the time end escpecially after the WWII.

You do know sth about history but not from every source just the greek ones.

the territories inhabited by Molossians were southern Albania or Epir.Or you call them all greek.

You can ask other historians about the Molossians who were they.

In the International Congress of the Balkan History held in Tirana this year in September called "Nations,States and Languages" were paricipated more than 450 historians specialized in Balkan's History or Other fields like Albanian Language,Slavic Ethymology or what else there was a greek Historian who wanted to prove that with FACTS not with ARGUMENTS AND MYTHOLOGY that Epir was Greek.

First of all the Albanian Historian presented the FACTS and after that the greek historian was not able to say anything just the word EPIRUS WAS GREEK and no facts and nothing else.

I study in Poland History. I have to say that even they are Slavs (my techers) they don't negate what is true about Albanians and Greeks.

Give Ceasar what belongs to him.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2004

very true james

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2004

Genti, the only Greeks who questioned the Mecedonians were the Arrogant Athenians who thought they were more Greek than all the rest. Another reason some Greeks called the Macedonians Barbarians was because they didn't have a great city state like Athens, Sparta, Corinth and Thebes. The Macedonians were a loosely organized group of villages that shared a common descent(kind of like the Scottish Highlanders). They also called them Barbarian because they drank their wine uncut(without mixing it with water), which the Athenians considered uncivilized. They also thought the same about the Spartans who drank their wine the same way. The Spartans were from the same Dorian line as the Macedonians, while the Athenians were Attic-Ionian Greeks, thus the continued rivalry between the different speaking greeks. There is still somewhat of a rivalry in Greece, especially the Athenians with Thessalonikians(from Northern Greece) and really with all the Greeks. I know this first hand since I have lived there for 6 years. A good example of one group of greeks making fun of other greeks is the Pontians who are originally from the greek colonies from the Black Sea region. The Pontians speak a very old form of Greek and when they come to Greece proper they are made fun of. Not because they are not Greek but because they are just different. Also here in the U.S we have the people from the Southern States still calling the people from the Northern States "DamnedYankee". This is said as one word not two. This has existed since the end of the U.S civil war which ended in 1865. I am sure you have a group of people in your own country that are made fun of by everyone else.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2004

Actually you'll find a lot of Macedonians particapated in the Olympic games, even before Macedon became powerful.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2004

OK James Morgan tell me sth.

If you say he was Greek and not Albanian then why wouldn't greeks accept them (the macedonians) to participate in the Olympic Games.

But after seeing that they were growing in power they changed their mind.

What an irony.

Its better for the greeks to have a strong aliant then a strong enemy who likes their civilization.

Ok so lets make all the Macedonians greek nation and we solve the problem.

Do you get the point.

And I am very surprised to the fact that before macedonians grew in power there were suspiscious facts about their nationality.But after there are a LOT.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2004

I want to diverge and say you are correct, that Yes Alexander was a Macedonian, first and foremost, but he is of Greek blood. He even says it himself. Myself I do not hate Albanians or Macedonians or anyone else. I look at peopls as individuals not as a whole. I have met Albanians and Macedonians and Turks and I have enjoyed there company. The problem I have is when people try to take something from another people. This has been the cause of much of the trouble in the Balkans for many centuries(as you stated before). My point is that you should be proud of who you are and your ancestry, but you shouldn't cause trouble just to make yourself feel better about your people. There has never been any great conspiracy against the Albanians or Macedonians by the Greeks. The Greeks actually supported Macedonian independance, and only had a problem with them when they named themselves Macedonia and took the symbol of the Argae Macedonian royal line. Other than that the Greeks have absolutely no problem with them.

Even in Macedonia there has been a former president and Embassador to Canada that stated they are not related to the ancient Macedonians. These are not the only people who believe the same.

Further during the Second World War the Greeks faught alongside the Albanian resistance to help drive Mussolini back into Italy. I am tired of the lies that are spread about Greece all the time. Some African-Americans are doing the same with the whole "Black Athena" thing. Why is it so many people have started attacking the greeks? What exactly did the Greek people ever do to them. Greece has invested heavily into several Balkan countries to help there economies develop. They have also allowed many Albanians, Romanians and Bulgarians to migrate to Greece. I will be the first to say that there are ignorant Greeks as well, when they say they hate all Albanians or Macedonians and call them all criminal. Most who say things like that have never got to know them.

No what, so what if Alexander wasn't a Present day Macedonian or an Albanian. Why should that mean that they aren't a proud people and take pride in their culture and heritage? Just because one great person wasn't one of their ancestors why should that take away from them? Considering they fought long and hard to gain ther independance. That isn't a small feat.

So why doesn't everyone stop calling each other names either in Greek or Slavic or even English. This is ridiculous. If you want to state your case quote a source or even post a source, but not just any source it must be one that is credible and comes from a nuetral source. Ex. A source written by a modern day historian who has a direct stake in any of the claims isn't a good source. That is why I have posted ancient sources and many other sources that are not Greek. And many of the ancient sources recieved their information from the writing of the people who were directly involved with Alexanders achievments.

Peace and friendship should reside here not war.

So let's get along and start having some respect for each other as individuals and keep it peacefull.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2004

Dardan,

Both Arrian and Plutarch as well as all ancient sources say that Alexanders ancestry is from Argos. They are called the Argae. The Argae are Dorian Greeks from the Peloponnese. Epirus is the original place all Dorian Greeks came from. There was a great migration around 1200BCE when many Dorians moved east and south from Epirus. Many of them moved to the Peloponnese. The Spartans, Argae(the Royal line of Macedonia) are also Dorians. You are incorrect when you state that Olympias is from Illyria. Olympias is from EPIRUS. Olympias's father was the king of Epirus. Her father died and left her uncle in charge of her. During the Bachaelaen festivals on the island of Samothrace Phillip the II met and fell in love with her.

Both parents and their ancestors are Dorian Greeks. All ancient sources state that and it can be looked up by anyone.

I have read Arrian, Plutarch, Quintus Curtius Rufus, as well as, the book by John Maxwell O'Brien "Alexander the Great The Invisible Enemy",Theodore Ayrault Dodge "Alexander", John Pentland Mahaffy "The Empire of Alexander the Great", Agnes Savill "Alexander the Great and his Time", Lewis V. Cummings "Alexander the Great".

Also I have read Herodotus "Histories" and Thucydides "The Peloponnesian War"

All of these books back what I have stated and all support that the Royal line of Macedonia originated from Argos(Peloponnese, Greece) and Olympias was from Epirus(Descended from Helen of Troy/actually Sparta and Argos.)

So if you have any possible reliable sources stating otherwise please present them before you keep insinuating that they were not Greek.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2004

To stefanos (enoxos1@aol.com), November 28, 2004

Sir, you're out of subject. Firstly, we are not here to discuss which nations have achieved the most, which have contributed the most, or which have not in world civilization, but we are here to discuss about Alexander the Great. Indeed, in this case, you're trying to change the subject, and in fact, ancient Greeks would consider that as a false logic; the fallacy that you're using is unacceptable, and it is called in this case red herring, and I don't buy it. You're implying that because Plato, Aristotle, and so on are Greeks, then Alexander is a Greek as well. It is unfortunate that it doesn't work that way; I feel sorry for you. Another fallacy that is obvious is that you’re trying to attack Albanians or blame them for not “achieving� as much as Greeks have as a support for your premise.

My point is that neither an Albanian nor a Greek is Alexander the Greek. As we all know at this time, Alexander’s mother is not a Greek or a Macedonia. Olympia is an Illyrian. Because Albanians have origins from Illyrians, they claim Alexander as their own. I disagree with this thesis; however, Alexander is not a Greek. He is a Macedonian because his father is a Macedonian, and Greeks have called him a barbarian; they have called Philip and Alexander barbarians. Because Alexander is who he is, a well-know war strategist, Greeks and Albanians have claimed him as one of theirs. Whether you agree or not, it is up to you or, perhaps, it would be much better for all of us to cite books that claim Alexander as a Greek, Albanian, or as a Macedonian. Let’s us do it. Please, you should keep in mind that the Balkan is full of prejudice and hatred. There is a lot of animosity which is going on right now.

All in all, while Alexander was a “King of the World�, there was not a notion of nation. Alexander dealt with tribes that were fighting with each other before he had occupied their territory.

One of the greatest war criminal of the end of twenty century, Slobodan Milosevic claims that whenever Serbs live, there is Serbia. He is wrong, so are you and people who live in Macedonian and Greece territory. People who live in Macedonia claim that there are Macedonians, but they are not ancient Macedonians for sure.

Sincerely, Dardan

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2004

Arber, Val and any other Albanian contributors to this forum -

1. Please stop copying and pasting pure speculative and to most logical people, quite ridiculous accounts of the history of ancient hellas which included the city states of athens, sparta, argos, pylos, thebes, makedonia and numerous others with less significance. Our history and culture is so rich and admired that for a greek like me to even consider some of these arguments (frivolous at best) made by albanians, who are jealous in every way of what their neighbors have achieved and contributed to the world, would be purely out of pity for you and your people.

Greece - Democracy, Philosophy, Astronomy, Poetry, Art and Architecture, Math, Literature, etc

Famous Greeks - Aristotle, Plato, Alexander the Great, Socrates, Pericles, Herodotus, Pythagoras, Achilles, Euripides, and on and on and on

Albanians - (can one of you help me out here - i am drawing a blank)

Famous Albanians (please refer to above sentence)

- This argument is simply not worth our time and for example bill clay was not answering you in the beginning, bc he wasnt acknowledging the credibility of your argument, hence he was not respecting your debate and therefore was not going to waste his time.. (dont blame him)

- It seems your people want to climb up the social ladder in terms of stature, class, affluence and of course importance. There is good news for you and bad news...

The Good - you have nowhere to go, but up The Bad - your ascent is not warranted by and form or fashion

Nobody wants to call anyone names or what not, but I must say Albanians as a group are like leaches (I have many Italian friends who would say similar things as they complain that Albanians are passing themselves off as Italians also)

FACE IT - YOU ARE ALBANIAN, not GREEK, not ITALIAN or any other culture that has made advancements in civilization

P.S. - I can go and copy and paste a plethura of historical evidence that contradicts what you guys post, however, that would mean that I give you guys respect in your argument and that I clearly don't.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2004

Hej dardan read some evidence ok?? We are saying ha was most of all an Illyrian than a greek no matter what he thought ar fought about greeks

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2004

It is very ironic when I read that Alexander or Leka i Madhe is an Albanian. It is not a joke when people say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Winners have written the history that we all know. In many old manuscripts, it is stated that Alexander's mother is from Illyrian; however, Alexander's father is a Macedonian. Therefore, he is a Macedonian. At that time, Greeks considered Alexander as a barbarian. They did not like him, but, today, because Alexander is a well known figure, they, the Greeks, claim him as one of them, and so do Albanians. The last manuscripts that are found about Macedonians and Thracians are from second century, and, as a result, historians believe that Macedonians and Thracians last their identity or were destroyed by many armies that had passed through Balkans at that time. Furthermore, I want you to know that I am an Albanian, and I wish Alexander were an Albanian, but, unfortunately, he was not. To Arber and all other Albanians and Greeks that participate in this discussion, it would much better for all of you to free yourselves from prejudices that all of you have inside yourselves, and see thing the way they are. You should not try to take sides or be biased; rather you should respect opinions of each other and try to cite any books that can be as your evidence for what you’re claiming. Unfortunately, you are very sociocentrism. Neither Albanian nor Greek was Alexander the Great; he was a proud ancient Macedonian, and he was a dangerous bisexual man; he was a brutal autocrat, yet he was a very smart 5.3 inch strategist.

That is all for tonight.

Have a great one!

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2004

Hello there, I am not sure if Alexander is albanian or not? I know that their soldiers were big fighters. Today, albanians are big fighters too. Lot's of them are champions in the world on fighting sports? Also, name "Aphrodite" Goddess of Romance is 100% albanian. All the best from best place in earth Vancouver, Canada

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2004

Hello i know my opinion doesnt matter much i am a americana and i respect all countries i really respect greece they had and have the best artist in every genre almost everything that we do comes from greece and i cant beleive u guys are talking bad about them whe nwe should all learn from eachother and enjoy life without telling different countries to fuck off i cant say i hate warfare cause im a big fan of the sword and come to know it well everyone please try and learn from eachother instead of fighting

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2004

Are u sure bill. I am probably younger than you but i am sure i am smarter than u. U know y stupid? Cause in albania the education is much higher than urs. Only university u guys have a good level of education but lower than that ur education sux. So if u can understand wat i am saying cause i am having a really hard time to write for u to understand my point. And don't say that thing about my vocab cause i am just writing as when i am chatting. Now be happy u dont have that royal blood of ur beatiful england cause if u had that this would be me trying to talk to u. Duhhhhhhhhh Bill Duh duh duuh dddddddddddddddddddddddduuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh dddduuuhh d ud h

DUH DUH

-- Anonymous, November 10, 2004

Shut up bill.Got anything to add here.if no fuck off

-- Anonymous, November 03, 2004

Ok you are not making much sense. Prince Charles does not or never will rule England. He might be king someday but Monarchs no longer have any official power. England might have stupid monarch's, but Albania has stupid citizens.

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2004

All i can say is that the english has been known to have a stupid leadership. Their leaders like kings and etc have been known of their stupidity. For example Prince charles couldn't get turned on by one of the most beautiful women on the world bu tinstead he could with a women that looks like a horse and dresses or even more acts exactly like Diana. ANd still prince charles is so stupid that when he went for photography school where his uncle was he was so stupid that his uncle gave him a playdoh camera. THat's a push here Dummie camera. So now u with ur dumass kingdom (bill Clay) come here and talk how u hate albania. When albania is all throughtout smarter and ancienter than england. So now dear homosexual bloke plaease shut the fuk up and take ur microminized knowledge in ur microminimized knowledge country.

Long Live Albania

-- Anonymous, October 31, 2004

Gentlemen, Do not worry about the Greek contribution to the argument, they might well be from Janina which those ibeciles calaim it to be Northern Greece. However, I do agree that the Greeks had some great philosophers such as Socrates (and his subsequents) which has often stated that the economic account and apparance has nothing to do with the structure of identity.

-- Anonymous, October 19, 2004

To the person formally known as shut up. First of all Im not Greek (although I wish I was) secondly Im not a teenager anymore (although I wish I was but that's a different story) Finally it's obvious that you struggle with your words and since Im a decent old English bloke I can offer you some great lessons.

-- Anonymous, October 19, 2004

Shut up Bill. To all the Albanians. Don't answer to this load of shit Bill.He is a greek and not an english.He is so fucked up in his mind.He is a teenager maybe who read sth on Aleksander and thats all.

Fuck his sayings boys If i knew you motherfucker Bill I would make your face such ugly that even your mother won't be able to recognize.

-- Anonymous, October 19, 2004

sorry, I said Evans for some reason below this response, I meant Evanmarko

-- Anonymous, October 18, 2004

In response to evans I couldn't agree more. The Albanians are sick and twisted and are just kidding themselves if they think Alexander was one of them. In regards to you thinking the English and the Americans insulting you Greeks I could not disagree more. I am English and I can't think of a country I admire more than Hellas, truly the greatest country on earth!

-- Anonymous, October 18, 2004

I accidentally saw this forum and I really don’t believe what I’m ‘reading’, Alexander the great was Albanian? I can’t help but laugh out ‘very loudly’ and I can’t help but feel sorry for Albanians claiming the ol’ Alexander was one of them but then again I guess the Albanian race has nothing else. Sorry to disappoint you Albania’s but your race is and always was a huge 0! You have nothing to give to modern day society and the same applies for ancient times. I have seen the way you act in my country and the rest of Europe. You are the cockroaches of society.

I must have met around 50 of you and can’t trust you as far as I can throw you. You believe by making it today (financially) you either have to be a pimp or be a drug pusher. Ever since your ‘race’ came into my country everyone locks their doors, no one sleeps outside during the summer anymore as they are afraid that an Albanian will come rape, rob or kill them. I find you to be the most disgusting of all races! How dare you claim that Alexander the Great had anything to do with you! Anyway any responses from you people will be greatly appreciated as I will make a print of this and had it out to the people in my office (so we can all have a good laugh).

P.S. You Macedonians are very close as the Albanian shit! (You people are a huge 0 as well!!!!)

P.P.S. My country is GREECE! Or better yet for all you ignorant bastards HELLAS!!! The cradle of all civilizations I don’t give a damn what all you people think or believe that’s how it was thousands of years ago and that how it is today.

We get a lot of criticism about our nation on an everyday basis, mostly by Americans and the English! (I really didn’t expect cockroaches had an opinion as well… LOL) sorry I just can’t help my self! I really didn’t expect to see something like this.

Anyway I said all I had to say, it was actually been fun, I have to print this now and show all my colleagues at work. I guess you can call it the joke of the day!

any of you shits got anything to say to me then you can say it at evanmarko@hotmail.com

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2004

I am sorry to say to you my little ignorant friend, Alexanders mother (olympias) came from Epirus which is nothing to do with Albania. Ancient Epirus and Macedonia are in the areas of modern Greece and their inhbbitants were also all Greek. Sorry to disapoint you. Don't believe me? look at a map of the ancient balkans, also check out where the inhbitants came from. You will notice that Epirus, Greece and Macedon, all their people were of the same ethnic background.

-- Anonymous, October 15, 2004

These are from ancient historic scripts:

Quote:

"For I (Alexander I) myself am by ancient descent a Greek, and I would not willingly see Hellas change her freedom for slavery." (Herod. IX, 45, 2 [Loeb])

Quote: "Tell your king (Xerxes), who sent you, how his Greek viceroy (Alexander I) of Macedonia has received you hospitably." (Herod. V, 20, 4 [Loeb])

Quote: "Now, that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know." (Herod. V, 22, 1 [Loeb])

Quote: The country by the sea which is now called Macedonia... Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his forefathers, who were originally Temenidae from Argos" (Thucydides 99,3 (Loeb, C F Smith)

Quote: "But Alexander (I), proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be a Greek; so he contended in the furlong race and ran a dead heat for first place." (Herod. V, 22, 2)

Quote: The speech of Alexander I, when he was admitted to the Olympic games "Men of Athens... Had I not greatly at heart the common welfare of Hellas I should not have come to tell you; but I am myself Hellene by descent, and I would not willingly see Hellas exchange freedom for slavery.... If you prosper in this war, forget not to do something for my freedom; consider the risk I have run, out of zeal for the Hellenic cause, to acquaint you with what Mardonius intends, and to save you from being surprised by the barbarians. I am Alexander of Macedon." (Herodotus, The Histories, 9.45)

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2004

VAL,

I don't believe that Alexander the Great considered himself Albanian. Albanians, ever since they were Illyrians, have been very proud of their culture. If Alexander was Albanian, he would've been proud of his Albanian heritage. However, he rejected that heritage.

Alexander spoke Greek. Alexander was schooled in the Athenian tradition. His teacher was Aristotle. I can predict you will say Aristotle was Albanian. However, Aristotle was schooled in the Athenian tradition, and he continued that tradition, teaching in Greek, teaching about Greek philosophy, literature, and aesthetics. Enver himself has said (above) that Alexander was school in the Greek way.

Alexander spread the Greek culture, of Greek philosophy, literature, and aesthetics. That's ALL that matters. I believe that he was Greek. You might believe he was Albanian. However, he was schooled in Greek culture, and he spread it everywhere he went.

Just to draw a comparison....

I was born and live in Australia. In Australia, when somebody has immigrant parents or an immigrant parent, they are in an interesting position. They can either keep hold of their parent culture, or they can become real Australians, or as we call them, "Aussies". If they become Aussies, then they don't care where their parents came from.

I have met people in Australia with Albanian parents who don't speak a word of Albanian, and don't know anything about being Albanian, or Albanian culture. They do as most Australians do - they drink beer, they watch Australian Rules Football, etc. They have adopted Australian values.

However, some Albanian people keep hold of their culture. It is clear when they do so, because they continue to speak Albanian, continue to worship Allah, and they identify themselves as Albanian. They don't say "I'm Australian"; they say "I'm Albanian". They have kept their parents' Albanian values. People become a reflection of the values they worship. Genetics means nothing.

If Alexander had kept hold of his Albanian culture, he would have identified himself as such, would’ve continued to speak Albanian, and would’ve worshipped Albanian values. However, he spoke Greek, and always worshipped Greek (Athenian) values. He didn't just worship those values; he spread them round the known world!

If Alexander was Albanian, the Albanian (Illyrian) language would've been spread around the Middle East. It was not. Greek became the lingua franca of the Middle East because of Alexander the Great. Before Alexander, everyone in the Middle East spoke their own language. When he went there, they didn't start speaking Albanian (or Macedonian). They spoke Greek.

If Alexander was Albanian, he would not have spread Greek values throughout the middle east. He would've spread Albanian (Illyrian) values. Show me evidence of Illyrian values being spread in the Middle East, and contradict the evidence of Greek values being overwhelmingly ingrained. I mean, for goodness sake, he set up Alexandria, which became a centre of Greek culture. People there didn't speak Illyrian. They spoke Greek.

On Homer...

I must say that I find the suggestion that Homer's epics are based on Illyrian legends laughable. Homer's epics are valuable to us because they are poetry. Now, if you know anything about poetry, you know that people often take any old story that is well known, change it around, and make it as beautiful as they can, in terms of their use of language.

Homer's epics are taught in the original Ancient Greek because they are valuable as poetry. He uses, as characters in his epics, gods, which may well have been common to the Illyrians and the Greeks. However, even if those gods were invented by the Illyrians, the poetry that we are now moved by was written by a Greek, in the Greek language. I hope you understand that it is irrelevant where the stories came from.

To give you a comparison, English people, like Shakespeare, also wrote poetry based on Greek myths (or what you maintain are Illyrian myths). However, this doesn't mean that we appreciate Shakespeare as a Greek poet or as an Illyrian poet. Shakespeare is appreciated for his contribution to English literature. Similarly, Homer is appreciated for his contribution to Greek literature.

On the Pelasgians...

VAL, you know very well that Illyrian, and its modern descendant Albanian, are Indo-European languages. Now, the people who were in Greece before the Greeks arrived were NOT indo-european. The Illyrians arrived in Illyria, and mixed with the native Pelasgians in Illyria. They did not mix with the Pelasgians living in Greece. If they had, then the people living in Greece before the Greeks arrived would've spoken Illyrian, and they did not. They spoke a NON-indo- european language.

Greeks are not 'trying' to identify themselves as Pelasgians. Archaeologists and anthropologists have been trying to find out the truth of where the Greeks came from. A part of this truth is the fact that when the Greeks came, there were very few of them in comparison to the people who were there before. As I have mentioned, however, the people who were already there were not Illyrian.

Therefore, both Albanians and Greeks are descended from Pelasgians.

Furthermore, Illyrian (and modern Albanian) have nothing to do with Ancient Egyptian. Ancient Egyptian is a language with both Semitic (Near Eastern) and Hamitic (Ancient North African) roots. It has no relationship whatsoever to the Indo-European languages, including Illyrian and modern Albanian. The tie between Albania and Egypt is an Ottoman one, as both peoples worshipped Allah, and thus were brothers in religion.

As far as Minoan civilization goes, there are two Minoan tablets that have been discovered in Crete - Linear A and Linear B. Only one of these has been deciphered, Linear B, and it is an early form of Greek. Linear A may well be an indigenous form of Pelasgian. However, it is definitely a non-Indo-European language. It is not Illyrian or Albanian, or Egyptian.

As for modern politics, I reject the assertion that my views are biased an corrupt. I am not a resident of Greece. I have Greek parents, and I have never been taught that Albanians are monsters. In Australia, we have a great deal of sympathy for the plight of Albanians, especially Kosovars. However, I reckon Greece has a right to reject illegal immigrants, no matter where they’re from. Most civilized countries, including Australia, reject illegal immigrants, whether they’re Arabs or Albanians or Americans.

The Greeks are aware of the contribution that the Albanians have made to their society, and have no problem with it. The interesting thing is that most Albanians who make great contributions to Greek society and culture actually adopt Greek culture and language as their own. They identify better with Greece than with Albania. Those Albanians who do not contribute to Greek society, but detract from it, are naturally disliked. They are criminals, and would be disliked wherever they live in the world, even if they lived in Albania. Maybe that’s why they don’t live in Albania.

Anyway, nobody is trying to deny Albania its place in history. I consider the Illyrians as a great people who were fucked up by the Turks and then the Soviet Union, and they continue to be fucked up by the Slavs. I wish Albania could be a great nation. I wish it could have its territories back. I wish it the very best success. However, Albania will not gain prestige by claiming the existence of connections with ancient civilizations, when no such connections exist. Though you may appreciate Greek culture, your language is not Greek, and Greek culture is not Albanian. You should be proud of your own culture. Illyrian and Albanian culture is rich. It does not need to claim Alexander the Great, or his legacy, to prove that it is great.

I wish everyone would stop abusing each other. It's really stupid. Keep it academic.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2004

Hej Bill I want you to never write on this topic again.You used to be the first to write about such topics on albanians.

Hej to all the boys here in forum.Don't even try to answer to Bill questions.he is a greek (maybe studying in England) thats tries to put in our minds his bullshits.

We know Bill how does a real English Gentelman behave.So you ore the one who can be disputed here and your nationality.And more than this you aren't a historian as you CLAIM.You wish you be a historian.You haven't wrotten a thing about Aleksander the Great,but just saying a man he is greek and thats all.Does anybody have the idea who the fuck is this idiot Bill?????????????????

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2004

Hej Bill Clay if you are a Historian as you call yourself.Tell me who were the Lyncestians (Linkests)??Have you got any idea about them.Were did they live??What was the name of their Capital?? If you answer me this quastion I may believe everything you say about Alexander the Great.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2004

Sir William Woodthorpe Tarn, of the British Academy, regarded worldwide as having written the definitive work on Alexander the Great, states in the opening paragraph of his book Alexander the Great that "Alexander certainly had from his father (Philip II) and probably from his mother (Olymbia) Illyrian, i.e. Albanian, blood!"* During Rose Wilder Lane's visit to Albania in 1921 resulting in the publication in1923 of her book Peaks of Shala, she heard the following rather extraordinary rendition of Albanian oral history about Alexander the Great from an Albanian elder:

"There was at that time two capitals of the united kingdom of Macedonia. There was Pela, between Salonika and Manastir, and there was Emadhija**, the old capital, lying in the valley which is now Mati (a high, fertile plateau north of Tirana, near the coast of northern Albania - ED). "Alexander's father, Filip the Second had great houses in both Pela and Emadhija, and before Lec i Madhe was born, his mother left Pela and came back to the original capital, Emadhija. It was there that Lec i Madhe was born, and there he lived until he was out of the cradle and rode on a horse when he first went down into Pela to see his father who came from the city to meet and see his son for the first time. "Filip the Second was very proud of his son, and his pride led him to the one great foolishness of a good and wise king. He said that he would make Lec i Madhe king of the world, and that was well enough, but he thought to be king of the world a man must be more learned than he himself. Whereas all old men who have watched the ways of the world know that to be strong and ruthless will make a man powerful, but to be learned makes a man full of dreams and hesitations. "In his pride and blindness, Filip the Second sent to Greece for an Albanian who had learned the ways of the Greeks, and to that man he gave the boy, to be taught books. (The Albanian's) name was Aristotle, and he came from a family of the tribe of Ajeropi, his father having gone to a village in Macedonia and became a merchant there. Being rich, he sent his son, who was fond of thought rather than of action, to learn the Greek ways of thinking. And it was this man who was brought by Filip the Second to teach his son."***

* P 1, ALEXANDER THE GREAT, W.W. Tarn, Beacon Press, Boston, 1956 ** "Emadhija" means in Albanian "the great city" *** PP 184, 186, 187, PEAKS OF SHALA, Rose Wilder Lane. Harper Brothers & Publishers, New York & London, 1923 Other nationalities , of course, have long laid claim to Alexander the Great as one of their own - most notably the Macedonians and the Greeks. However, as cited so authoritatively in the opening paragraph of Tarn's book, Alexander the Great can be rightfully identified as an Albanian.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2004

To the uneducated people in here (Bill)... Don't let your pride get to you, the truth hurts. Alexander the great wasn't 100% Albanian. His father Philip was Macedonia not GREEK...Macedonia! His mother was Albanian, in the Greek and in the Albanian history is 2 different stories, read the world history which says that his mother was indeed Albanian.

-- Anonymous, October 03, 2004

VAL – I love reading your statements, keep it up, bro.

Regarding Bill Clay, ignore him. I do not classify him typical British (I do not know if he is British at all). At one of his comments he declared himself to be of a mixed ethnicity, therefore, he might be Greek but hiding it. He must have been off of his medication when he wrote to “nuke the Albanians!” You know somebody with a comment like that can be easily put away in a mental hospital. Hey, inferior Clay, why don’t you do us all favor and vamoose. You worship an Albanian hero – Alexander the Great/Leka I Madh – is Albanian not Greek. Or accept the historical facts, and the supremacy of the Albanians as a “MASTERS” of a Human Race or get lost and if you like Greeks that much I would recommend you to fall in love with Demis Roussos you know he is 100% Greek, open hero worship website and listen to his”Greek side of my mind” over and over, his goatness, oops, greekness might do you good in your own mentally challenged fantasy world.

-- Anonymous, October 03, 2004

I did 8 years of my school in Edith Durhami Elementary School in Albania, named after the british lady, Princess of the Albanians as she is rightly called by every historian becouse she was welcomed extremely well in the north of Albania, which as we all know is a very conservative place(they needed to be in order ot preserve their culture for 30 centuries of conquests). That's how we welcome people, not with nukes like the british.

-- Anonymous, October 03, 2004

Albania the Great!

Alexander the Great/Leka I Madh - (who is not Greek nor Slavic – but 100% ALBANIAN=since ancient Macedonians (his father) and Illyrians (his Mother) are ancestors of today’s Albanians) became eternally famous worldwide when he went to conquer the world all the way to India!

Mother Teresa (aka Mother Earth – was of Albanian blood, also) did the same journey like Alexander the Great, went all the way to India in the early XXth century and became a legend with her work of love by helping the poor of the world. President Clinton labeld her “the Giant of our Time.”

SKENDERBEG (George Kastrioti) --- Ottoman Turks in the 14th Century fought George Kastrioti for a quarter of a century and were unable to capture or kill him. As the Balkan countries at that time kept falling under the powerful Ottoman Empire one by one only one country was impenetrable –Shqiperia/Albania (the Land of the Eagle). Ottoman Turks gave George Kastrioti his world-famous name SKENDERBEG (which in Turkish means Alexander the Great) in other word they saw in him the previous Great Albanian Alexander the Great reborn in Skenderbeg.

This is what Edith Durham (British writer) wrote 100 years age ….

THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS BY M. EDITH DURHAM When we first know it, the peninsula was inhabited by Thracians, Macedonians, and Illyrians—wild folk, not Greek: a mass of savage tribes each led by its chieftain. They appear to have been closely allied in race. Their form of speech is unknown. ´If the Thracians,´ says Herodotus, ´were either under the government of an individual or united among themselves, their strength would, in my opinion, render them invincible; but this is a thing impossible.´ And his estimate of these people was a just one. Philip of Macedon welded the wild tribes into a power, and Thracians, Macedonians, and Illyrians formed the foundation of Alexander the Great´s all- conquering armies. The Balkan Peninsula is a land of ´one-man empires.´Alexander´s did not long survive him. He died in the year 303 B.C., but he is still the talk of the town in his native land. There is a surprising amount of excitement about him, for the blood of the oldest inhabitants of the land is still with us. That the modern Albanian is the more or less direct descendant of the primitive savage people of the Balkans is a fact which, I believe, no one now disputes. Alexander the Great was a Macedonian, and Olympias, his mother, a Princess of Epirus (South Albania); therefore Alexander was clearly an Albanian.

-- Anonymous, October 03, 2004

By the way, thanks again for that sentence, it explains so many things about the western world, the degenerated culture that exists there, the fake pride, the stolen artifacts from other places etc etc.

Now that I think about it, Bin Laden is a barbie doll compared to you guys, who whoever you find different, either has to be nuked, or put embargos, or change it's history by bullshit conferences and appointing the leaders you want.

Don't worry Bill, the world is like a wheel, now it just happens that UK and it's babycountries Greece and so on is up there in the political corrupted scheme of things...

-- Anonymous, October 02, 2004

BILL THE BRITISH HISTORIAN WANTS TO SPREAD CULTURE NOW. Here's the evidence of who deserves the term "BARBAR".

-- Anonymous, October 02, 2004

This anger is another proof that whoever is debating here especially the selfcalled historians of the forum, that this is a history debate, but I would say is a racist/political one that the British and the Greeks are doing against Albania.

With my writings, i'm not trying to change Bill's mind or any other people's mind about Alexander becouse the vision of history these people have is way too much corrupted. If I start saying etymologies of a lot of European cities and places(Baltic Sea and Jutland were two, here's another one : Marseilles in France, means Marsjelle in Albanian which is Give and Take, pointing out to TRADE, and in fact as we know from history Marseilles was a great city in the past where trade was always concentrated) now that are explained with Albanian as well, there will be either a massive suicide here or people will start cursing me. This is not a way a historian approaches history, and in fact few very few historians can change their views about it. It's like politics, where if people change views it will be only for interest and nothing else. Having said this, if we ALbania, were a much more bigger powerful country now, we would have had a totally different history about Albania, or at least there wouldn't be any people saying that they are Barbarians and so on and so forth.

The fact is that in Europe, everything that happens bad there, a robbery, killing, accident, it has to be an Albanian, the "Albanian Mafia" the scapegoat. This is a load of crap, becouse to be a mafia you need to have the organization similiar to it, like the italians have. As a matter of fact still in US today, Italian Mafia covers 4- 5 pages of Newspapers daily, and the ITalians are ashamed of this from US, nevertheless in Europe the Italians divert the attention to the mysterios "Albanian Mafia" and bullshit like that. People like Bill and many others, who might have complexes about Albania that they don't even know of, need this kind of food to feed their hate for my country, to start cursing them.

Now let's go to greece for a bit. After the game of Albania and Greece, until now greek authorities have found 10 Albanian bodies killed, some of them before the match. Killed and showing wounds by police sticks near the border. In greece now they are having a huge huge trial of a man that killed 3 Albanians and 2 Bulgarians becouse he just hates forigners(notice who are the "foreigners" he killed though). I mean guys open up your damn eyes to the politics of this world against Albania. If you open up any book that is devoted to the country you will find the following words there.

some info about a book which might help us out change the views for Albania

Here's what a book made in conjuction with Harvard Press by Constantine A. Chekrezi(Harvard) and Charles D. Hazen(Modern history professor of Columbia University). Book is Albania Past and Present, 1919.

Book is dedicated to : Miss E. Durham (Princess of the Albanian Highlands), Lieut.-Col. Aubrey Herbert, Mr. Harry Lamb(HMB Delegate to the international commission of control for Albania)

General Bibliographies used at that time, and hundrets more, but those are the gnernal ones : Galanti, Art. L'Albania, Rome, 1901 ---- Legrand, Emile, Bibliographie albaniaise, Paris, 1912 ------- Manek- Pekmezi-Stotz, Albanesiche Bibliographie, Vienna, 1909 Vaina, Eug., L'Albania, pp 165-176, Rome, 1915 ------Adamidi, Dr. Georges, Les Pelasges et leur descemdamte les Albanias - Bulletin de l'Institut Egyptien, 1902. ------ Fallmerayer, Dr. J. Ph., Das Albanesische Element in Griechenland - Abhandlungen des Historische CLasse(Bavarian Academy), 1860, Vol. 8 ---------- Hahn, Dr. Johann Georg von, Albanische Studien, Wien 1853 --------- and furthermore Karapanos, William Martin Leake, Franz Baron Noposa, Dr. Carl Patsch, Eugenio Barbarich, Dio Cassius, Pliny(the Elder) - Historia Naturalis Book III, ch 22, Dr. Karl Roth, Lavardin Du Plessis, Emilio Scapolo, Auguste Boppe, Pouqueville, F.C., etc etc etc etc

oh and also for the british keep in mind to look here, the shame of England and the big powers in deciding our borders : Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 56, p.2285 --- a lot of stuff about Sir. Edward Grey and what he did to us, that we are still suffering.

now a quote form the book "It is generally recognized today that the Albanians are the most ancient race in southestern europe. All indications point to the fact that they are the descendants of the earliest Aryan immigrants who were represented in historical times by the kindred Illyrians, Macedonains, and Epirots. According to the opinion of Dr. Hahn, the noted German ethnologist and linguist, who has made the most extensive reseach on the subject of the origin of the Albanians, the Macedonians and the Epirots formed the core of the Pre-Hellenic,Tyrrheno-Pelasgian population, which inhabited the southern portion of the Peninsula and extended its limits to thrace and Italy. The Illyrians were also Pelasgians, but in a wider sense. Moreover, Hahn also thinks that of these cognate races, which are described by the ancient Greek writers as "barbarous" and "non- hellenic" the Illyrians were the progentors of the Ghegs, or northern Albanians, and the Epirots the progenitors of the Tosks, or southern Albanias. This opinion of Dr. Hahn is borne out by the statement of Strabo, that the Via Egnatia, practically corresponds with the course of the river Shkumbin, which not separates Ghegh and Tosks. The same geographerstates that the Epirots were also called Pelasgians. The Pelasgian ZEUS, whose memory survives even today in the appellation of God as "ZOT" by the modern Albanians, was worshiped at DODONA, where the most famous oracle of ancient times was situated. The neighborhood of the sanctuary was called PELASGIA (from HERODOTUS, BOOK II, 56). On a cursory examination of the term "gheg" and "tosk" it would appear that the name "Tosk" is possibly identical with "Truscus, Etruscus", while the form "Tyrrheneus" perhaps survives in Tirana, the principal city of Central Albania, for which no other current explonation exists.

These findings of the ethnologists are, morevoer strengthened by the unbroken traditions of the natives, who regard themseleves, and with pride, as the descendants of the aboriginal settlers of the Balkan Peninsula. They, therefore, think that they have the best claims on it. It is also on the strength of these traditions that the Albanian looks upon the other Balkan nationalities ad mere intruders who have expropriated him of much that was properly HIS OWN. Hence the constant border warfare which has gone on for centuries between Albanian and his neghbours".

Now, we can clearly see the facts, the names everything regarding ancient mythology and if we start thinking about Homer, then the first question is .... "who does homer refer to when he says the scales of justice ?"(this is a quote on top of my head from the book). Well he refers to Zeus... and Zeus is an Illyrian Diety. ALL the people mentioned up there KNOW AS A FACT THAT THERE WAS A ILLYRIAN MYTHOLOGY explained only by our modern Albanian(who they believe is AT LEAST 1/3 Illyrian and the rest 2/3 is mixed words from centuries of wars and oppression). Herodotus writes that the MACEDONIANS, EPIROTS AND ILLYRIANS ARE BARBAR TRIBES. How can you claim Alexander then? From the writings of modern british history? NO WAY, I claim him from a GREEK HIMSELF, A WRITER OF THAT TIME, HERODOTUS THE FATHER OF HISTORY(without even mentioning other names up there). Another question that comes up ... Who did Homer write about if there was not a greek mythology at that time?... He wrote abotu ancient Illyrian stories, and their Mythology. The fact of the matter is that it is believed that Homer wrote that Poem 300 years before the Greek claims, and that it was translated into Greek. 3 volumes of that poem don't exist and there are visible discrepancies there, who no one has answered.

This summer, I had a visit to a friend of mine who goes to Brown University, an Ivy League school in the US. I tried with all I could to enter in the main Library of Brown, and I told them what I needed. I couldn't go there, it was only opened to graduate students. Then I find a way to contact a graduate math student to go and look for me about Albania there. The guy comes back and writes me that that section is only opened for people who finish history and related subjects. In fact unless you don't know a professor is probably impossible to take a look at the archives there. In Yale is even worse.

Nonetheless I manage to find my sources, and I guess that you pseudo- historians, either read what feeds up your biased views, or are just kids who don't know what the subject is, how to approach it, and who are the authorities here.

-- Anonymous, October 02, 2004

Ok. I just wann asay thank you to the intelligent beings on this forum like Val and max stevenson. i think there is more. but these 2 were the ones who hap supportive facts. and for the idiots just "SHUT UR HOLE". aND FOR BILL CLAY. COME ON MAN DON'T BE GAY.IF U KNOW NOTHING DON'T ACAT LIKE U KNOW SOMETHING.

-- Anonymous, October 02, 2004

Hej VAL this is a forum where we are talking about Alexander the Great (Leka i Madh or Iskander) initialized by the owners of this website and discussing with Bill who can't say more than two senteces and they are "Fuck you Albanians","I hate Albanians".And somebody brings facts, somebody brings bullshits.Howewer it depends how they judge. Bye

-- Anonymous, October 02, 2004

Gentlemen,

DO NOT mistake my identity with Arber's or any other of the Albanian Gentlemen. But having said that if I meet them one day I would give them Greece. Wondering about the value? The shares have fallen.

Let’s face it, the civilised world of Greeks. Oh, sorry, it is thought to be. Speaking of Greeks, it is apparent that they cannot contain and control themselves. Billo, Billo, Billo. When people address to you in a humane way you and your Greeks take the animal orientation. How typical of your intellectual capacity.

YOU PEOPLE THAT ARGUE AGAINST ALEXANDER THE GREAT BEING ALBANIAN. IT IS BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES. COMPARE AND CONTRAST YOUR INTELLIGENT AND REALLISTIC ARGUMENTS WITH THE ALABNIAN ACCOUNTS AND FACTS. WOULDN'T THAT BE A SIGHT?

YOU GREEKS AND MACEDONS (DESERVE EACH OTHER) CALIM A GREAT FIGURE TO BE YOURS WHEN YOU ARE YOURSELVES INFERIOR. THERE IS A MOUNTAIN IN BETWEEN INFERIORITY AND GREATNESS. THIS DISPLAYS THE INTERIORITY OF GREEKS THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO PRESNET WHEN THEY SURPASS THE FUNDAMENTAL MADNESS.

REMEMBER, WHEN ALBANIANS ARE UNITED THERE IS NO HELLAS IN THIS WORLD WHO COULD OVERTAKE THEM AND WIN. IT REMINDS YOU OF THE SPIRIT OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

BY THE WAY DOES THE VOCABULARITY OF HELLAS GIVES YOU ANY INDICATIONS?

IF YOU GREEKS POSSES ANY WISDOM ABOUT YOUR OWN HISTORY, READ AMONGST YOURSELVES (I URGE YOU NOT TO READ IT OUT LOUD) WHAT POMPEY, THE ROMAN GENERAL SAID BEFORE THE BATTLE WITH MITHRIDATES. BY THIS YOU COULD ABSORB THAT ALEXANDER DID NOT HAVE A SHRED OF INTERIORITY OR EXTERIORITY OF A GREEK OR A MACEDON.

Dear brothers, why do you waste your time with people whom cannot discuss or argue as human beings?

MAX STEVENSON

-- Anonymous, October 02, 2004

And apparently there isn't only one, now that I see other threads.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Bill you might be 40, 50 , 60 whatever, with all due respect u act like a spoiled child. Either you are only child of the family, becouse usually if you study psychology you'll know about those implications, or I mean you admitted yourself that you are a lunatic. I told you before, this forum is not for weak people, but for those who know what the hell they are talking about to a wide extent... you are out of the debate.

Do you understand what is the difference of history and philology and archeology and how philology ties them together? Philology since you know ancient greek had the word LOGOS in it, it's a science bill not a history channel movie.

There is a very famous russian movie about WWII, where the germans go and kill an entire household, rape the girls, kill them and an old lady in black is left out. The old lady says to the soldiers "What are you going to do now? Aren't you ashamed of what is happening? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO WRITE IN HISTORY ?" The german soldiers replies "History is made by the winner" and kills the old lady. Very powerful meaning there, which points out the subjectivity and highly involved interests in history.

There is another way we can compare history to make you understand BIll that you have to rely in science to answer such complex questions. When I was a kid we used to play something called "Broken Telephone". I'm sure it exists everywhere. What happens there is that I think of a word, and I pass it around to the next person, he passes it around but in a different flavor etc etc, until it comes to the last person who has to guess what the initial word was. This is precisely the kind of history you know, citings of someone who cited someonelse and interpreted another way, who in turned he cited someone else to and so on and so forth, whether philology and archeology are SCIENCES, almost exact I would say.

I don't need to go to write somewhere else, I already have contributed in so many forums that you can't even imagine, from the Illyranforum managed by the serbs who used to delete my facts (nothing new here, thats what they do in reality, burn them), up to Albanian forums and everywhere. I'm here by coincidence, becouse as I was searching for some articles I found the words "fuck Albania", and I was interested to know from which filthy mouth they were coming from.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Christ, Val this is a forum on Alexander the great, not an Albanian chatroom. Why don't you prove your knowledge by answering some of the other questions on this forum in a non Albanian way, using real historical facts?

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Djema, cfare eshte ky forum? Se un kot se cpo kerkoja dicka pashe keta rrockat qe shanin.

Ju pershendes dhe mos e rruni shum, se do vi dhe dita jone tja shtypim koken.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Bill, are you going to say anything intelligent or not? Otherwise stop ruining the coversation. Need I remind you that your second reply is what apparently coused all the offenses here. Calm down, read, if you have arguments to back up your points write them down, instead of thinking conspiracies. Albanians were never good for conspiracies, if they were like the British were in the Coference of London and before that, where they promised something that gave us something else, maybe we would have been much more bigger then we are now, and rightly include the 2 millions in kosovo, 1 million in macedonia, and the arvanities up to Preveza which was the border when Greece proclaimed indipendence. So stop lying to yourself and thinking conspiracies. We were never good for that and I don't think why we should be now. The most common word in Albanian, which is a Pelasgian one as well is BESA- meaning partnership, truthfullness, respect and courage. Read Lord Byron and Ms. Edith Durham and if yuo for the forsaken time don't accept what your people that lived there have to say about us, then YOU GOT A COMPLEXITY AGAINST ALBANIANS... and that my friend couses a disbalance, disproportion(ratio) in your way of thinking, and makes you dangerous for this debate.

IF people like you are the one that command Europe, we Albanians like i said, have no chance but start thinking seriously of how to defend our country in the future, becouse just asa Britian had divided us 3 times to its own pleasures, it might do it again.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

No you dick head I said that you are anti-albanian and will be very difficult or maybe impossible to convince you about anything. Stop writing just two sentences.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Your present argument(which is the only one left to greeek academia) is to claim that Albanians and Greeks have the same roots (Pelasgians) and that the greeks played a greater cultural role. Who denied this anyway(about the culture)? However like I said Illyrian Mythology is what is now called "greek mythology", and the reason is that was developed into writings by the Greeks. All the names including the famous Apollo(APUDHA- ALbanian means to open the road, to light the road). In fact in the epistemological sense Apollo stands as the highest enlighted God, and Nietzche and many others later on and before him try to attribute more earth-like qualities to him, in terms of an epistemology based not on rationalism but on empiricism, truth derived from experience, enlightment from experience, as in contrast to Dionysius(which by the way it is thought to be a Babylonian god), which was the symbol of highest exstasy, unique experience through immersing yourelf in the "will" as nietzche calls it, the primordal will. Now with all these huge huge philosophical background about Apollo, the albanian etymology IS THE CLOSEST ONE WHATSOEVER, becouse the one that leads the road, is the one that walks the road, is the one that is wise through experience.

In terms of Pelasgians greeks can't claim anything with facts, becouse Pelasgians mixed with Illyrians, and by the time the Greek arrived they were integrated and united(well we still had ILLYRIAN TRIBES, NOTICE ILLYRIAN TRIBES ARE PELASGIAN PEOPLE). The greeks also claim to be either descendants of the Egyptian, which however the disk of Phestos found in Crete from the Minoan civilization is better explained with Egyptian and has nothing to do with ancient greek, and in turn Egyptian hieroglifs are better explained by Albanian(notice that ALbanian dynasties ruled Egypt until the late 1800's when the British came over and took their land. There is a deep tie between Egypt and Albania.

Now this presents a huge problem for you guys that claim to be Minoan and Mycenean, and at the same time their gods are totally different from the ones that Greek claim as theirs(which in fact are Illyrian). The disk of phaestos was barbarously almost destroyed by the greeks becouse they couldn't find a single evidence that links their language to the minoan one. So we know that Illyrians were there, we know that is widely accepted that Albanian and Armenian formed before Greek much more earlier, we know that Illyrians were there and Pelasgians were there before. We have dictionaries from the french and croatians philologists that make the transition from Pellazg to Illyrian(Albanian) and then to Greek which is commonly thought that was aided by Illyrian to be formed and then evolved.

So cut and clear we have a big problem determining from where the ancient greeks came from and from where do the modern ones come from. This happened becouse evidence, translation of scritpures explained with ALbanian, the radiocarbon datings that Place Illyrian civilization at least 3000 BC in the Balkans, give huge huge evidence of the existence of a PRE-HElenique civilization. And this is why the greeks are working intensively to identify themselves as pelasgians, neglecting that the ancient liked to be called egyptians, and they thought they were from the minoan.mycenean cultures.

As for Homer I will write in another time about the huge controversies of how, when and where he wrote his texts, as there is a 300 years disticintions among records we have, without even going into the Homeric meaning in Albanian, and the fact that they are all ancient tales of Illyrian Mythology since every single diety can be explained only with Illyrian.

As for Homer and the greek works that are not studied in Albania, I hope you will not commit the same error that Bill did. Both my grandfathers were fluent in Greek and ancient Greeks, they even translated most of the workds from them, and they even finished school there in Selanik. Both these works are tought at HS level in Albania, and most of the 2 year foriegn literature works are devoted to the GREEKS. And of course who ever wants to continue in college later on can take those courses as well. I myself stayed only two years in the HS system in Albania before going to US, and I remember studying only Greek works in my foriegn literature and some French works here and there.

Now some modern politics and how that affects the views of people here.

THIS IS EXACTLY THE PROBLEM, BECOUSE GREEK HOMELAND PROPAGANDA PORTRAYES ALBANIANS AS MONSTERS. I have friends that are greeks, my brother goes to a greek neighborhood school and what they tell him is that they read in the news that "albanian governmend bombed the Greek minorities in south Albania". This is the crap that Greek government puts on you guys, that likes to not mention the fact that who were the fighters for greek indipendence, that doesn't want to mention the 2-3 million arvanitas as ethnic Albanian ihabiting those lands since hellenic times. Albania is too poor to do anything now, more then 600.000 immigrants work in greece, and when they tried in the past to say one word in EU against the racism of greeks, the Greeks expelled twice 30.000 Albanians. Those people of course have no where to work, the government cannot provide jobs for them, and they can't go back to greece either. So the only thing left is to STEAL, contribute to crime etc. This is one of the reasons that whenver there are racist riots of greeks killing Albanian, the Albanian government says "this should not influence our great relations with the greek government". This is the problem we face now, before even going to talk about history, becouse your(greek views) views are biased, corrupt and do not rely on primary material, but on what "other historians" mistankly said in the past. Our facts rely on LANGUAGE AND ARCHEOLOGY, which can't be disproved, but can be DEBATED SCHOLARLY AND BE CONTRIBUTED BY BOTH PARTIES TO FIND OUT WHO LIVED BEFORE AND WHAT DID THEY DO.

And this can be precisely seen on the virtual world as well... right here Did you know that most of the Albanian books are being translated in Polish now? Did you know that the department of Albanian Language in the University of Tirana is full of russians students which increase and increase ? Did you know that in China, one of the most studied foreign languages is Albanian? We'll see big changes in the future, and we want our right place and credit in history, and not only us, but however is a lover of knowledge.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Who was the dick head who said I am an Albanian? I think all the Albanian postings have come from just one guy........ Arber.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

VAL,

I think in all likelihood, the Albanians/Illyrians and the Greeks have many more similarities between them than differences. We share many genes between us. In Greek we have a word, 'ponous', which means eternal pains. Greeks and Albanians/Illyrians share similar 'ponous'.

Yiannis, in another thread, wrote something interesting. He said that Hellenism is not something that should be claimed, but something that should be shared.

Now your claim is that the ancient Illyrians played a greater part in Hellenic history than is acknowledged by academics. My answer to this is the major bulk of my argument, which you haven't addressed:

1. Back in those days, it didn't mean very much, genetically, to be Illyrian or Greek. This is because most people were Pelasgian. There were only a few Indo-Europeans, bringing the languages of Illyrian and Greek with them.

2. Lets face it, everybody had the same religion. The Pelasgians had a religion when the Indo-Europeans got there, and when the Indo- Europeans did get there (i.e. Illyrians and Greeks) the religions in Illyria and in Greece forked - Illyrian religion changed slightly, and Greek religion changed slightly.

3. Therefore, it meant very little what one's genes contained, and it meant very little which gods one worshipped or what language one spoke, because everybody was essentially Pelasgian.

4. You would deny this, but Greek culture changed this, because of its very nature.

Greek culture is thought of so highly, because the first examples of the European tradition of literature is in Greek - the Iliad and the Odyssey. Now, you've studied the classics, and you know how moving it is to read the Iliad and the Odyssey in the ancient Greek original. English poetry means very little in Greek, and therefore, ancient Greek poetry means very little in English (and for that matter, Albanian or Illyrian). Homer was Greek, because if he was Illyrian, he would've written beautiful Illyrian poetry. Following the Iliad and the Odyssey was the great Athenian tradition of literature and philosophy. Philosophy was born in Athens, in the Greek language. Democracy was born in Athens, in the Greek language. And so on and so forth.

Now, this is where the nature of nationality changed. Up until then, if one was Pelasgian, then if they spoke Illyrian, they were Illyrian. If they spoke Greek, they were Greek. Generally, this corresponded with where people lived. However, when Greek culture took that extra step, of writing down the language, of identifying abstract notions, of thinking philosophically, it was instantly in a category of its own. Therefore, ones genes were irrelevant. To be a Hellene, it wasn't enough to be some Pelasgian who was born in Greece and spoke Greek; a Hellene was someone who thought like a Hellene, who appreciated art and literature like only a Hellene could.

Therefore, let us take a hypothetical Lekh, or Alexander (not Alexander the Great), who lives in an Illyrian-speaking town, in Macedonia. Lekh is a Pelasgian who happens to speak Illyrian.

When Lekh turns 5 years old, his town is conquered by Greeks. As Pelasgians, his family don't have much of a problem speaking Greek instead of Illyrian. Lekh becomes Alexander. He goes to a Greek school. He travels to Athens to study at Plato's academy. Genetically, he is Pelasgian, and therefore not much different from most of his classmates. Culturally, however, he is educated in Hellenic philosophical thought and literary and artistic appreciation. There is nothing about Alexander's Illyrian heritage that matters. He happened to be born in Illyria, where Illyrian was spoken. However, he is now a Greek, for all intents and purposes.

And by the way, it would be no different if Alexander was a Greek little boy living in Asia Minor in the 1600s, stolen from his family at the age of 7 by the Turks, and turned into a Muslim and a soldier in the Turkish army. That boys' Greek genetic heritage means very little; he would now identify more with Muslim culture than with Greek culture.

You can see my point, therefore, that it is what philosophy people follow, and believe in, that governs the way they think and therefore who they are. I am a Greek who was born in Australia. However, unlike many of my fellow Greek-Australians, my family have gone to lengths to ensure that I understand my cultural roots. I also went to a school where I was able to study Ancient Greek language, philosophy and literature. I am a product of both the fact that I went to an Australian school, with British values, and the fact of my Greek roots and upbringing.

Alexander the Great, however, fully embraced Greek values. Regardless of his roots and upbringing, the only philosophy around at the time was Greek philosophy. The only abstract notions around were Greek abstract notions. Only somebody who loved Hellenism would have spread it to the middle east.

As far as they are contributors to Ancient Greek culture, however, Illyria/Albania (as the nation of people who speak Illyrian and Albanian) are notable in that they no longer subcribe to Ancient Greek culture.

Modern Greek is the closest language in the world to Ancient Greek. Modern Greek and Ancient Greek are the closest modern-ancient counterparts than any other European language (i.e. they are closer to each other than Spanish is to Latin, or Italian to Latin, or French to Latin, or Albanian to Illyrian). Modern Greeks care more about Ancient Greek philosophy, literature, and art than anybody else does. They identify, more than anybody else, with Hellenic values.

The Albanians do not go and watch Sophocles' and Euripides' and Aristophanes' plays in the original, and understand it. The Albanians do not grow up studying the Iliad and the Odyssey. They do not identify with the culture. No doubt, they are free to. They are free to reject their language, their history, and their heritage, in favour of a Greek identity. Many of them have. Many famous and important Greeks are actually of Albanian genetic heritage. However, they have adopted Hellenism as their central core of values. They are Hellenes. Illyria is as irrelevant to them as Albania is.

Hellenism has always been shared around. Genetics has always been irrelevant. Albanians and Greeks should stop referring to ourselves as such, and instead call ourselves Pelasgians. The reason we don't, however, is because Greeks define themselves not by their genetics, but by subscribing to Hellenic culture. This is what makes one a Hellene.

I sympathise fully with your 'ponous', VAL. It would be nice if Albania could get back its territories of Montenegro, Kosovo, and western Macedonia. It would also be nice if the Turks hadn't existed, and if the British hadn't stolen the Parthenon Marbles. Greece doesn't deserve to be a pile of dismembered rubble. But that's life.

As Socrates the Druid said when he stepped off his flying saucer:

"EN OIDA OTI OU DEN OIDA"

:-)

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Val well done man they have nothing to say.oh by the way It was me who said suck my dick and fuck you bitches.And you know why because they suck with their arguments and facts and just keep saying Aleksander was greek and Epirus was not-illyrian.Well BILL says that Olimpia was a descendant from Achilles (in old-albanian ASPETI=i Shpejti=the fast one) and nothing more

So if you BILL still continue to believe that Achilles and Oddyseus (in old-albanian Udhesheu=the traveler) existed you have fucked up your intelligence. By the way Illiad and Oddyssey are fiction books and not historic.If you believe they existed why you can't believe that Hamlet,King Lear and also Raskolnikov or Jean Valjean really existed?And why not?We have written books of their stories and more realistic then mythology (I hope you know the meaning of it).

Bring more facts Bill and thats all.You justify your sayings about Albania and the Albanians just by facts or maybe arguments and please be realistic.I know your cliche can't be changed but we will try.

O VAL mos u merr shume me kete Billin se eshte nje cike shume anti- shqiptar.Gjalle ne bote se ja mbush mendjen.Per mua provoje njehere se paske material te bukur.Gjate gjithe kesaj qe kam lexuar nuk i ke permendur fare Linkestet,fisin ilir qe banonte ne territoret e sotme te Manastirit dhe Shebenikut.Nena e Filipit ishte linkeste dhe quhej Euridika.Do te sjell me shume material per kete nje dite tjeter.Shendet dhe te mira

Special thanks also to Max Stevenson

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

And bear in mind that there are no nationalist purposes whatsoever, or even if there are, it's nothing compared to greek nationalism, who still to this day kill albanian innocents there.

It's easier to establish Albanian-Illyrian-Pelasgian continuity, then the ancient greek-modern greek people continuity. Where were you guys from 146-800 AC ? All the emperors up until then were either Roman, Albanian(Justinian being the most famous one) or Slavic. Bear in mind that the only reason that there even is a modern greek today is becouse of the liturgy that the Albanians did in ancient greek, and some of the romans,slavs as well, otherwise it would have been just another language which would extint. In fact in his book of the Arvanites(bestseller in Greece), Aristidh Kola writes that "present albanians are more greeks then greeks are", and what that means is that they provide elements of ancient cultures just like Wilkes says becouse they have wrestled since history was unwritten with all sorts of populations, and becouse of their extremely isolated mountinous territory, they have managed to survive, which means that they bear more ancient elements then any other population in the Balkans.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

HAve you been reading my posts or you just assumed that I was arber and didn't read them?

Read the implications of such studies, read why the Vatican closed down the Illiryan Library in Padova and put every book there on its secret archives, read about the politics of Britian and France towards albania and their ties with Greek Kingdomship and maybe we might get a chance to get realistic here about stuff. I don't pretend that a greek should know history, becouse they don't study it, as a matter of fact they still to this day don't know who the heros of their revolution were.

Give a respected name of an Academic who rejects those claims? No one, except slavic and greek academia who works within nationalistic purposes which Albania has a huge deficiency on respect to propaganda becouse it lacks money, and has a prime minister who is a doll of the greek government like Fatos Nano is.

Those guys that I mentioned lived before even Albania became a state and had huge division among themselves. Here I'm not even mentioning the Greek writings, and those that talk about the involvement of the Illyrians in the Spartan and Athenian war, which I'm sure you have no idea that there was such an alliance. The other fact you have to know is that before Illyrians were rightly claimed by Albanologists and philologists as being Albanian based on phonetic rules, huge wordlist that is essentially the same, names toponymy etc, the slavs called themselves Illyrians to justify their position there, and the modern greek during the revolution called themselves Illyrian as well. The fact of the matter is that they soon realised that they weren;t such, but people who came in the 7th -9th century from asia minor(in fact the GREEK POPULATION,ancient one is extint or totally assimilated from Albanians after the Romans killed and despersed most of them). This is a crucial fact to know, and Greeks know it, thats why from accepting the Illyrian claim as being hellenic people, they wiped out the entire name of Illyria and claim now that is a "mythical" legend or smth, or that those people have dissapeared. This is the reason they wanted Saranda and Butrint(who by the way they had clues leading that there were ancient Illyrian temples there, who weren't excavated yet), to destroy even that evidence. In fact Enver Hoxha slighly after the provocation period started to send people digging in Butrint, and they found the proof of another civilization living there with a different architecture and other pagan temples.

To be an academic in matters of Balkans you have to know all the languages there, otherwise from a historical perspective you don't have enough information available to do anything. After the library of Alexander was burned down by "unknown" reasons, the historians relied on those few documents that were left by greek historians about Illyrians, and on language and archeology, radiocarbon dating which sets the scientific explonation and age of artifacts, and very complex phonetic rules which you and me and bill and whoever takes part in this conversation can't possibly know of. You need to be a philologist with a deep knowledge of archeology and history have the information available(which it's easier for a french and british to get then for an albanian) to make the proper claims. Most of the names that I've written up there and many more were even killed, poisoned or died of unknown stuff. Can you explain to me why ?

In the end you got to be realistic, show me proof for what you guys say, and take bear in mind that those studies are being widely published now. Enigma by Robert D'Angely is being presented to the french academia who in turn will do symposiums and meetings about it. Those guys that wrote about Albania, they know Albanian language better then 99.99% of Albanian people, becouse they know the past and the present forms of it, all the dialects, and other ancient languages as well. This establishes them as being an authority themselves in the world of Academia... and trust me there aren't many philologists out there, as there are historians which do propaganda most of the times. Philology it's a science, almost in the exact sense of it.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

I will not reply to your tripe untill you can offer a convincing explanation as to the reason why no serious academician will give them credence. I am not a historian, but I am a reasonable person, that will accept facts if proven to be correct. Can you explain why the ideas you present are not credited as serious? It seems to me that you are commiting the error of analyzing ancient history through a modern view. You are ascribing nationalist motives to people who lived thousands of years, before nationalism as we know it today developed. And yes, Barber is an idiot. Prove that you aren't one and I will reconsider my assertion.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Are you sure I'm Arber or is it just you that have nothing else to say now, and are giving me witchtrial style accusations?

If you can't distinguish my arguments, my logic from that of Arber, which personally I think he's a kid becouse the conversations before ranged from fuck albania to suck my dick, or just doesn't have enough knowledge to present the facts in a clear logic.

Yiannis if you have something intelligent to say write down man, if not then you guys must be desperate to start comparing me with other people.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

This is ridiculous, arber the barber comes with another name and spews the same tripe. It doesn't make sense. This is all frustrated nationalism. Replying to it is to give it more credit than it is worth. They won't listen to reason, and keep on about conspiracies etc or "linguistic etymologies". It is pathetic.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Bill, you are an Albanian yourself aren't you Bill.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

How can you claim them? I need proof, leave the degenerated Albanian government alone cos if it was up to them we wouldn't even exist now. Thanks God there are people who wrote history down, who looked for the truth and we are now speaking with their facts and arguments.

Before you give me evidence of those translations(by the way they don't exist, Max Muller and Schwartz tried his entire life to translate those names using Sanskrit and still Albanian is the closest one), you have to take in consideration the parenthesis, which imply that people have devoted their life to such thing and still they have failed, and to the fact that Albanian whether you like it or not is the oldest recognized language in Europe by the royal institute of languages in sweden, the same one where all major figures that won nobel prizes come from.

I don't get what your problem is Bill becouse those are foreign historians from lands that politically have and still hate Albania. Are you a politician then or what? otherwise grab those authors read them, and if you have enough patience and years in your life try to disprove them, with the opportunity cost involved that you might end up just like Max Muller and Schwartz... but this is the trade-off that you have to face, and that modern history has to face in light of new disoveries.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Look VAL, you are obviously an intteligent person. If you are Albanian then your English is brilliant, it's a shame that you don't use your intteligance for a better purpose than spreading mixed up Albanian nonsense around this forum. Who cares that some Greek words can be translated into Albanian, they can also be traced into english, french, german etc but all of us don't claim to be the ancestors of Alexander. Don't let your country fool you.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

As I mentioned above here's a brief thynsesis... 1)Zeus - Ze (to speak in albanian) 2)Athena - EThena(spoken in albanian) 3)Afrodites- Aferdita(nearlight in albanian) 4)Hyllus(Earliest King of Illyrians around 1300 BC that we have record of) - Yll(star) 5)Bardhyl(us)- Whitestar in albanian 6 Troja - Our Land in Albanian - Indeed when the trojans were defeated by the greeks, the princess fled to Illyria where was recieved by Queen Teuta. 7)Dardanele near Troja(present Turkey), and Dardans which are the present Kosovars and the ancinet illyrian tribe. Infact Trojans are believed to be Illyrians from the Dardan tribe. 8)Baltic Sea - (Balt means dirt in Albanian and that's the only explonation we have). 9)Aleskander - (born like a dream in Albanian)

Now all these things and much more can't be coincidences. Since we all are fond of Greek Philosophy(in fact I've studied almost 3 years of it before switching to German one), Aristotle had a saying "If one things happens once it's luck, if it happens twice is coincidence, if it happens three times it's a LAW". These names and the explonation in Albanian cannot be coincidence anymore, without even mentioning the Etruscan Albanian words very similiar, and old greek words from Homer's work. There are dictionaries of this compiled by Robert D'Angely, and Faveryal,available in french and only recently in Albanian tranlsated.

We can't be like Bill anymore who is attached to his dogmatic beliefs about ancient greece, and many many others... we got to take a step back. This is hard to do becouse there are interests involved. If we accept that Alexander was Thraco-Illyrians that adds another proof to the innumerable writings that Herodotus and Thucidites write about Epirus as being a barbarous land inhabited by other people. This would lead to many other things about history that have to change and most importantly would lead to the change of the present borders between Albania and Greece etc etc. Who is up for such changes peacefully? NO ONE... therefore I plan that people like Bill will still continue to wonder around for a long while, before we start introducing this subject in school and remove it from being only a researchers graduate student privilege to learn about such things. Ant this is something that will take time, will take time before the Vatican who closed down the Illyrian Library of Padova, releases eveyrhting that was there to be available for studies. Balkans have already suffered 7-8 major wars in the past century... that rate is probably even worse then african tribal conflicts.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

As for culturally speaking you should read the posts above and the evidence translation I've given. It is known that from minoan excavation there were found dieties that have nothing to do with the olympian gods. And greek claim that they are part of the minoan/mycenean culture. Now if as all of the above people I mentioned, espeically Elsie,Faveryal and Angely, write of Illyrian Mythology with most of the "greek" gods actually pertaining to Illyria, then rightly so we are regarded as the initiators of that culture. I mean look at philosophy and look at religion. There is a deep connection between the two, just as there is a deep connection between ancient mythology and whatever perpetrated from ancient philosophy in relation to those ABSTRACT notions, that the ancient greeks were able to develop, while the Illyrians did nothing more but worship those dieties. Clearly the Greeks have borrowed a lot of Illyrian Mythology, and unless you are a studious of Balkan culture and have access to prestigious libraries, or know certain langauges there is no way that you can know this. Elsie only recently translated his books in Albanian and English(latest one is Balkanolische Veroffendtlichungen - band 39 - Early Albania). So culturally speaking we got to take again a step back, where all evidence for most of the dieties points to illyrian-albanian explonation and the mycenean/minoan culture excavations haven't shed anything that might claim them as Greek. Here I don't even want to go in the debate of Aristotle being an Illyrian as well(althugh he wrote in Greek becosue Illyrian wasn't written down and lacked a lot in terms of abstract notions), and most importantly without even saying anything about the great Celtic civilization, that hasn't recieved any credit either in history, but has been associated with black magic and all crap like that. In fact Socrate's mentor was a Druid, and a recent excavation near the symposium places where people used to drink wine, they have found mushrooms(the ones that bring hallucinations) near wine as well. This is clearly celtic element right there that has not recieved credit, without even enteratining a possibility of indian influence there as well. So the greek culture does not only pertain to the greeks, but to everyone that contributed there. Greek was the common denominator for people becouse the language they used academically was greek, and that's all. I can write a great philosophical treaty in English, but would that mean that this is English culture ?

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Finally some arguments.

What is my objective? Well hearing everywhere fuck Albania, you guys haven't done this haven;t done that, barbarians etc, I need to give some thorough information to our friend Bill the British Educator, and to the Illyrians in genral. I have used only outside sources up until now to demonstrate my points.

My objective is that after the SHAME of Sir Edward Grey's speech who justified the common borders of Albanians by saying that " we need to do what we can in order to satisfy the big powers" after all my country has suffered, finally we are now recieving some credit, which is nothing more then credit already written in the past(notice that besides Elsie and Wilkes, most of the names are of people that are dead from a long time now). This credit is increasing evidence that is supporting with archeological facts who we are and what was our role. Indeed most of the people who know ancient greek and gheg dialect in Albanian will come to the conclusion that the simple words of the greeks are borrowed by Albanian, and the abstract words (logic,epistemology and so on and so forth) are ancient greek academia, which the Illyrians learned as well to compensate this deficiency they had. Furthermore I even said above that Illyrian used to write in ancient greek letters their language for quiete a while, and we have evidence of another alphabet used in SICILIA (found in some stones there) that corresponds to Illyrian-Albanian but with different letters. I even gave credit to the Bulgarians for their thesis of being thracians. I haven't even mentioned here most of the works that two british have done on ud Lord Byron and Ms. Edith Durham, and many other people.

Of course seeing the words barbarous albania in the year 2004, made me write to out friend Bill some information about Albania's culture written by british authors.

What do I want? The question is what do Albanian want. And they want respect, they want credit, they want the name Illyria to appear at least in the indexes of major college textbooks, they want to be respected in the world academia, becouse rightly most of the people I mentioned are foreigners. If I cite an Albanian imagine what would have happened.

No one denied that Alexander spoke greek and spread greek culture, but nevertheless we can't claim that he is Greek, but Macedonian (thraco-illyrians) and from Epirus. Notice here that Skanderbeg(Lord Alexander) almost 1000 years later was prince of Epirus, Defender of Christianity, and the unifier of Albania, just like Alexander Unified Illyria and Greece of course.

Is this too much to ask after centuries of wars, taking our lands arbitrarily, killing us to these days against all the rules of EU, just like is happening in Greece with those emigrants? I don't think so.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

VAL,

I was wondering what your objective is.

You should bear in mind that Alexander the Great's legacy was:

- to spread the Greek language throughout the ancient middle east;

- to found a city of Alexandria in Egypt which became a centre of Greek culture rivalling Athens, containing in its library all the major works of the Athenian philosophical and literary tradition;

- to ensure that Greek culture became the dominant culture of the Eastern Roman Empire (later Byzantine Empire), until its gradual collapse culminating in its complete obliteration, at the hands of the Turks, 1500AD.

Bear also in mind that nobody denies the greatness of the Illyrian people, and their modern descendants, the Albanians. However, there are certain historical facts we must acknowledge.

- in ancient times, both the Illyrians and the Greeks had a substantial non-Indo-European population, i.e. indigenous Europeans (or Pelasgians) who spoke a language different to both Illyrian and Greek. The Indo-European population which spoke proto-Greek, which arrived in Greece between 2000-1500 AD, was a very small population in comparison to the indigenous Europeans already there. The people they found in Greece (which includes Macedonia) were not Illyrian; they were indigenous Europeans – or Pelasgians. They spoke a non-Indo- European language. Therefore, the majority of Greek blood would have been Pelasgian. The same was the case with the Illyrians. Though they may have spoken Illyrian, the majority of Illyrian blood would have been Pelasgian. The Indo-European language, either Greek or Illyrian, which Pelasgian people would have been speaking, was relatively superficial to their own indigenous customs.

- this changed when Greek culture started to take off. The Athenian philosophical and literary tradition includes Socrates, Plato, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Pheiddipedes (the sculptor), and so on and so forth. Homer was the first person to write in Greek, and the Iliad and the Odyssey don’t sound nearly so good in English as they do in Ancient Greek. Homer makes you cry when you read it in Ancient Greek – it is poetry. Obviously, Greek people were impressed with Greek culture.

- However, lots of non-Greek people were also impressed by Greek culture. For a Pelasgian Illyrian, whose Illyrian culture was only skin deep, it was very easy to shed that, to learn Greek, and to become as Greek as his Pelasgian Greek neighbour. There is no doubt that if Alexander had Illyrian ancestors, then they did what I just described. By having Greek names, by marrying into Greek culture, by speaking Greek (as well as their native Pelasgian), and by ensuring that they and their eventual descendants, including Alexander, were educated in the Athenian philosophical and literary tradition, they were identifying themselves as Greek. Needless to say, Alexander’s Greek ancestors (and we know they were Greek because they came from Peloponisos) would have done this anyway. But if he had Illyrian ancestors as well, then they did what I just described. They did not embrace the Illyrian culture; they embraced the Greek one. Hence, Alexander the Great’s legacy was to spread the Greek culture he knew and loved to the known world.

For these reasons, I therefore ask, what is your objective? Do you want to claim the Athenian philosophical and literary tradition as Illyrian? Do you want to claim Alexander’s achievement in spreading Greek culture throughout the middle east as Illyrian? Do you believe that Homer, the Ancient Greek poetry we know through the Iliad and the Odyssey, is actually Illyrian? If so, you should again read what I wrote above.

If, however, your objective is to claim that modern Albanians are descendants of Alexander the Great, I have the following words for you. Modern Albanians are very proud of their Albanian culture, and their Illyrian roots. Genetics is almost meaningless after so many years, but it is fair to say that the Albanians and the Greeks, through their common Pelasgian genetic heritage, are related. However, culturally speaking, the Albanians should really be proud of those people, whether they be Illyrian, Greek, Italian, Turkish or whatever, who have made the greatest contribution to Illyrian + Albanian culture. Alexander did not make a great contribution to Illyrian or Albanian culture. If any, he stunted its independence, by conquering it, and when Alexander conquered territories, though he didn’t destroy their culture, they would invariably come under Greek influence, stunting their cultural independence. Therefore, genetically speaking, we might all have a claim to Alexander the Great (unless we’re Japanese). Culturally speaking, Alexander means much to the Greeks, but little to the Albanians.

Please clarify your objective,

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

One more thing for the british pseusohistorians educators of the world, in relation the the barbarian Albanians.

Here's a direct quote from The book of Tom Winnfrith, Chairman of the Joint School of English and Comparative Stidies, University of Warwick. Page 136. This book should be available on shcolarly libraries and big public ones, becouse it was limited in press, and generated from a scholar debate in Canada about Illyria and Modern Albania.

"Another interesting feature of Albanian society is its preoccupation with culture and the arts. Almost every village has its local museum. There are SEVEN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAS - A REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT FOR A COUNTRY WITH A POPULATION OF ONLY 3 MILLION. ON THE SAME BASIS OF POPULATION ONE WOULD EXPECT TO FIND 133 SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAS IN BRITAIN, AS COMPARED WITH THE THIRTEEN(13) THAT WE HAVE. Again, Albania produeces THIRTEEN FEATURE FILMS A YEAR. ON THE SAME BASIS OF POPULATION ONE WOULD EXPECT TO FIND BRITISH STUDIOS TURNING OUT 247 FEATURE FILMS ANUALLY, AS COMPARED WITH THE CURRENT FIGURE OF FIFTY-TWO(52). AND, OF COURSE, ALBANIAN FILMS ARE ALBANIAN. To conclude, Albania in the modern period has undergone a radical social transformation. Indeed, even those who regard with extreme disapproval the absence of stockbrokers and bishops must agree that Albania is a unique country in many respects"

Raymond Hutching - Tom Winnifrith

Who is Raymond Hutching? -> is the editor of Abstract Soviet and East European studies. The author of seven books about the Soviet Union, he has also travelled widely in south-eastern Europe, including three visits to Albania. HE READS NINE EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. (not like you BILL, this guy is a PILLAR a fondament in history and comparative studies).

Tom Winnifrieth as I mentioned above is also, A senior lecturer at the University of Warwick in the Departament of English and Comparative literary Studies and is Director of the university's European Humanities Research Center. He has published books on English literature and the classics, and has traveled widely in the balkans.

------------------------------------------ Tell me if you're planning a suicide now, knowing the kind of lunatic you and your friends who write nonsense high school crap are here and in every forum I have encountered.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

Bill modern greek has nothing to do with ancient greek whatsoever, and for your information no one knows how that language was spoken (there are claims that say it was singed), so how the hell did u manage to distinguish it if it's not written down either?

To talk about Albania from the persepective of a studious you have to know albanian as well. For example if i say now that "Ti je nje genjeshtar i felliqur" you should know how to reply, otherwise buzz off with your sharlatan claims.

Continue to praise each other cos that's what all you can do when facts can't be denied.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

Greece at that time was a city state nation, which means Athens has its own rules and laws and its citizens were called athenians, so Pella was the capital of Macedonia which was part of greece. Since Macedonians only and official language was greek and they believed in the greek religion. The problem is that Macedonia was a big state the biggest at that time of greece and occupied today's land of the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. But that part of Greece was lost in recent wars. Same situation with Asia Minor which was part of greece since recent years but lost it in a war to the Turks. Does that mean that all the ancient greek philoshophers from Asia Minor were Turks? Alexander the great is greek since was today is called FYROM simply did not exist that time, and because alexander is a greek name, he spoke greek and believed in the greek religion and he along with the Athenians and Spartans the other big greek states formed an empire!

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

You have a problem if you think Alexanders army was Illryan, and I was not lying about Pakistan, I did go there (I can speak Greek) and I heard how similar there language is to Greek. The people are called the Kalash and they look so Greek only in Indian clothes. We are obviously not going to agree over this. And I wish you would stop bad mouthing my country for 5 centuries of empire building (most countries have had empires at some point) it's not my point if the England have done this as well.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

And Bill don't twist my words around. My reply for the british came becouse of your crazy ideas that they educate the world. They never educated the world, they stole from the world everything they could. Need I remind you of their museum? secret archives? There are old ancient albanian books being sold for millions of dollars in british auctions, and the Albanian students and other Albanonologits from the world don't have access to, becouse they keep traveling around from one noble house to another, and they're damn expensive.

Whether the Athenian government puts huge ammount of money to those who try to come up with some book whatsoever about their history. Even with this huge economical factor albanologists in the world have still produced great books and facts that are not anymore challenging the world of academia but are finding their respect there. Facts are facts man... the bullshit you talk belongs to the street nationalists and not scholar debates.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

Alexander can never couse any ammount of death greater then the british. The british intervened and are still to this day intervening to states that are SOVERIEGN and they have no business there whatsoever. The UN is modelled after the platform of Alexander the great whether u accept it or not, he managed to unite people, and everyone loved him, that's why they all claim him. Like I said before try speaking about the British people and theyre 500 years of modern colonization and mansloughter in the rest 5/6 of the world and you'll see what happens.

As for Pakistan and the fact that u've been there is is another damn lie from your side, becouse they don't write the language first of all, and they were soldiers of alexanders. Even if I assume for your and greeks filthy pleasure to make everything around them greek, that Alexander was Greek, there's an even bigger historical fact that his army was all Illyrians, becouse they were known to be great fighters, and those people that live there are his soldiers that spoke illyrian and never wrote it down.

You must be really desperate if you are comparing the brief might of Alexander with the British Conquests that are still continuing to this day, that brought nothing but poor and famine, whereas Alexander brought cultural diffusion and respect for everyone. Learn the goddamn history cos you don't even know what Alexander achieved, let alone talking about the complex subject of his origins. You have wasted your 30 years of life and that's not my fault that you react this way to modern discoveries about the ancient world. IF you think that you have figured out the ancient world, then you are leaving ignorance to the modern generation who is actively seeking who lived before the greeks, what were these people like, and go on for their doctorate studies defending with facts and arguments those claims. You are not a studious, but a guy who wants to learn only what his predesposed mind can agree with. so if you find something that agrees with your opinions and old system of belief that is good, if you find somehting else it's crap. This is what Nietzsche did in the corrupt world of academia, screwed everyone and made fun of anyone, and now today we find entire library stacks dedicated to him not by common people, but by great minds of philosophy.

I hope you surely are not a professor like that athinian lady in tirana who screamed in ignorance "Epirus is Greek", otherwise I'm afraid that Albanians might have to take their weapons and determination up once again to defend their land in light of the generation this students are brining up.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

Just a few corrections, ancient greece was called hellas not hellia and the settlements in pakistan speak a greek language not Albanian (I know Ive been there) Also before you mentioned that I should be ashamed to be British, because of the conquests and destruction my country caused. If this is the case and in your logic Alexander was Albanian, you should be ashamed of yourself for the amount of death and destruction Alexander caused in Asia.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

Now that you have calmed down go and read above what I wrote about him and the fact of him being Albanian. No one has denied greek culture, I even said that the present Greeks came from Asia Minor and they were settled there becouse of Alexander the Great, however we have other settlements in Pakistan, Afghanistan etc who speak a language that is similiar to GHEGH Albanian, and is still not written down, their names 1) Pashtun(Pushtues-invader) 2) Burruashki (burrash - men) is translated in modern Albanian.

There was no greece in ancient times, there was Hellenia, and everyone used to write in that language, and for a period of time even Illyrian who has no alphabet up to now was written in ancient greek letters but of course meaning and pronciation is different. Does it mean that people who spoke and wrote greek were greeks? Does it mean that people who spoke and wrote latin up to the 15 century were romans? Of course not, it's childish to come to this conclusion.

Fact of the matter is that many studious accept albanian as being the oldest language in indo-european but they don't trouble learning it, becouse they say it's worthless. The reason is that Albania lacks "abstract scientific" words, which the ancient greeks had, however that's not a reason not to study albanian, and those who did found striking similiarity between Ancient Greek and Albanian on many many words. As we know however the Illyrian language is far more older then the Greek one and as a result most of the common words are borrowed from Illyrian, Hyllus-Helios, and if you start looking around in libraries you'll find Homeric, Etruscans, Egyptian scriptures translated only with Albanian. So there was a big exchange of culture there, and in fact when the illyrians became christians the albanian later on when the greeks dissapeared for 700 years carried the ancien greek with them in every church mass they did, but Albanian was the spoken language.

Another fact that I written up there is that Macedonias are Thraco- Illyrians and not Greeks, and Olymbia is from Epirus and so is Aristotle, both being Illyrian tribes as the Greek historians say to us. The thing is that people take things too much for granted, and forget that the earliest people who lived in Balkans were albanians that spoke a language of their own, that somehow intermingled with greeks and we have similiarities now in the ancient one. Alexander spread the Greek culture, but Alexander spread the Albanian language as well, named many cities after Albania, and most importantly had the double-headed agle simbol with him, who later became the symbol of the Albanians in their national flag. Why didn't the Greeks put that symbol there? Well, becouse it doesn't belong to them, first becouse they're not direct descendants of the greeks, and second becouse Alexander cannot be considered a greek, he in fact burned their cities many times. As for the Illyrians, as Angely said "Alexander cannot have conquered Illyrians that were his own people, he subdued them to his command". In fact up until then they were fighting with each other. There is no substantial evidence whatsoever that points out that he is greek.

And by the way, if the truth was known, why would Greeks kill Albanians to these days? claim the part of Butrint(which is an Illyrian site)? etc etc. WHY? I mean you do those things out fear, people react with violence out of fear. Fear comes either becouse someone is superior then you in terms of capabilities to conquer you (which the Albanians don't even have an army these days), or becouse there is something that you're hiding, in fact this is what happened in Serbia, and since Serbia is not in the EU, it didn't take too much thinking before deciding to wipe out the kosovo albanians there.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

Ok VAL lets calm down with the petty insults. It's nice that Greece and Albania are starting to get along but lets get back to the point, Alexander the Great. His Grandparents came from the pelopenese, and he spread Greek culture throughout the known world, thats why it became known as the Hellenistic period, Greece benefited more in the long run from Alexander than the illryans. If Alexander was Albanian even though he wasn't born there nor were any of his family as a matter of fact, then why didn't Illrya benefit from his conquests? The only form of contact between Alexander and the Illryans is when he defeated them in Battle. I don't see why an Illryan would want to spread Greek culture around the world.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

And yes, there are albanians who overflow those evidences by saying words like mighty Albania, or legendary, or oldest people in the world etc etc. Well consider an ancient population like Albania who has never ever rested in peace in it's own land. Fought with each other, fought with the greeks, fought with the Romans, defeated by the romans a couple of times, fought with the slavs when they came, defeated by Stefan Dushan, then revenged it, then ottoman empire comes(the last to fall were the Albanians who bravely fought for 25 years the biggest army in the world and saved western europe from muslim turks), after Albanian movement frees the greeks, but the greeks start changing attitude towards arvanites, albanians achieve indipendnce after huge losses from slavs in terms of land, WWI and WWII other battlefields, where the Albanian land was taken by French, British, Greeks and Italians once again,\. You guys have to take in consideration the suffering of these people, that have been a battlefield for the past 2500 years. When they hear this evidence from scholars, of course it makes them happy, and proud more then normal people are becouse ALbanians have suffered a lot during the past 2500 years, who wouldn't be?

This is like people saying now fucking jews becouse they rule the world. I kind of hate them too for that, but hey, after suffering for 2000 years racism, rape all sorts of stuff, then I take my arguments back and start criticizing those that have extremist views about the jews.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

For the forsaken time those are other historians speaking man. Martin Bernal is a US proffesor along with another team of proffesors from Rutgers University, NJ, USA. The rest of the names are mostly from France. What else do you want?

The Albanian government sold the entire country to greece, the archbishop is greek, everything is imported from there, minorities are respected etc etc. When the Greeks won the European Championship, do you know that more then 10.000 albanians in Athens celebrated with them? The reason was that sport won, and that they too imigrants from a small country dreamed that if Greece, which is a farily small country compared wiht the mighty powers of soccer won, maybe there is chance and fair competition that we might win one day as well.

Well guess what happened when Albania beat the European Champions 2 weeks ago in the qualifying rounds. More then 300 Greeks came in Albabnia and weren't even touched, not even one hair touched from Albanians, and trust me there were at least 400.000 only in Tirana that were not from Tirana but from Dardania(Kosova), and most importantly the regions of Presheva-Metvegja-Bujanoc(presently modern serbia) and Drenica which are considered to be the bravest fighters one can think of, and have extreme views for the greeks and serbs that have made them suffer, people from Macedonia as well, and nothing happened to the greeks. Well guess what happened in Greece. Rightly, in a EU state, the Albanians came out with their flags this time, and were beaten by the police brutally, 100 wounded, 20 in coma, and one young guy name GRAMOZ PALUSHI died by the hand of a Greek-America from Chicago in the island of Xanthi, stabbed to death. His only fault was to celebrate. Hans Peter Briegel the coach had a urgent meeting and said "If losing the match would have saved the life of Gramoz, then I'm not happy that I won it". The Greeks covered up the incident by organizing a huge protest leaded by more then 10.000 Albanians after the match, that had as a slogan "STOP RACISM".

Now Bill, as for Albanians and the Ties with Illyrians, few Albanians knew about it after 400 years of rule under the ottoman empire. The only people that knew their true origins were scholars, that spread the word around here and there becouse of fear. The position that Albania has now in the field of history is becouse of the great contribution of all those names above, and of the sponsored excavation from the Communist Regime. This is why in Kosovo the war started and Milloshevic took their rights away, becouse Kosovo started to escavate too, and started to see the same thing that the rest of the world was seeing, a tie of Illyrians and Albanians, which was really unknown back then. Language, folk, rituals are the tie that we have with Illyrians, rightly explained by the non-albanian folks up there. To be a historian of the balkans you have to know all the languages there, history is not enough becouse there is no evidence, eveidence got burned or destroyed.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

I only recently started to hate Albanians because of the endless stream of lies that comes out of them on this forum which has been ruined by Albanians.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

Are you blind or smth? Read what I wrote, that is read what all those names I wrote wrote down.

Your education and of the other pseudo-historians is clearly seen from the conviction of your replies "Alxander was Greek" "Fuck Albania" "I hate Albania".

SO I should take the answer from the people that Hate Albania? NO WAY. At least I know that the French, German, Croatians, Italians have produced much more figures in history that Britain has, and that their views to Albania are not as Biased.

You should know one more thing. Prince Charles when graduated from college recited the poem of LONGFELLOW about the mighty Skanderbeg, and he said that he was proud to be a descendant of Skanderbeg. Do you know how he claims this? He claims this by saying that Donika Araniti(the sister of Skanderbeg's wife), married a Serbian Prince, and apparently it comes out that the origins of Charles and the royal family in general are Serbian, without even mentioning the fact that guiding the powerful slaughtering machine of Britian was a Greek King until the 50's. No wonder we are the way we are now.

Bertrand Russell a great English scholar used to say something that I'm very fond ... the quote is something like this "It's sad that in our world fool and fanatics are so sure of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts". Indeed guess which part are you BILL? Your're the fool and fanatics. Wise people are the one that collect evidendce, that work hard, but that have a hard time making up their mind sometimes, even when the truth lies in front of them. If only this part of people will make up their mind one day about Albania, prepare for big changes(at least in history).

Another fact. There is a Baccalaureate School in Astoria NY. After the students learned for 2 months about the mighty greek culture, the teacher decided to put the work of Martin Bernal - Black Athena in distinction to that book. Guess what happened? The parents of the kids wrote a petition in a country like America, that they are born unfortunately, saying that this book should not be tought. This was the argument.loool -> why? Becouse that book gives 1)Archeological evidence that can't be disproved by the greeks becouse of it's chronology and time of appeareance 2) link of those archeological evidences to persian egyptian and babylonian cultures, which would place the greeks far lower in rank of importance in history. How can someone be opened to new knowledge and criticism if those cultured greek parents write petition to school to not teach the book of Martin Bernal, instead of writing an intelligent response to him with other facts. The fact though is that there aren't other facts, and that in 1996 a group of Wellesley scholars wrote a response to Bernal, who promtly replied a year later. Since then we haven't heard anything from the academia, but we know that there is a big silent shift towards old beliefs. And Bill old beliefs change... Nietzsche was one of them who challnged them and changed them... don't worry another figure like him will come out and put things in the place they belong.

ONCE MORE, THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF SWEDEN, THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS INSTITUTION IN THE WORLD OF LANGUAGES AND OTHER DOCTORATES ALONG WITH TRINITY COLLEGE AND OXFORD, HAS PUBLISHED EVERYWHERE THAT THE ALBANIAN LANGUAGE IS THE OLDEST INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. So bill write some evidence men, or are you going ot start to curse and destroy? Great culture you have in store for us.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

Look Val if your looking for trouble you've found it. I mearly stated that the British eduction would not be biased like the Albanian, Greek and slavik Macedonian ones. The only people who think Alexander was Albanian are the Albanians (surprise surprise) everyone else is correct saying Alexander was Greek (Hellenistic) like his empire.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

Bill you must be full of it aren;t ya? The british educate the world? Really? What about education, the eugenics movement? Going on other kingdoms and burning and destryoing them? Going in India and taking over their lands? Killing Africans and American Indians as I said before? Or should we start talking about the recent exploitation of Jamaica, that after was led free by the british, they came back economically, provoking the biggest faminine and poor economy that country has ever imagined.

Comeon Bill, when talking about the British we got to take in consideration their manslaughter. ANother thing the British did very cleverly was to push all attention to Germany as being the real racist after Hitler's rise, did everything they could to strip themselves of that racism and slaughter they are responsible for in the past 500 years. The picture was perfect, denied US in the Treaty of Versailles, made Germany suffer, gave a huge rise in nationalism and pride there, and accused Hitler. Where did Hitler get his ideas from? Where did the Ku Klux Klan get those ideas from? Think about Darwin and the Eugenics movement, another way they used to justify slaughter in the world and new conquest.

So Bill when it comes to education we should look elsewhere becouse the common british is nothing but a PIG, and this is not me speaking this is 1)Irish, 2)Welsh, 3) French, 4) Italians. And although I say britian I mean to say England..... we need to be really careful with this distinction.

In relation to Butrint, recently the Orthodox Church of Albania now headed by the greek Anastasios Janullatos, after all the pains that Fan Noli went through to establish it as authoctonous the Greeks came and took it over against the constitution of the Church, corrupting the poor albanian government of course. So now 2 months ago a huge cross was built in Butrint, and a week before it was destroyed becouse the Park of Butrint is managed by world organizations that protect it's ancient treasures. The cross was done 1) start a conflict of religion in Albania, becouse that's the only thing left to try there to divide those people up(notice that 1 month ago another huge cross was built by this church near Elbasan in a village that was inhabited by muslims). 2) try to manipulate the history of butrint by linking it to ancient greece. Butrint as all architects have said is something completely different from greek architecture, in fact is regarded as the biggest Illyrian discovery along with some caves in Croatia.

Read what I wrote Bill cos u won't find this in your HS or College textbooks. This is research material, purely scholar work from the biggest philologists and archeologists in the past two centuries, but it has one big downside... it is politically dangerous for the way thing are now. Albania was divided up by the great powers, most imporatnly great britian who desperately tried to overthrow the Communist party with Kim Philby's mission that they never mention. Communism was bad in many ways, but at least for 50 years it segregated Albania from outside influence that wanted it destroyes, it sponsored excavation, it became the center of Albanology during this period, where all students and scholars would come from the world to examine excavation.

And by the way England has still never given back the Gold that it took contradicting all international laws from the Bank of Albania. Enver Hoxha even went as far as saying, we give them the gold, just I want their promise that they will not interfere anymore with our people, and impose their policies on us once again.

So when you talk about English Coulture the way u're talking now, the only place you can talk without being laughed is 1) Western Europe and 2) US. Hmmm... damn Bill that's 1/6 of the world population right there. Try going somewhere else and repeat that... and you;ll see where you end up without even having to say the word "fuck" this time.(enough sorrow have you guys coused in the world)

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

As Ive said no Albanian, Greek or Slavik Macedonians should answer this question for their countries especially Albania, have been litterd with false information and lies. Therefore, it's left up to the highly educated people from Britain to come out with the real facts. Alexander was not Albanian, it is more likely winston churchell was a Nazi than Alexander being remotely Albanian. Now thats a true honest fact, live with it Albania.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

Gentlemen,

If we are to establish a substantial understanding of a dispute of this kind, I am sure you would agree that to get the right answers we have to ask the right questions, especially with ancient history. For instance, if Alexander the Great was a Greek or indeed Macedonian, why did he lead them with an autocratic strategy? - particularly the Greeks. Ancient history gives us a display - actually, I would not call it history, simply because history itself is constructed by facts and if these facts are to be manipulated then it would be better to call it science. However, we live in a manipulated society and we should stand by it. We are evidently instructed by history that Philip II conquered Illyria and the Illyrians (ALBANIANS) fought under his and his son's rule thereafter. But the question rises are these facts true or made? Being and Albanian and having a significant amount of knowledge about our archeology, the answer is no. The theory is not based on me wanting Alexander the Great to be Albanian but as mentioned above on facts as history should be. In 1946 when the so-called communist dictator, Enver Hoxha took power, he warned the Greeks that if they set foot on Albanian lands, Athena and Greece would be in flames in hours. The Greeks were aware of the good relationship between Stalin and Hoxha and considered every step they would take. During this time, 15km South of Saranda - Butrint, Albania archeological evidence existed that linked Alexander the Great with a complete Albanian foundation and originated him solidly from central Albania. Greece desperately wanted to fetch this evidence and destroy the link. Personally, I think Greece exists because of Heinrich Schliemann and I would argue very strongly against his theory as did Sir Arthur Evans. If Homers' Greece did not exist, Greece would be Turkey today. However, between 1946 to 1991 they could not lay an eye on Albania. In 1980s, the latter revealed secret archives indicate a discussion between Greek politicians. The Greek leader asks his advisers whether it would be possible to enter Albania and one of his advisers responds "Yes, Sir, but that would mean for grass not to grow in Greece for a century". In 1991 the Greeks saw the perfect opportunity to interfere when communism collapsed. Thousands of busts, artifacts, sculptures and other archeological evidence were snatched as Albania suffered destabilisation. Greece allowed Alexander the Great to be recognised as Macedonian as they consider them as Greeks. In 326 BC Alexander the Great had built a palace in the city of Dyrrachium but this and more than half of the ancient city was struck by a tsunami which is thought to have taken place between 300 to 320 AD. Dyrrachium was positioned with 80 percent undersea-level topography at that time. This devastation came as a result of the collision of the Eurasian and African Plate in mid Adriatic - Otrantus. As Dyrrachium was the heart of the Illyrian Empire, a considerable amount of documentation was lost. The outcome was that the Illyrian - ALBANIAN history would be forced onto the question mark position. The archeological evidence taken from Butrint inferred that Alexander the Great lived in Illyria from 325 until his death in 323 BC and the details of his family origins. Philip II (Albanian name not yet discovered) was so desperate for a son that when he was given the news of his birth (Leka in modern Albanian, Lekai in ancient Albanian – Illyrian) he shouted out loud “Le Ka, Le Ka, Le Ka” meaning “born has, born has, born has”. Lekai (Le-ka-ai) is translated in Albanian as "born has he" (the greatest of them). The known identity of "Alexander" is thought to have been given by the Greeks? Alexander the Great it is thought to have accepted this identity as in his youth years his father kept him close to leadership and when Philip II would ask his sons' opinion he would refer to him as "Alek" (A-Lek) meaning what do you think Lek. Therefore, Lekai the Great was an Albanian. The fighting spirit of Alexander the Great could never match (not as far as history is concerned) that of a Greek or a Macedon. If we are to bring in the scene Epirus, Teuta (Catherine the Great of Illyria), Skenderberg etc, then we could comprehend the identity of Alexander the Great. The only source of the truth is the Vatican. But the erudite elite of Greeks would make sure this remains concealed.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

*Miles/year

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

Another thing that I had to add here for everyone in this forum who calls himself historian. I saw up and down posts like I hate Albania, Fuck Albania, this and that, coming from pseudo-british historians. To be an historian in matters of Balkans means that You need to have a full clear knowledge of 1) Illyrian-Albanian (Ghegh,Tosk,Arberesh,Arvanitas dialects) 2) Ancient Greek 3) Modern Greek 4) Latin 5) Italian 6) Slavic languages, otherwise if you keep relying on college textbooks of history or High School textbooks we won't have a debate going on here. The source has to be of a philologist, a scientist of language, since the books were burned by the Romans.

When we talk about Illyrians we have to take strong consideration of the Thracian factor and most importantly the CELTIC factor as well. In fact it is believed that Socrates, one of the masters of those who know had for a mentor a DRUID, which is not a monter and a cartoon character but a Celtic Priest. Not surprisingly Lord Byron, writes of a striking similiarity between the way the Scottish live and the way the Albanians live. In his book Genes People and Population byt Genetic Professor in Stanford University Luigi Cavally Sforza, writes of Albanian(Pelasgians as population) being 9000 years old, and spreading around Europe at the rate of 0.5 miles per hour(back then it was a semi-glacial period). They gave the earliest names in Europe from Jutland(ylland) up to Baltic sea(Balt means dirt in Albanian, becouse those seas are not so deep and are not so clear either in terms of water and how much one can see through. Then of course with other incursions all those people that were spread around Europe were separated, asimilated etc etc.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

In relation to Atlandis, and people that claim that all those stories are inventions of the ALbanian government they should know something.

Atlandis is translated only in Albanian, and it means Atlashtet(Our fathers). Certainly here i'm making an abusive use of the Albanian language, where I should really say Pelasgian, which is the predecessor of Illyrian and strictly connected with it. Not only that is explained with Albanian, but also writings in Etruscan,Pelasgians and most importantly Egyptian hierogliphs. There are dictionaries in french for these, still being carefully studied. Furthermore the word TOSKE(which are the people of the south in Albania) is derived from ETRUSK which lived in (TOSC)ANIA in Italy. Notice that the C becomes K and is pronaunced as such. In fact when the Romans and other tribes attacked the Etruscans(believed to be Illyrian tribe as well becouse of the similiarity in languages), they fled to the south of Albania, and called themselves TOSK, people of TOSKANIA(Toscania).

Now the big question. Who burned the Alexandrian Library with over 700.000 ancient volumes (our knowledge of today's history is built on the 10% of books and pergamens that survived) ? Why was it burned? Why do we study only Roman and Greek mythology history in school?

Think a bit before emanating ignorance. We also know that the small library of Alexander was for the third time burned by Kalif Omar. And the reasons are believed to be just like the Romans burned it. They wanted to eliminate the trace of the connection of early Islam with the fact that Allah is a ancient Egyptian diety which will then make Islam a politheistic/pagan to a certain extent belief which is unexeptable. The reason that the Romans give for Ceaser burning the libary(whic is widely accepted in the world), is becosue Cleopatra cheated Ceaser and Ceaser got mad and burned the books(LOL), and the second one that the library cought an "unknown" fire. In the meantime we study THE CERTAINTY OF THE ROMAN AND GREEK CULTURE.

That's who there never was a historian who ever did a good job on trying to figure out the complexity of the Balkans. All those that I cited above are Linguists, archeologists and other researchers of varius fields that rely on what we have left, otherwise if it was up to historians we would learn what the British "constructed" for us.

2) In relation to the Albanian government. You should know that the Albanian Government is very corrupt for the past 15 years. They have almost sold the entire country to greek enterprises. The prime minister Fatos Nano enjoys huge support by the greeks, and in turn he contributes by not contributing to any research whatsoever. Thats why the center of Illyrian Studies(also called Albanology) is Croatia just as it was before WWII. The only time there were international conferences in Albania was during communism, and people who were taking part in it were studious who came to examine the archeological excavations.

Whatever You can find on Albanian sites is citings of foreign studies. In conclusion watch out for "Illiricum Sacrum" coming out. It is considered to be the biggest encyclopedia in Europe reagarding a population. Written in the arc of 140 years by Italian monks who used the Illyrian Library in Padova(Italy), tells the story of Illyria and will shed truth. The book has been sponsored to be published by Croatians(major contributors) Dardans(Kosovars) partly Serb scholars and finally, notice finally Albania who has ordered a misarable 30 copies. Why? I told you the reason above of this passivity of the Albanian government. The book has 9 volumes distributed in the ancient libraries of Europe and Vatican.

The documents are coming slowly becouse if the Vatican rushes, we might end up having a second israel created, and this time will be Albania based on unmovable historical evidence. So as we move towards globalization, free trade where the notion of "state" is lost, those studies will come out, so the impact will be huge only academically, and never threaten the present political state.

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2004

So guys if there is a question here is not the origins of Alexander who we know that Philip was Macedonian, and Olimbya was from EPIRUS.

The question is who are the ancient Macedonians? Theories say they are Thraco-Illyrians(Bulgarians believe to be the direct successors of the Thracians). This is the mystery here to solve, and thats why the slavs claim him becouse of the name macedonia that now we have we have Slavic people that are there.

The question is what are the Macedonians in relation to Illyrians, who are the thracians that we have little evidence of and a language similiar to Illyrian.

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2004

Here's a genetic study done recently. I can't attach pictures in here unfortunatelly, but You'll get the message when it comes to Present Greeks(their skin surprisingly is not that white if you haven't noticed), and ancient Macedonians in relation to Greeks. -------------------------------------------------------- Arnaiz-Villena, A., Dimitroski, K., Pacho, A., Moscoso, J., Gómez- Casado, E., Silvera-Redondo, C., Varela, P., Blagoevska, M., Zdravkovska, V. & Martínez-Laso, J. (2001) HLA genes in Macedonians and the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks. Tissue Antigens 57 (2), 118-127. doi: 10.1034/ j.1399-0039.2001.057002118.x

Macedonians

Our results show that Macedonians are related to other Mediterraneans and do not show a close relationship with Greeks; however they do with Cretans ( Tables 3, 4, Figs 1-3). This supports the theory that Macedonians are one of the most ancient peoples existing in the Balkan peninsula, probably long before arrival of the Mycaenian Greeks ( 10) about 2000 B.C. Other possible explanation is that they might have shared a genetic background with the Greeks before an hypothetical admixture between Greeks and sub- Saharans might have occurred. The cultural, historical and genetic identity of Macedonians is established according to our results. However, 19th century historians focused all the culture in Greece ignoring all the other Mediterranean cultures present in the area long before the classical Greek one ( 25).

Greeks are genetically related to sub-Saharans

Much to our surprise, the reason why Greeks did not show a close relatedness with all the other Mediterraneans analyzed ( Tables 5, 6 and Figs 1-3) was their genetic relationship with sub-Saharan ethnic groups now residing in Ethiopia, Sudan and West Africa (Burkina- Fasso). Although some Greek DRB1 alleles are not completely specific of the Greek/sub-Saharan sharing, the list of alleles ( Table 5) is self-explanatory. The conclusion is that part of the Greek genetic pool may be sub-Saharan and that the admixture has occurred at an uncertain but ancient time.

The origin of the West African Black ethnic groups (Fulani, Mossi and Rimaibe sampled in Burkina-Fasso) is probably Ethiopian ( 26, 27) ( Fig. 4). The Fulani are semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers and one of the few people in the area to use cows' milk and its by- products to feed themselves and to trade; their facial parameters show a Caucasian admixture. The Rimaibe Blacks have been slaves belonging to the Fulani and have frequently mixed with them ( 27). The Nuba people are now widespread all over Sudan, but are descendants of the ancient Nubians that ruled Egypt between 8th-7th centuries B.C. ( 28) and later established their kingdom at Meroe, North Khartoum. Two kinds of Nubians were described in ancient times: Reds and Blacks, probably reflecting the degree of Caucasian admixture. Both the Oromo and Amharic peoples live in the Ethiopian mountains ( 27). They obviously have in common a genetic background with the west-African groups mentioned above. Linguistic, social, traditional and historical evidence supports an east-to-west migration of peoples through the Sahel (southern Sahara strip), although this is still debated ( 26, 27).

Thus, it is hypothesized that there could have been a migration from southern Sahara which mixed with ancient Greeks to give rise to a part of the present day Greek genetic background. The admixture must have occurred in the Aegean Islands and Athens area at least ( Figs 1 and 2). The reason why this admixture is not seen in Crete is unclear but may be related to the influential and strong Minoan empire which hindered foreigners establishment ( 10). Also, the time when admixture occurred could be after the overthrown of some of the Negroid Egyptian dynasties (Nubian or from other periods) or after undetermined natural catastrophes (i.e.: dryness). Indeed, ancient Greeks believed that their religion and culture came from Egypt ( 4, 25). --------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

Fig. 3. Correspondence analysis showing a global view of the relationship among West Mediterraneans (green), East Mediterraneans (orange), Greeks and sub-Saharan populations (red) and Blacks (grey) according to HLA allele frequencies in three dimensions (bidimensional representation). HLA-DR and DQ (low-resolution) allele frequencies data.

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2004

Angelina, is a shame you have an angelic name. Yiannis, first of all before coming to conclusions from Albanian writers that I'm sure you have never read, becouse most of them have not even been translated, stop lying then.

Read the names up there, read the books by Elsie a Canadian scholar about Illyrian Mythology. One quick question for the greeks and Bill the lunatic who has devoted 30 years to the question of Albanians and Greeks. Tell me what does Athens and Zeus mean in Greek? I'll tell you about those too, they don't mean anything. Carl Gustav Jung, in his book Seminar on Nietzsche's Zarathutra, writes that Zeus originates from Devs root, ancient persian gods. Well what does Dev-s have to do with Zeus? Nothing in fact, and he doesn't claim to be right either. Most of the people I mentioned above identify it with Albanian, ZE=ZERI(TO SPEAK), Athens(ETHENA=means SPOKEN in Albanian), and so on and so forth with other "greek" dieties. Now another interesting connection with the name Albania which studius have a big debate where it originated from etc etc. Albanoi was an Illyrian tribe, autochtonus for probably the last 3 millenias before christ as greek historians write as well. This is the first theory. The second is the connection with the Albania in Afghanistan, which greeks use it to say that Albanians came from Afghanistan and Mongolia much later, but ignore the FACT that the name to that city was given by who? Anyone? Well it was Alexander the Great who gave that name to the city. The other thing is about the term SHQIPERIA (which albania is presently called). Where did that come from? Well theories say its either from the word EAGLE(SHQIPONJE), which would mean that this name was adopted around the times of Skanderbeg, when the Eagle really stood out, or it means SHQIPTOJ(TO SPEAK). The connection here is amazing as pointed out by most of the historians written up there, becouse ZEUS, ATHENS and SHQIPERI mean all the same thing more or less, and as we know Illyrian was never written down(that's what we know up to now), eventhough Robert Angely claims that the alphabet of Metodi and Cirily, the Cirillic alphaber is the copy of the Glakolitik alphabet that Albanians used. This would place the Albanian language(the written part) in an unknown range before the 6th century, contradicting the claims that say that it started during the 13th century(although Illyrian was written in Greek also).

One other thing we have to consider is that from 140-800 AC, there are no Greeks, there is a strong Roman empire, where the official language is Latin, and the spoken one from the people is ALBANIAN. Surprised? No, why should you be, up until the 15th century the only people that knew to read were either brilliant amazing scholars or clergy man, the mass of the population didn't know how to read, only to speak. It turns out as Robert Angely and Faveryal say that the Greeks came in the 800 with the MODERN version of the language. From where did they come? Well they came from Asia minor partly(the place that was later replaced by the Turks), and they were a mixture of ancient greeks that Alexander spread out with his empire, and persian populations. They came, and found that Albanian was the main language spoken there, however those albanian did all the church rituals in ancient greek, becouse more then 60 % of the manuscripts of the Bible are written in ancient greek. So the Albanians are the one that guaranteed that continuity of language.

Another fact is about the mentor of Alexander who was Aristotle. Where was Aristotle from? Well Aristotle was from EPIRUS, and Illyrian tribe. Writings about him say that when he was alone he used to speak while thinking of a language that no one would understand. What was that language? Well that language was the Illyrian, which he couldn't write with becouse it was not being written back then before Christ.

The things to realize are: 1) Distinctions about Ancient Greeks and Modern ones(no one whatsoever). How come in the period of 2000 years the Greeks haven't produced any great mind, while every country we know of(Germany, England, Italy etc) are still to this day producing great minds in math, philosophy, economics etc etc? 2) Albanian is a language that is recognized by more then 20 years now by the Royal Institute of Sweden, as being the oldest one in the Indo-European tree. After that we have the ARMENIAN, and then Greek. In 1971 I think, when this first came out the Greeks and English of course(why the English? think about politics and the origins of the King of England), were totally against this, now in 2000-2002 the Greek Academia for the first time DIDN'T say a word, a silent defeat.

Of course we don't study those in school, part of the reason is that the books are already overwhelmed with information. But we do study the Theorem of Pythagoras, eventhough it was dicovered 2000 years before by the Egyptians, we do study in one phrase that Alexander, or whatever that part of the Balkan is hellenic. There is no way to put everything there, however there is no way to be sure either, and to claim stuff like Pythagoras etc. Martin Bernal in his Black Athena clearly writes that the Greeks have strong elements of afro- asiatic influence that hasn't been cited, and that history was compiled by the BRITISH for their political/racist purposes. They in fact robbed Egypt of all his artifacts, they had kingdom ties with Greece etc etc etc. Anyone that claims that British are not racist, let's think about the 60 Million Indian AMericans killed(biggest genocide in history), the millions in Africa,India and the wipe out of the aborigines in Australia. Who is the barbaric now? Or should I start giving a lecture about Darwin and the EUGENIC movement, another SHAME in the history of Great Britian, the great empire where the sun never sets. This is the truth unfortunately, those are the kingdom ties, and I as an Albanian consider myself lucky that we even have that piece of land, and all of us should work to find the true origins, to praise those that have praised us, to start engaging in debates with those studious that are against the facts presented by the world historians etc etc. This is what Angely and many others who sacrificed their life for the truth(Milan Shuflay- Croatian, Aristidh Kola-Arvanitas(notice that I don't portray him as an Albanian when I should - why? Well becouse greeks say that Arvanites are not Albanians, so I will cite him as a STRONG outside source that is not Albanian, and in fact his book was republished 9 times in Greece(I guess someone wants to learn the truth)). As I said before I consider myself lucky that we even survived in light of how politics and kingdom ties changes during 1700-1900.

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2004

Ouch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. man val. You are smart dude. IT's like wow. Good job. NO wthe dam idiots are gonna make somethin up ,a lie but seriously i ahave to give u my compliments on how u presented proof. and the only thing for the idiots dto do now is to LIE.so thank you for being an intelligent person and writin that.

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2004

The list of names I gave you is 1) French 2) English 3) German 4) Croatian 5) Serbian-montenegro 6) Bulgarian

Tell me who of these guys has even helped the albanians? I would say probably germany only, who know surprisingly is not helping anymore with the Kosovo issue, they're worsening the situation.

The problem with You greeks is that you guys don't have sources, internationally respected. I gave you a few names on top of my head of books that I've read, imagine if I start saying articles etc etc, the list is endless.

3 weeks ago in Tirana there was a history symposium. The chair academia of one of the biggest University in Greece, after hearing what people had to say, said "Epirus is Greek". That was the only thing she could say, and the albanian newspaper on the right portrayed on first page "Greek nationalism in Tirana in a middle of a symposium from an academia professor".

If a professor can't back up her arguments imagine the generation that is coming up in Greece breeded with hate for the Albanians, a population that has preserved greek culture, that helped them out become indipendent as Arber rightly said.

Read even half of the sources that I gave you and then we can talk on the subject, otherwise keep screaming in ignorance that "Alexander was greek", without knowing that Alexander at least once destroyed the greek towns.

The double-headed eagle is another proof of Alexander being albanian. In Pakistan he left a monument called the Double headed eagle shrine, which is much more older then the Byzantine empire as a symbol. Similiarly the name ISKANDERBEY means LORD ALEXANDER, given to Skanderbeg by the turks. Why did the turks give him that name? How come skanderbeg who was a brilliant scholar and strategian after reiuniting his people and fighting who was against him came with the double headed agle flag as Alexander did fight the illyrians and unite them?

Read those books by the french historians and the next step is to strip yourself from that nationalism, otherwise we won't do a scholarly debate here, but a political one. And as we know history was made by the winner, and is still being made, however there is justice in this world, there are people who truly want to find their origins with facts.

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2004

This question is best answered by an expert who is not Greek, Albanian or Macedonian, it should be answered by historians like me from england or america. I have been an expert/lunatic on this subject for over 30 years and I know that Alexander had and new he was greek through origin. His Grandparents came from the pelopenese, also Alexander himself said his decendents were Herakles (a greek macho man who came from thebes) and Achilles (another Greek macho man who came from Mycenea) His name was Alexandros in his mother tongue (Greek) for the Macedonians themselves were a greek people, they spoke Greek and worshipped the Greek God's and were allowed to compete in the olympic games, which was a strictly greek ordeal. They were not as civilised as the city states which Is why Athens who were also fighting a war with them (which all greek states do) called them barbaric scum. But the truth is Macedonia was Just as Greek as the Athenians. And so was Alexander.

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2004

I see a lot of responses here especially from an eccentric named BILL. First of all besides trying to establish whether he was albanian or not, we should realize that he was everything but Greek.

For more information here's what I've read thus far, and those are works that no one was willing to publish for 30 years becouse the implications are really really deep into the origins of greeks etc etc.

It is known that Macedonia is a thraco-illyrian tribe, the name originates from the Albanian Makedhene(given to me), and the name Aleksander(anyone has a linguistic explonation here?) originates from Albanian as well(Aleksander-Alesinanderr- meaning born like a dream). Back then that's how names were put, Besa for example means faithful in Albanian, Hyllus the earliest king of Illyrians means STAR(YLL in albanian), the later king Bardhylus means white star in albanian. From here we get the greek derivation Helios. Notice that the greek here is a derivation of ancient Illyrian and not an exlusive word from greek.

The mother of Alexander, Olymbia was from Epirus, a land inhabited by Illyrians and not Greeks. This is not me talking, but this is the fathers of history, the ancient greeks Herodotus, Thuciditis talking about this. Greeks need to learn history and not propaganda. Albanians are people that are nationalists but not extremists. Every single minority is widely respected there. For example my origins are half romanian on one side, nonetheless I'm proud to be an Albanian. Pride, nationalism and extremism should be distinguished from each other. In relation to Albanians, I recently finished "The Illyrians" by Wilkes, which gives a great account on the region, and to the claims by the entire historians from Hahn up to Robert Elsie that Albania is indeed the direct descendant of Ilyrians, nonetheless his conclusion is that Albanian people might be descendants, but of one thing we are sure, that they are the only people who have elements of every ancient culture within them, which is a conclusion from a person that has dedicated his life to Illyria and is not siding with anyone.

Another book we should consider is Enigma from Angely, a book that waited 30 years for publication, becouse in france no one would publish something like that, which throws off completely the hypothesiss and claims of greeks. Nonetheless with an awakening in Albanian studies recently the book got published in 7 Volumes, the last two dealing with albanian lkangauge and etymologies. Robert D'Angely is a distinguished student that knows very well ancient greek, latin, Albanian(both Ghegh and Tosk dialect), slavic languages etc etc. So this is a view from a pure studious. Evenmore pure is "The History of Albania(oldest history)" from Jean Cloude Faveryal, which is widely known for being one of the initiators of Bulgarian indipendence movemnt. Only in his final years of his life he discovered the culture that Albania has in store for the world, and dedicated 2 voluminous works to Albania. There we have the Homeric dictionary etc etc that is explained only with albanian. Homer is explained with albanian as well (Oimjer meaning poor in the sense of someone who suffers other then money, for example BLINDNESS). This has been entertained from Angely, Sufflay, Elsie, Aristidh Kola(his book on the origins of the arvanites is a best seller in greece - the guy was killed by secret greek service in 2000 ), Faveryal and Mathieu Aref as well who writes for a pre- helenique population, which is the pelasgians and illyrians, and establishes with facts the continuation.

Some other books you guys should consider before coming and saying fuck albania... becouse on the other side of the screen is easy to fuck albania, or when you live in a state of the EU to celebrate for the winning match and get killed, etc etc, that's easy stuff, read first, educate yourself so that you can talk like e civil being.

Here's a list of authors, and surprisingly every greek I encountered doesn't have foreign sources at all explaining anything from the pre- hellenic era with facts and languages.

Black athena by Martin Bernal The Illyrians by Wilkes Albania Past and Present - Constantine A. Chekrezi Ramadan Marmullaku - Albania and the Albanias(translated from Serbo- croatians) Noel Malcolm - A short History of Kosovo Everything from Robert Elsie Perspectives on Albania - Tom Winnifrith Enigma - Robert d'angely History of ALbania - Mathieu Aref The origins of arvanites - Aristidh Kola Oldest History of Albania - Jeancloude Faveryal

Anything from Stipcevic,Sufflay and even Jericek at certain points... and then come and talk about Albania and the Albanians. Those are my references, without even mentioning an Albanian guy and without even mentioning the Italians and Arberesh contributors which greeks of course say that they are the center of Catholicism and every study they do is against orthodoxy.

By the way, there is an ancient population called Burushaksi near Hunze Vallay in Pakistan. They speak a langauge that Alexander's soldiers left them. No one up to know has identified ties with greek of that language, and surprisingly enough the language name Burushaski means Burra(men, language of men in Albanian), and even more suprising is the fact that this language is still not written down, just like Illyrian. Egyptian historians have done studies, defended them in oxford that show that there is similiarity between Albanian and Burushaski language. Of course those studies will be available in the Chinese Year of the Rat before they even reach us to be studies. Why? Well if people like Bill won't start opening themselves to new theories, instead of relying to the High School world history book, or college history book(without even mentioning the greek texts) then we might have a chance of actually learning something new.

The subject being talked here is beyond someone who finishes history as a bachelor degree or even philosophy. This is the highest research one can achieve in life, and to be part of such a project, albanology and of other unknown- mysterious to a certain degree languages as well like Hittite or ancient sumerian is meant only for people who are either planning on dedicating their life to this subject, either finished languages, history and archeology alltogether, or persons that are openminded and want to inhale some culture instead of the smoke that has cought Europe.

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2004

The inhabitants of The FYROM are mostly Slavs, Bulgarians and Albanians. They have nothing in common with the ancient Macedonians. Here are some testimonies from The FYROM’s officials:

a. The former President of The FYROM, Kiro Gligorov said: “We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century ... we are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians" (Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992, p. 35).

b. Also, Mr Gligorov declared: "We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That's who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Greek and his Macedonia… Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century" (Toronto Star, March 15, 1992).

c. On 22 January 1999, Ambassador of the FYROM to USA, Ljubica Achevska gave a speech on the present situation in the Balkans. In answering questions at the end of her speech Mrs. Acevshka said: "We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great … Greece is Macedonia’s second largest trading partner, and its number one investor. Instead of opting for war, we have chosen the mediation of the United Nations, with talks on the ambassadorial level under Mr. Vance and Mr. Nemitz." In reply to another question about the ethnic origin of the people of FYROM, Ambassador Achevska stated that "we are Slavs and we speak a Slav language.”

d. On 24 February 1999, in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Gyordan Veselinov, FYROM'S Ambassador to Canada, admitted, "We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian." He also commented, “There is some confusion about the identity of the people of my country."

e. Moreover, the Foreign Minister of the FYROM, Slobodan Casule, in an interview to Utrinski Vesnik of Skopje on December 29, 2001, said that he mentioned to the Foreign Minister of Bulgaria, Solomon Pasi, that they "belong to the same Slav people.”

To Slavic Macedonians:

Are these people traitors then? How do they fit in your ideological construct?

To all:

The truth is that Macedonians in FYROM are people, Christian and Slavic speaking, who adopted the name Macedonians after the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

1. The Ottoman system segregated people according to religion. Thus many of the ethnic Greeks, Slavs and Albanians in the Balkans considered themselves simply as Christians. 2. When that system collapsed some adopted a Bulgarian identity, some a Greek one, while others still opted to remain independent of either of these two nations and chose to adopt a Macedonian identity. 3. This is the source of the historical fallacy. That they chose to adopt the name of the area they lived in, Macedonia does not mean that they have anything in common culturally ir historically with the ancient Macedonians. 4. The myth was perpetuated, as were similar myths elsewhere in the Balkans (the Romanian-Thracian-Dacian connection, the Bulgarian- Thracian connection, the Turkish-Hittite connection and the Albanian- Illyrian connection). In the interest of fairness we should admit that the Greeks disregarding their Roman-Byzantine past in favour of their much more distant and less relevant (but more glorious) Ancient past, smacks of the same archaiophily, which was at the time a major feature of the European imported nationalism (see the German myths of the Aryan race etc).

The main thrust of all this mythology was the proof of autochthony and the legitimisation, either of claims of land or independence. Hence in the Balkans Archaeology is a charged science. It is not entirely incidental, and amply demonstrated in this forum, that both Albanians and Slavic Macedonians claim Alexander the Great as "theirs".

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2004

tia qi ate motren ati bill clayit apo jo o arber?:):)

-- Anonymous, September 16, 2004

hey barber!

why dont you come and cut my bush. you can be sarcastic and i can do that too by saying that most of the greek males are gays and are not getting the job done with their wifes, so thats why the albanian males are giving greek families a "BIG" CO[K, i mean hand in keeping your wifes close, supporting and satisfying them so they can be happy and understand that there is hope for greek families too. there is only one little problem. you wont be any more 100 % ethnically pure(you never were) but your children will have albanian blod in them too. i must admit i had such an experience myself in mykonos. I still keep in touch with Sandra.

now some facts about greeks:

"The Greeks [have] become a bad-mannered, misogynist, lazy, self- important fat bunch" -- The Sunday Times, 3/7/99

"Keep your girlfriends away from Greeks because they walk up with their dirty open shirts, their gold jewelry hanging out, they put their hairy arms around your girlfriends and grab their breasts . . . all Greeks are con artists . . . all Greeks are scummy bastards." -- The Mancow Show (Chicago Radio Program), 3/24/99

"The whole of Greece seemed to me a cut-price theme park of broken marble, a place where you were harangued in a high-minded way about Ancient Greek culture while some swarthy little person picked your pocket . . . The Greeks were not Greek, but rather the illiterate descendants of Slavs and Albanian fishermen, who spoke a debased Greek dialect and had little interest in the broken columns and temples except as places to graze their sheep . . . the Greeks struck me as being more xenophobic than the French, and more ill-tempered and irrational, in a country more backward than Croatia . . . Greece is the degraded fringe of Europe, basically a peasant society, fortunate in its ruins and its selective memory . . . More than any other place I had seen so far on the Mediterranean, Greece was purely a tourist destination, a theme park of shattered marble and broken statues, and garbled history." -- The Pillars of Hercules, A Grand Tour of The Mediterranean, by Paul Theroux, pp. 314-316, 322, G. P. Putnam's Sons (1995)

". . . modern Greeks have little or nothing to do with the ancient Athenians . . . Modern Greeks are largely of Turkish descent, as is shown by their short, hairy legs and low-slung bottoms: their chief interest in the Elgin Marbles is commercial, as a tourist attraction." -- The Daily Telegraph, Auberon Waugh, 9/28/98

"The Greeks, who like to see themselves as the linear descendants of the ancient Greeks, despite a generous admixture of Turkish, Slav and other genetic inputs over the millennia, exploded in rage when the newly independent Macedonian state . . . adopted the gold star of Vergina on a red background for its national flag and the Republic of Macedonia as its name." -- The Financial Times Survey, "Republic of Macedonia, Island of Stability and Tolerance", A. Robinson, K. Hope, 7/7/95

"So the Maya do, indeed, have an extremely unusual ancient civilization. Not because it was based on star-worship or peace but because it is neither dead, like those of ancient Greece or Mesopotamia, nor living, like those of China or India."; The Economist, "Cracking the Maya's Code", 12/21/96

"The Eastern churches, moreover, are bonded to one another like Siamese twins . . . Eastern Christianity . . . holds the churches of the West in contempt. It's not altogether surprising, then, that just now there has been, at the initiative of Milosevic, some agitation in the parliaments of Russia, Serbia, and Belarus for a pan-Slavic union. (This reminds me of Gamal Abdel Nasser's fitful dream of a United Arab Republic, which was to cleanse the Jews from the Middle East.) . . . Why are we so reluctant to tell the quite simple truth about the Slavic wars--that is, to name the Eastern churches of Orthodox Christianity as partners in the near-genocide in Kosovo, as they were partners in the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia?" -- The New Republic, "Holy Wars", Martin Peritz, 5/10/99

"Can Greece be considered an honourable member of Nato, of the European Union, or even of what used to be called the community of nations? Well before Colonels or Novembrists, Greece had a lot to answer for. It set the whole lamentable pattern for European nationalism, matching Renan's definition that to be a nationalist means misunderstanding your own history and hating your neighbours, while pioneering rewritten history and invented tradition. This was encouraged by English philhellenes from Byron onwards, who colluded in the comical notion that modern Greece is in some sense the heir of Periclean Athens. There are echoes of that Philhellenic nonsense in the noisy agitation for the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece. . . In the Eighties, under the appalling Andreas Papandreou, Greece's membership of the western alliance was plainly fraudulent or even bizarre. . . In recent years, whenever EU enlargement has been discussed, opponents have always had to hand an immensely eloquent one-word argument: "Greece". Here was one poor-but-less-than-honest country which had seen "the European idea" as a trough to guzzle from. . . What makes the Greek position finally intolerable is a foreign policy and penchant for picking fights, all stemming from infantile nationalism. . . At every opportunity we should raise Greece's continued membership of both the EU and Nato. To start with, we might take to using the name 'Former Ottoman Province of Greece'. As for the Elgin Marbles, we should keep them in London, or return them to their rightful owners, the Turks." -- The Sunday Telegraph,"Why Greece won't tackle the terrorists", Geoffrey Wheatcroft, 6/11/00

"Greeks hate Turks, so on your next trip to Athens don't say this out loud, but the truth is that modern-day Greeks basically are Turks, without the mustaches . . . If you don't think the Greeks were a little shallow, then read their plays . . . Tipsy Greek guys, all under the heady impression that by the time the krater is empty they will have cleared up the mysteries of life: this is Greek culture . . . Periodically, we're reminded that the ancient Greeks don't even have identifiable descendants. Each time modern Greece demands that England return Lord Elgin's marbles to the Parthenon, it is pointed out in response that these Greeks are not the children of the Greeks of Plato's day . . . Today, Greeks are Turks . . . the ancient Greeks were marked for extinction. When the Met's Greek collection was entombed under New York soot, their story went unnoticed. Exposed to sunlight, it's sadder than any play by Aeschylus." -- The National Review, David Klinghoffer (author of "The Lord Will Gather Me In: My Journey to Jewish Orthodoxy"), 5/17/99

"Poland and Hungary . . . could teach some valuable lessons to some countries in Western Europe. And not just to semi-civilized places like Greece". -- The New York Post, "Triumph of the Satellites", Editorial, 10/15/98

"'In most Balkan countries [the] Ottomans are portrayed as virtual savages imposing alien customs, expelling the native populations and replacing them with Turkish Colonists . . . All of these claims are at the best misleading and at worst completely false' . . . An examination of the Kosovo controversy shows that, possibly even more than creating warring forms of modern nationalism, the primitive 'liberation' movements of Serbs, Albanians, Greeks and Bulgarians led to a heedless and brutal assault on Ottoman society in the Balkans, the consequences of which are written in blood." -- The Wall Street Journal, Stephen Schwartz, 5/5/98

"Muslim-hating Greece, long a supporter of Serbia" -- The Toronto Sun, 3/28/99 Turkey is a very old country with civilization stacked upon civilization. The more they dig, the more they learn that Turkey, not Mesopotamia, is the cradle of Western civilization . . . I find Turkey tastier, friendlier, cheaper and richer in culture and history than Greece . . . [t]he best thing about Athens is the boat to Turkey." -- Europe Through the Back Door by Rick Steves (1994), host of PBS's television series Travels in Europe with Rick Steves.

"The inhabitants of Athens or Sparta today have no more in common with Pericles and Leonidas than do contemporary Italians with Marcus Aurelius; indeed, rather less . . . a correspondent [once] proposed that the re-establishment of a British protectorate over Corfu should be the price of [the Elgin Marbles'] return. That is too low; but what if we were to talk of Greece having to leave the European Union?" -- The Daily Telegraph, Leading Article, 4/3/96 "[Greece] is seemingly deaf to pleas from its partners . . . to scale down its confrontation with its neighbor, Albania . . . Greece has annoyed its EU partners yet again by threatening to block EU aid to Albania until the Omonia members are freed and minority rights for Albania's ethnic Greeks are guaranteed . . . Unless the Greeks show an unfamiliar restraint, there is likely to be more squabbling, more tension in the Balkans - and more for Greece's EU partners to fret about." -- The Economist, "Greece v. Albania", 9/17/95 "When the Bosnian Serbs attacked the United Nations 'safe area' of Srebrenica last summer, Greek mercenaries fought with them and raised the blue and white Greek flag triumphantly when the enclave fell. Several thousand Muslim men were massacred, and General Mladic has been indicted on charges related to the killings. But the fall of Srebrenica and the massacres went virtually unreported by Greek journalists. Indeed, Bosnian Serbian atrocities throughout the war were ignored by the Greek press, leaving most Greeks as ill-informed about the war as the Serbian people themselves." -- The New York Times, "Greek Lawyer Pleased to Defend Serb Leader", David Bonner, 8/4/96 "Beware of Greeks Bearing History" -- New York Times, Edmund Keeley, 5/29/94 book review of Elia Kazan's Beyond the Aegean: ["the editor's fingerprint is certainly clear as well: While on the one hand the review tells us that 'Kazan gets his history right,' the headline blares: BEWARE OF GREEKS BEARING HISTORY." -- Marjorie Dobkin, address delivered at Thessaloniki, Greece, 11/1/94]

"Greeks Bearing Gifts: HANAC's Dance with Rudy" -- The Village Voice, W. Barrett, 4/30/96

"My Patriarch Can Beat Your Patriarch"

-- Anonymous, September 16, 2004

Dear All,

Thank you forreading my lengthy and oftiems ranting diatribe on the Albanian origin of Alexander the Great.I hope your knowledge of history is sufficiently miniscule that you actually buy any and all of the undocumented assertions I choose to present here in lieu of any actual historical facts. My purpose in writing here, however is to answer some accusations I have recently observed.

Having noticed the recent spate of articles claiming that the historical facts I present in this site are false, I felt the need to clarify a few things.

1.) Everything Iwrite and publish here is 100% genuine Albanian history. This is proven by the following facts:

a.) I was taught these things in Albanian schools. b.) My Albanian parents confirmed these things. c.) Any Albanian history books I read the covers of seem to concur. d.) A lot of the historical stuff I write, I made up myself. I am Albanian. Hence it is 100% Albanian History. Irrefutable logic is on my side.

2.) Many claim that our views are not supported by independent, foreign sources. To these people I can only answer that :

a.) Most foreigners have never been to Albania. b.) Most of those who write such lies and publish them, under the names of (otherwise) respected institutions like Harvard, Oxford etc are either paid by the Greeks to advance the Conspiracy that denies Albanians of their birthright, or are Greeks themselves and hence unreliable. c.) I OTOH as a true Albanian am reliable and a good source on anything pertaining to Albanian history, Albanian descend from the Atlanteans, the Albanians race's eventual descend from Advanced Albanian Aliens (the Triple A hypothesis), and all things regarding the Kabalah and the Science of Astrology.

3.) Many here claim that I do not read books of history and make things up. To them I answer:

a.) Well, obviously I don't read books. This post is about Albanian history and no Albanian has ever been educated enough to write an internationally recognised book on history. Thus I can't read any Albanian books.Thus I choose not to read any books at all. b.)Hence, in my quest to find real Albanian History I am forced to sometimes, embellish the myths we were taught at school. This is all acceptable and part of the approved methods of Albanian Historiography. c.) Alot of the information I present can be corroborated by respecteble Albanian sites like www.AlbaniaUberAlles.com, www.AlbanianSupremacy.net and other independant, sober academic sources. d.) Finally writing books, as well as reading them, is the hallmark of decadent cultures like the Greeks and the West in general. We Albanians have never had need for things like letters, civilisation and books. We scoff at indoor toilets, soap and clean underwear. As a superior race we are above such trappings of the decadent peoples.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 2004

There really is no point to this debate.The Albanians will continue to believe in the falsified version of history they concoct for as long as they have nothing to be proud of today.This is how nationalism works. They can't be reasoned with. They NEED something to feel proud of that will validate their belief in Albanians as a superior people.

Let's hope they get over it soon and start doing something actually constructive rather than wallow in their collective fantasies. Whether that happens or not though Greeks shouldn't really care.

While these pathetic people feed each other's ego's we are busy buying their country. Soon Albania will be as Greek owned as FYROM (our other dellusional Balkan neighbors) are. You will notice that FYROM has changed their tune now and most of their politicians are happy to admit that they are not Macedonians but Slavs.

And that's that.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 2004

fuck off you stupid Albanian mother fucker, im right and you are wrong. Im not greek either Im just a man with common sense which you my 'friend' are lacking and a lot of history knowledge which you are also lacking. Epirus had nothing to do with Illryan Albania nor did hellas or Alexander. Alexnder considerd himself Greek. Alexander himself said he was decended from heracles who came from thebes from his farthers side and decended from Achilles who came from mycene from his mothers side. All Greek no stupid Albanian butt in's like "achilles was Albanian" because that would be just like Albania, a load of shit.

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2004

Well I see you are not rational and your world is all greek Sorry for such barbarian words.I am proud to speak a non-greek language.If you really want to know the history don't read even more just greek books.I said to you even ancient greek writers as Strabo and Herodotus tell us Epirus was not greek. You speak like you have lived at that time and are a wonderful historian So fuc..k off

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2004

First of all he was called Alexandros it was the romans who called him Alexander. Secondly, if you are Albanian then why would barbarian words offend you, barbarian is Albanian culture. oh and epirus was inhbited by greeks never illryans.

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2004

Explain me the ethymology of his name in Albanian Language if you call yourself a specialist A le si ander=Aleksander which is pure albanian language and means "born like a dream"

did i explain it to you know you explain me because "man of predict" has nothing to do with his expansions and the dreams of Olimpia and Philip.

Epirus maybe is a greek name but it doesn't mean that it was populated by greek tribes.

read Strabo,Herodotus and others and you will find that these lands were inhabited by non-greeks tribes.and remember that they are greek historians. Accept it or not i give a fu..k. and don't tell me to shut up ok.i dont want to start with barbarian uncultured words

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2004

Genti, shut up let the experts contiue this debate and that discludes you. By the way Alexanders mother came from Epirus not Illrya.

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2004

OK now Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisten uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup all of you.

I will answer to you and say the truth about Aleksander the Great or Leka i Madh

I will write the same history as it was written from Arthur Vaigal the best biograph of Aleksander.

The father of Philip, Perdika married a Barbarian( Not-Greek) girl from the Illyrian tribe of the Lyncestians.Her name was Euridika.She was not greek.Philip spent three years with his grand father Irras and his tribe in Ancient illyrian city of Lynkos (Manastir).

Philip married Olimpia who was from the Illyrian tribe of the Moloss (Todays Chams and Arvanites in northern greece.In fact after their expulsion in XX century and especially in 1944 by the naughty general Zerva where about 200 000 albanians had to left their teriitories from Preveza to Janina and Konispol and 30 000 albanians massacred from the Greek army)

Now we can say that Aleksander the Great was 3/4 of Albanian blood but ironically (maybe he was not consious that he was not simply of greek origin) he liked very much and adored the greek mythology and escpesially greek culture.

Now i am answerin to that boy who said that Aleksander means nothing in Albanian.from Albanian ethymology

ALeksander= "A le si ander" which means "Born like a dream" While "Man of Predict" in greece means nothing and has no relation with the outcome of his origin.

And I WANT TO CONVINCE ALL OF YOUUUU

Both Philip and Olympias dreamt of their son's future birth (explaining the Albanian ethymology "Born like a dream"). Olympias dreamed of a loud burst of thunder and that lightning had hit her womb. In Philip's dream, he was sealing her womb with the seal of the lion. Alarmed by this, he consulted the seer Aristander of Telmessus Aristander of Telmessus in Caria was Alexander the Great's favorite seer. The ancient sources place him interpreting omens from the conqueror's birth to his death. Here is the link (And it is not Albanian :):):))

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Alexander%20the%20Great

We can say that he was almost Illyrian (Albanian) but he liked organized greek armies and fought for greece culture by his own methods

Both Albanians and Greeks should be proud of such a common personality

I say Shut Up to greeks Claiming that he was a pure greek

And i say shut up to the Albanians who say he was of 100 percent Albanian because he did nothing for Illyria (in fact he attacked King Kliti of The Illyrian Tribe of Enkeleds)

Now as I explained his "Nationality" i wan't to add some things about Emathia.

Emathia in Albanian Language means E Madhia=Big or Enormous

Makedon in Albanian means Makedon=Ma Ke Dhon="you gave it to me"

So you see my Dear Greek friends you have to accept it that a lot of things according to ETHYMOLOGY have Albanians roots and from the most important

So what a fuc..ed up irony.You hate Albanians and the most important part of the spread of your culture have Albanian root.

As according to his army. His army was of different soldiers or mercenaries from Greece,Illyria,Thracia,Moesia,Dacia etc.

Aleksander inspired them with Greek culture.

So my point is THIS

Albanians have to be proud that he had most of his Blood from their grand-grand-grand fathers but have to accept that he did nothing for Illyria Greeks have to be proud that he fought (in such a way) for the spread of Hellenism and their Culture but have to accept that Aleksander was not simply a Greek.

Ok????????????????????

PS:If you still believe that in Olimp is the residence of the Gods and Zeus you have really fuc..ed up your intelligence boys.

And now SHUT THE FU..K UP with this discussion

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2004

hey bill i am not trying to convince you. I know by now that your xenophobic greek mentality can not be changed. All i want is for the reasonable and normal people to have a chance to know the other side of history the untold and hidden history, let them know that greece is not an 100 % ethnically pure country and there are so many questions that need answers and unless the albanians and the albanian language are taken in consideration, they will continue to be fooled about the greek mythology. Today's greeks are very different form the ancient greeks. The greek gods can be explained perfectly using the albanian language.

WHY IS THAT??????

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2004

Look Arber just shut up. no one cares or belives you. Your not fooling anyone.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2004

you might be a greek but not albanian. i can guarantee you that. most fo us albanians know that Alexander the Great is ALBANIAN. People like you are either not aware of this or are greeks pretending to be albanians. Thats all i got to say to you.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2004

I am Albanian and I know Alexander wasn't, I hope this forum doesn't think that all us Albanians are obbssesive losers who try to steal other countries historys, because if so it is not true. Most of us Albanians accept Alexander was greek?macedonian. Arber, Alexander was not Albanian, get over it!

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2004

wow i have missed all the party in here.

Yiannis.....i can find the information anywhere i wish to. maybe that website found the information at the same place, or maybe i am the webmaster of that website. does it really matter???? i am not talking about fantasy my friend.......i am talking about reality. and the reality for you guys hurts. the reality is that 90% of the heroes of the greek revoluton are albanians. i have posted the names in this forum but let me repeat that. here you are: Gjeorgjio Kundurioti, Kiço Xhavella, Andoni Kryezi, Teodor (Bythgura) Kollokotroni, Marko Boçari, Noti Boçari, Kiço Boçari, Laskarina Bubulina, Anastas Gjirokastriti, Dhimitër Vulgari, Kostandin Kanari, Gjeorgjio (Llalla) Karaiskaqi, Odise Andruço, Andrea Miauli, Teodor Griva, Dhimitër Plaputa, Nikolao Kryezoti, Athanasio Shkurtanioti, Hasan Bellushi, Tahir Abazi, Ago Myhyrdani, Sulejman Meto, Gjeko Bei, Myrto Çali, Ago Vasiari..... if it wasnt for the albanians you my friend would be speaking turkish by now

bill.....you are the same pathetic loser. what makes you think that the Albanians are the least educated people in the world?????? by posting these messages you are letting the others know the real face of the greek xenophoby and racism. you are a disgrace to the greek people. now let me try toeducate you a little. here are somne facts about the albanians:

Did you know that... -the Albanian language, as one of the original 9 Indo-European languages, is one of Europe's oldest languages and is not derived from any other language. The other 8 Indo-European languages are Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indian, Iranian, Italic, and Keltic!

- in 2000 BC, the Illyrians, from whom the Albanians are direct descendants, held vast territories covering all of the western Balkans, approximately the territories of today's Albania, northern Greece, and former Yugoslavia!

-the name "Albania" is derived from the ancient Illyrian tribe called the Albanoi who inhabited the provinces of Durres and Dibra in today's Albania in 200 AD!

-the earliest known king of the Illyrians was named "Hyllus" who died in 1225 BC. His name remains in the Albanian language today as "yll" meaning "star."

-the emperors that Albania contributed to the Roman Empire were Diocletian, Julian, Probus, Claudius Probus, Constantine the Great, and one of its most famous emperors, Justinian the First!

-the Byzantine Emperor, Anastasius (491-518 AD), was an Albanian who was a native of Durres on the Albanian coast!

-in the 4th century an Albanian musician, Niketë Dardani, composed the "Te Deum" -- perhaps the oldest known religious music still sung by church choirs all over the world!

-the Grand Viziers who ruled the Ottoman Empire during the entire 17th century were all Albanians and came from just one family named Koprulu! Indeed, some 26 Grand Viziers or Prime Ministers of Albanian blood directed the affairs of the Ottoman Empire since the 1500s!

-the Governors of Romania throughout the entire 19th century came from one Albanian family named Gjika!

-there were four Popes of Albanian origin -- Saint Eleutherius (175- 189), Saint Gauis/Cauis (283-296), Pope John IV (640-642) and Pope Clement XI (1700-1721) as were numerous cardinals!

-the chief builder of the incomparable Taj Mahal in India was an Albanian, Mehmet Isa! And that another Albanian, Sadefqar Mehmeti, is the architect credited with the design of the famous Blue Mosque in Istanbul!

-Pashko Vaso, an ardent Albanian nationalist in Albania's drive to independence from the Turks in 1878, was once the Governor of Lebanon!

-Karl Von Ghega, the builder of the famous Semmering railway in Austria that became the model for all of Europe was an Albanian (his last name, of course, stems from the Albanian word "Gheg" signifying someone from the northern part of Albania. People of the southern part are called "Tosks")!

-Sir William Woodthorpe Tarn, of the British Academy, regarded worldwide as having written the definitive work on Alexander the Great, states in the opening paragraph of his book "Alexander the Great" that Alexander certainly had from his father (Philip II) and probably from his mother (Olymbia) Illyrian, or Albanian, blood!

-the Albanians protected their own Jews during the Holocaust while also offering shelter to other Jews who had escaped into Albania from Austria, Serbia and Greece! And that the names of Muslim and Christian Albanian rescuers of Jews are commemorated as "Righteous Among the Nations" at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem and are inscribed on the famous "Rescuers Wall" at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC!

-Albania has seven symphony orchestras or ten times more symphony orchestras per capita than Great Britain!

-Mother Teresa was Albanian - her real name was Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu. In the Albanian language, Gonxhe means "bud" and Bojaxhi means "painter!"

guys ...check the facts read the above posts carefully and try to make sense in your answers. do not be blinded by the greek media. get out of the xenophobia that wont let you think positively, have a normal discussion and conversation.

till then peace and love

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2004

Riddle soved. Found where Arber the Barber gets his info from. I encourage eveyone to follow the link below as it is very illuminating and will explain a lot of the fantasies that are taught in what passes for an educational system in Albania. It is also LOL funny!! Loved the part about the Albanians being descended from Atlantis. I mean if you have already forged everything else why stop at Alexander and Aristotle, right? Why not go the whole hog and claim descent from Atlanteans and from then on maybe even Aliens?

http://albhistory.netfirms.com/albantiquity.html

The fantasy mania will continue untill such time as Albanians manage to make something of themselves they can legitimally be proud of. Which, if Arber is any indication of the new generation of educated Albanians (and there are so tragically few of them), will take a long time. As things stand, they are a people whose only acheievements are in the field of organised crime and drug trafficking. Their country is a shambles even by ex-Communist standards. Hence the need for validation of their ethnic pride by concocting wild fantasies, that are at odds with the version of history taught in every respected academic institution in the West and the rest of the world.

Add to that the fact that the best and brightest Albanians have already left Albania for Greece and Italy and you can see why I am not optimistic.

-- Anonymous, September 09, 2004

Hi guys.

It seems you have an interesting discussion here.

Hey Arber, does the name "Alexander" means anything in Albanian?

In Greek it means "Man against" (from the parts "Alex" + "Andras"), obviously a warrior's name.

-- Anonymous, September 06, 2004

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??? WHY DONT YOU JUST GRAB A BOOK AND READ IT!!! Ancient Macedonians were not Ilirian but GREEK. Although there is a lot of evidence (mostly indirect) regarding the language of the ancient Macedonians, there is one piece of evidence offered by Polybius in book XXVIII, paragraphs 8 and 9, where it states that the Macedonians were using translators when they were communicating with the Illyrians. This means the Macedonians and the Illyrians did not speak the same language. For instance, Perseus, the Macedonian king, sent Adaeus of Berroia (who spoke only Greek) and Pleuratus the Illyrian, as a translator (because he spoke the Illyrian language) on a mission to the Illyrian king Genthius (169 BC). Pleuratus was an exile living in Perseus' court. Moreover there is evidence that the Illyrians and the Macedonians were vicious enemies.

Over the years, Macedonia had several names. At first the Macedonians gave the land the name, Emathia, after their leader Emathion. It derives from the word amathos, amathoeis meaning sand or sandy. From now on, all of its names are Greek. Later it was called Maketia or Makessa and finally Makedonia (Macedonia). The latter names are derived from the Doric/Aeolic word “makos,” (in Attic “mēkos) meaning length (see Homer, Odyssey, VII, 106), thus Makednos means long or tall, but also a highlander or mountaineer. (cf. Orestae, Hellenes). In Opis, during the mutiny of the Macedonian Army, Alexander the Great spoke to the whole Macedonian Army addressing them in Greek (Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, VII, 9,10). The Macedonian soldiers listened to him and they were dumbfounded by what they heard from their Commander-in-Chief. They were upset. Immediately after Alexander left for the Palace, they demanded that Alexander allow them to enter the palace so that they could talk to him. When this was reported to Alexander, he quickly came out and saw their restrained disposition; he heard the majority of his soldiers crying and lamenting, and was moved to tears. He came forward to speak, but they remained there imploring him. One of them, named Callines, whose age and command of the Companion cavalry made him preeminent spoke as follows: “Sire, what grieves the Macedonians is that you have already made some Persians your ‘kinsmen’, and the Persians are called ‘kinsmen’ of Alexander and are allowed to kiss you, while not one of the Macedonians has been granted this honor” (Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, VII, 8-11). The previous story clearly reveals that the Macedonians were speaking Greek since they could understand their leader. There were thousands of them, not just some selected few who happened to speak Greek. It would be unrealistic for Alexander the Great to speak to them in a language they supposedly did not speak. It would be impossible to believe that the Macedonian soldiers were emotionally moved to the point that all of them were lamenting after listening to a language they did not understand. There is no way for the Macedonians to have taken a crash course in Greek in 20 minutes so that they would be able to understand the speech simultaneously as Alexander was delivering it. Furthermore, the Macedonians wore a distinctive hat, the “kausia” (καυσία) (Polybius IV 4,5; Eustathius 1398; Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, VII 22; cf. Sturz, Macedonian Dialect, 41) from the Greek word for heat that separated them from the rest of the Greeks. That is why the Persians called them “yauna takabara,” which meant “Greeks wearing the hat”. The Macedonian hat was very distinctive from the hats of the other Greeks, but the Persians did not distinguished the Macedonians, because the Macedonian speech was also Greek (Hammond, The Macedonian State p. 13 cf. J.M. Balcer, Historia, 37 [1988] 7). On the mountainsides of the Himalayas and the Indian Caucasus and under Pakistani and Afghanistan jurisdiction lives a tribe whose people call themselves Kalash. They claim to be the descendants of Alexander the Great’s soldiers who for various reasons were left behind in the depths of Asia and could not follow the Great General in his new conquests. Having no contact with the outside world for almost 23 centuries, they are quite different from any other neighboring nations. Light complexioned, and blue eyed in the midst of dark skinned neighbors, their language, even though it has been affected and influenced by the many Muslim languages of nations that surround the Kalash tribe, still incorporates vocabulary and has many elements of the ancient Greek language. They greet their visitors with "ispanta" from the Greek verb "ασπάζομαι" (greetings) and they warn them about "heman" from the ancient Greek noun "χειμών" (winter). These indigenous people still believe in the twelve Olympian gods and their architecture resembles very much the Macedonian architecture (National Herald, “A School in the Tribe of Kalash by Greeks", October 11, 1996).

-- Anonymous, September 04, 2004

Arber, Macedonia and Epirus are now part of Greece get over it! Do you see any Greeks in here shouting and screaming about the historic injustices inflicted on them? Do you see them harassing you on account of the mistreatment of the Greek minority of Northern Epirus? What is this incessant hate you bear towards anything Hellenic/Greek? From where I'm standing it sounds like a bout of Balkan propaganda. If you keep using that fanatical tone nobody will take you seriously (not to mention your claim that Aristotle was Albanian, which is bound to draw considerable sneers in any respectable academic circle). Arber stop dreaming of the Greater Albania.

-- Anonymous, September 04, 2004

Well Arber you have changed my mind and I do now think that Alexander has more to do with Albania than I once thought, I do know about the Kalash people, and the 30,000 greek mercenary's who fought for Darius. Still what are your views on the Illrians being decendents of Greek settlers? And could the modern Albanian language be more like ancient Greek than the modern greek language?

-- Anonymous, September 02, 2004

ok here we go:

-albania's monetary currency is called LEKA which is short for Alexander -did you know that during the war with persia all his generals were illirians and he fought against 30,000 greeks which were part of the persian army? -He was communicating with the generals in a language different from greek. what was that language?...it was albanian. -if you read the book form ARRIAN "The Campaigns of Alexander the Great" you will notice that the author is sure that Alexander the Great is not greek. so what is his nationality? -why was Aristotle, Alexander's teacher? -how come Aristotle was a student of Platos,when he knew that he was a BARBARIAN? -how about the KALASH tribe in pakistan? do you know anything about them? The exact village name exist today in albania. find out who these people are and about their language. even after thousands years they still have many words the same as the ones we use today in the albanian language.

-- Anonymous, September 01, 2004

well Arber some of your claims on modern greece are interesting, and seem to be true when I look some of it up, but you still haven't proven that Alexander was Albanian.

-- Anonymous, September 01, 2004

Sorry, I meant Illryia instead of Olympia on that last message.

-- Anonymous, September 01, 2004

Olympias came from Epirus not Olympia, but I do now agree that it was the heroric Albanians who liberate greece from the turks.

-- Anonymous, September 01, 2004

Yes i have wide knowledge of history and the more i read the more proud i am to be albanian. But i am not just a patriotic Albanian. I try to let the world know(including Bill) that part of the history that they learn in schools is fake and needs to be revised starting from the fake greek gods that can be explained easily using the albanian language to the greek revolution and the albanian heroes that liberated greece from the turks. Not to forget the greek national costume, the pleated skirt, called a fustinella is Albanian and was introduced by King Otto(try your own research). Everything you have is stolen(i mean borrowed), even the grek flag the bavarian gift of king otto. At the time there was no albania or greece so we do not know if alexander the great felt albanian or greek. what we know for sure is that his mother olympia was for illyria(today's albania)

so ....when the Greek state was conceived in 1830 it was comprised of four ethnic groups: the Greeks, the Albanians, the Turks and the Vlach. Later, with a number of expansionist wars that served to fulfill the plans of the Megali-idea (The grand idea: a notion where extreme Greek nationalism and religious intolerance are intertwined, another large group was added, the Slays. Thus the country that: called itself Greece had a Greek population that did not surpass thirty per cent of the total local population. This changed in 1922 when the migrations from Asia Minor added one million and three hundred thousand Greek refugees for a total of four million inhabitants.

Now, after 150 years, Greece claims to be the most homogeneous country in the Balkans with only two percent of-its population declaring that they do not belong to its dominant Hellenic-orthodox group. How did Greece achieve this unparalleled homogeneity which the other Balkan countries have strived to imitate without results? They achieved this by way of annihilation of linguistic, cultural and religious identities. (National identities had not been created in the rest of the Balkans, or they were being created without the support of a central state and as such they did not pose any threat) They imposed the Greek language as the only official language of the state and the church, they instituted coercion practices, social and economical boycott and rejection of all those unique identities. Through the confusion of the time, they resorted even to ethnic cleansing in those areas where their assimilation methods would not succeed. In 1945 the Greek army, under general N. Zervas, expelled to Albania thirty-five thousand Chains, Moslem Albanians, from Southern Epirus in Northwestern Greece.

One of the most successfully assimilated groups is the Arvanitas, .Albanians that had moved through out Greece during the 13th and 14th centuries. However, considering that perhaps the Arvanitas were the largest non-Greek group and settled in compact units before the urbanization of the Greek society, and since Greece is bordered to the North by Albania, the Greek system has always doubted as to whether it had fully accomplished its, goal of assimilation with regard to this ethnic group.. This uncertainty increased in. the beginning of the 1990s with the tide of Albanian immigrants to Greece.

The old generation of Arvanitas began to bring out their lost Language and along with it suppressed feelings. They started remembering lullabies, songs of their youth, ballads of valorous men who fought and defeated the Turks ‘under their leader Gjerg} Kastrioti (Scanderbeg), who was their source of pride in the Albanian ancestry.

During these developments, instinctively, the Greek governance reactivated all its national resources to protect the Greek ethnicity. From 1993 on the image of the Albanian immigrant was demonized and as a result he suffered such a terror that makes one think of the pogroms against the Jews Greek "democracy" which the Greeks have already claimed as their invention like all achievements of the ancient Hellenic civilization, was violating the most basic human right, that of protecting and respecting human dignity.

This anti-Albanian hysteria Was successfully propagated through the masses and served well to achieve two objectives:

On one hand to create distance and hostility on the part of the Arvanitas towards the newly arrives Albanians. They should not be identified again with a condemned and castaway ethnic group.

And on the other hand it fueled a belief among the immigrants themselves that being an Albanian is dishonorable and that they themselves deserve what was happening to them by virtue of being Albanian.

The torch of anti-Albanian propaganda was carried out and is still being carried out by Greek mass media, which on these occasions display a cultivated unity of purpose, through which the image of the Albanian was successfully created: a poor, wretched, ignorant and especially criminal human being. These media outlets have zealously supported the ethnocentrism of the Greek elite that is in accordance with and serves the creation of a homogenous society - meaning, it has a profile that is established upon a dominant ethnic, cultural and religious Greek model and as a result a society more amenable to a chauvinistic posture.

Thus the Albanians who live in the Greek society, having become victims to this propaganda, try to avoid any kind of connection with Albania. At the same time they try to purge themselves from all distinguishable Albanian traits so that they are not identified with the cultivated demon of a xenophobic society, the Greek society. At the same time the Albanian emigrants ha been victims of an institutionalized racism that has denied them the most basic of human rights known by all international conventions. Infringements and abuses from state organs especially the Greek police have been and are a daily phenomenon. This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of these same organs towards Albanian citizens who "declare" that they are not of Albanian nationality but fellow countrymen" (a word that in Greek is the same as "homogenous") from Vorio Epirus .

According to Greek sources there are over one hundred and fifty thou- . sand Albanian citizens who have, a document that proves that they are from Northern Epirus That document immediately guarantees them a much broader set of rights (free medical care, more ease for "vorioepiriote" students in Greek Universities, travel opportunities in Europe etc.) and the "hope" that in the near future they will acquire Greek citizenship.

This social pictures completed with the work of the ‘Greek educational system that makes sure that all. citizens are imbued with the tenets of Greek culture. No aspect of the Greek educational system has changed since the beginning of the state when it adapted the myth of the three thousand years of continuity and the position of the historian Paparigopoulos, who was not only a grecocentrist but also campaigned with fervor for the ideas of Panhellenism. As a consequence, every immigrant child attending Greek schools, at any level, is subjected to a process of indoctrination with the idea of the superiority and the uniqueness of the Greek culture and race.

Comparing the Greek economic achievements with those of the neighboring countries, thus exploiting its neighbor’s misfortune with their communist experience, further enhances this campaign, Albania and the other countries of the Balkans who went through some fifty years of communism, for the time being, cannot face to this Greek challenge. With this economic disadvantage the Albanian immigrant is further inclined to succumb to the successful assimilation campaign of Greek propaganda.

While the "democratic" Greek state complain in every international forum that Albania is abusing the Greek minority and that the country does not comply with present day visions of a civil society, the Greeks themselves are forcefully assimilating the Albanian immigrant and doing so with impunity. As they expect that most of the Albanian immigrants will settle permanently in Greece, the Greek government is bent on assimilating completely the Albanian immigrants thus violating the principal value of a civil society that requires that Greece accept the Albanians with their own culture, whatever the differences, instead of the current policy of forcing the ethnic Greek credo upon the new immigrants.

The assimilation of the Albanians in Greece is a desperate and hopeless situation, as it follows in the footsteps of the Arvanitas and therefore the Albanian intellectuals, wherever they are, should be aware of the situation. This democracy,that even

the USA offers as an example to be imitated by the other,Balkan countries, has reached the level of perfection in the art of hypocrisy. Nothing exists that cannot be proven.

However, Greece is facing a dilemma. On one hand it cannot ignore the Albanian immigrants, since eventually it will be obligated to give them wider recognition, and the other hand, when this happens, Greece will not be known only for the repression of religious freedom but also for. the repression. of. ethnic minorities. (Greece comes first, far ahead of the second country. so ranked,, with regard to the cases presented at the European court for human rights for the repression of minority religions that are not members of the Orthodox Church in Greece).

Then. everyone will discover what is hidden behind the curtain of make believe that claims the temple of a civilization emerging from the grave, namely that the temple is a corpse without any signs of revival.

-- Anonymous, August 31, 2004

Ancient Epirus was not in the area of modern day Albania nor were the inhabatents albanian tribes. Illrya occupied the space of modern day Albania.

-- Anonymous, August 31, 2004

You seem to have a wide knowledge of history Arber, and I think your just a patriotic Albanian, who like many other nations, wants to claim Alexander as there own. But Alexander didn't think of himself Albanian (Illryian) by desent, he thought of himself Greek desent. His father traced his bloodline back to Heracles, the legendary Greek strongman. As for Alexanders mother, she traced her bloodline back to Achilles, a great Greek hero from the Trojan war. So in conclusion since not everyone is going to agree on one idea, we should just say that Alexander was decended from a great number of Balken dwellers. Yes that includes the Albanian Illryians, who themselves originated from Greece.

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2004

pete:

WHY DID YOU DELETE MY RESPONSE TO BILL? is this one of those funny forums where the moderator can delete the messages of his "enemies" but leave the ones of his "friends"? and do me a favour stop the nonsense comments about my postings. if you have something to say about the topic go ahead, if not.... then sfu.

now....regarding the messages posted: i agree with you when you say there were not nationalities like greek albanian etc..at the time. but we the albanians were and still are very present in your history.

where do you wanna start?

greek revolution? did you know that 90% of the heroes of the greek revoluton are albanians? have a look: Gjeorgjio Kundurioti, Kiço Xhavella, Andoni Kryezi, Teodor (Bythgura) Kollokotroni, Marko Boçari, Noti Boçari, Kiço Boçari, Laskarina Bubulina, Anastas Gjirokastriti, Dhimitër Vulgari, Kostandin Kanari, Gjeorgjio (Llalla) Karaiskaqi, Odise Andruço, Andrea Miauli, Teodor Griva, Dhimitër Plaputa, Nikolao Kryezoti, Athanasio Shkurtanioti, Hasan Bellushi, Tahir Abazi, Ago Myhyrdani, Sulejman Meto, Gjeko Bei, Myrto Çali, Ago Vasiari..... if it wasnt for the albanians you my friend would be speaking turkish by now

---- now...a little lecture:

Ethnic Albanians in Greece The Balkan Peninsula of the European continent is ethnically, linguistically and religiously one of the most complex areas of the world. Within last two decades, the world community was alerted many times to the repression of the various ethnic minorities in the Balkans. Though much have been said and written about the ethnic minorities of the Balkans region throughout 1980s and 1990s, Greece’s century-old policy of assimilation against its Turkish, Macedonian, Albanian, Vlah and Roma minorities has escaped attention. The Greek government had officially acknowledged the existence of the Albanian minority in Greece by the Sevres Treaty of August 10, 1920. Yet, in the mid-twentieth century, Greek authorities changed their mind and started to deny the existence of any ethnic minorities within Greek boundaries. Denial of ethnic identity, brutal forms of assimilation, restrictions on the cultural rights and harassment against minority leaders are the main methods employed by Greece against its ethnic minorities. However, in recent years, in the light of the progressive changes occurring throughout eastern and central Europe and the increasing concern of the international human rights organizations over the minorities of the Balkans, considerable number of minority activists in Greece have dared to speak out against and expose Greece’s long kept secret : That there are Turkish, Macedonian, Albanian, Vlah and Roma minorities in Greece and that they desire to be recognized as such by their government and the world at large. Ethnic Albanians in Greece can be grouped under three headings :

a)Orthodox Albanians (Arvanitis) b)Cham Albanians c)Albanian nationals who have sought refuge in Greece for economic reasons.

Although their predicament may take different forms, there is one characteristic common to all : persecution. Early Twentieth Centruy: Forceful Assimilation of Ortodox Albanians (Arvanitis) Just like the Turkish and Macedonian minorities, there existed the Albanian minority in Greece at the start of the twentieth century. In the early twentieth century, there were many Albanian-speaking people in Attica, Boeotia, Southern Euboea, and Hydra while the Plaka district in Athens near the Acropolis was the Albanian quarter of the city with its own law courts using the Albanian language. Albanians are Orthodox Christians or Muslims by religion. Ever since the mid-twentieth century, Greece pursued a sophisticated assimilation policy against Orthodox Albanians or Arvanitis: by alleging that they are Greeks, they denied their ethnic, cultural, linguistic rights. Also by intentionally equating faith for nationality, and pretending that all the Orthodox people are Greeks, they exploited the religion factor in attempts to hellenize the ethnic Albanians. The Greek church still endeavours to assimilate Orthodox Albanians, namely Arvanitis, into the Greek nation. Today, as a result of the government’s discriminatory treatment against the non-Greeks, those Orthodox Albanians who demand their right to be recognized as Albanian, cannot speak out. This unbearable racism against the non-Greeks in Greece finds its expression in the statements of the Greek statesmen as well. Following is a declaration by the famous politician and present Foreign Minister George Papandreu in the “Two-day Meeting On Racism in Greece” on 19 June 1995: “There is clearly racism in our country as well. Yet, the causes for Greece possibly differ from those neighboring countries. There is racism which springs from the acquaintance with the other and racism which is the result of taboos and prejudices without direct contact with the different. Racism is not always the manifestation of superiority; it is sometimes feeling of inferiority or fear.” Cham Albanians Though today divided between Greece and Albania, the Epirus region of the Balkan peninsula has been ethnically Albanian since the ancient times. During the Conference of Ambassadors in London in 1913, the southern part of the region was cut off from the motherland and annexed to the Greek state despite the fact that people of the southern Epirus were Albanians of Orthodox and the Muslim faith. While the orthodox Albanians were targets of hellenization, the muslim Albanians were either exterminated or expelled from their ancestral lands by the Greek government. The muslim Albanians or Chams who lived in Southern Epirus (Chameria or Thesprotia as it is called by the Greeks) were the victims of the first ethnic cleansing in Europe at the end of the Second World War. The Cham tragedy is one of the most painful tragedies of the European continent. Statistical yearbook of the Greek government in 1936 showed that 26.000 Chams lived in Chameria region in Greece at that time. As a result of the 1944-1945 ethnic cleansing and genocide, 30.000 Albanian Muslims were violently expelled from the Chameria region, and sought refuge in the Republic of Albania, where they still live. Today, there are 150.000 members of this population in Albania, a figure that has grown because of the high birth rate of the population. On the other hand, current number of Cham Albanians living in Greece is estimated at around 100.000. Yet these people are deprived of every sort of minority rights like other minorities living in Greece. To cite but one example, they can speak Albanian only in their homes. The population of Chameria has always been ethnically Albanian : - A lot of voyagers and foreign historians wrote that Chameria had been populated by Albanians. Even the Greek historian Herodotus underscored this fact in his book “Historia” and called Albanians of the Chameria “barbarians”, a term used by the ancient Greeks to distinguish non-greek people. - The census held by the Turkish Administration in 1910 established that there were 83.000 orthodox and muslim Albanians in the region. The demographic map of the British military mission sent to the British government in London indicates that on the eve of the second World War, %75 of Chameria's population was Albanian. - The pro-Greek historian Spiro Muselimi, in his book “Historical Sight Through Thesprotia”, edited in Joannina on 1974, wrote that “The bishop of Thesprotia in the year 1870 translated some parts of Bible into Albanian, as the people of orthodox faith of the region did not understand any word in Greek”. The Greek authorities, sticking to the concept of absolute denial of the existence of ethnic groups on Greek territory, have followed a well-established chauvinistic policy and, as history recorded, they committed genocide against the Albanians of muslim faith. The racial assault on Chameria’s muslim Albanians began to be first applied at the end of the Second World War, in 1944-1945, when criminal bands of the notorious General Napoleon Zervas perpetrated ethnic cleansing against them. On June 27, 1944, Greek criminal bands resorted to the worst atrocities witnessed in this region. The terror committed against this population was beyond description. It included killings, rapes, inhuman treatment, massacre of women, babies and pregnant women. More than 1400 men, women and children were killed within 24 hours in the town of Paramithy, on Tuesday, June 27, 1944, which happened to be the date of St.Bartholomeus day for the whole Chameria. During the June 1944-March 1945 period, 1286 persons were killed in Filat, 192 people were killed in Gumenica, 626 persons were killed in Margellic and Parga. There were hundreds of other missing persons. In the same period, as a result of Greek massacres, acts of robbery and rapes against the Albanian population of Chameria; 2900 young and old men, 214 women, 96 children were massacred, 745 women were raped, 76 women abducted, 32 children, younger than 3 years were massacred, 68 villages were razed to the ground, 5800 houses and places of worship were burned down or destroyed. Furthermore, 30.000 Albanian Muslims were violently expelled from the Chameria region who took refuge in the Republic of Albania. The Albanian government, after the war, took the Cham issue to the Peace Conference in Paris. The conference of Foreign Ministers of the Allied Powers not only recognized the very difficult circumstances the Chams were subjected to, but also demanded repatriation and recovery of their property. The International Investigation Commission of the United Nations, appointed for the verification of the tragedy on both sides of the border, concluded its report in 1946-1947, replete with facts and evidence about the massacre and painful tragedy of the Cham people. Realities of the recent history of Chameria require the attention of the international community. Greece cannot avoid but recognize the genocide of the "Cham Albanians." The civil and legal rights of those currently living in Greece, estimated around 100.000 today, must be respected by Greece. According to the official Greek stand, the muslim population of Chameria, which numbers around 150.000 and still refugees in Albania will never be allowed to return to Greece because they allegedly collaborated with the German occupiers during the Second World War. “They are considered as war criminals according to the Greek laws” (K.Mitsotakis, Tirana, May 1992). This “hypothesis” is untrue and fabricated. To consider a whole community as “criminals”, many members of which died in Greece’s liberation struggle in the Second World War, is a political and historical crime against Cham Albanians. In 1994, the Parliament of the Albanian Republic proclaimed 27 June 1944 as the commemoration day for the massacred Albanians of Chameria, and a monument was built up in Konispol in memory of the victims of Chameria. After 1945, with a view to changing the demographic structure of Chameria, its colonization with Greeks, Aromens and Gypsies was begun. Greece wanted the demographic structure of the province changed because it did not trust the rest of the Albanian population who remained there, even though they were of the Orthodox confession. Greece violently put an end to every attempt to preserve the identity of the Albanian population of the Orthodox belief and Albanian was prohibited to be spoken in public. Thereby, the assimilation of orthodox Albanians gained momentum. The fate of the orthodox Albanians was not much different than that of their Muslim brothers when it came to maintaining their ethnic identity. --------------------------------- The Predicament of the Albanian Nationals in Greece Beyond the predicament of the orthodox and muslim Albanians of Greece, Greek persecution extends to the nationals of the Albanian Republic as well. In recent years, reliable human rights organizations consistently cited Greece in their reports for its significant abuses of human rights against Albanian nationals in Greece. After the collapse of communist regime in Albania in 1991, thosands of Albanian nationals left Albania for Greece for better economic conditions. Yet, the Greek government tried to use the migrant Albanian nationals in Greece as a trump card against the Albanian government for political ends. Deterioration of the relations between two countries have many times induced the massive expulsions by Greece of these Albanian nationals. In 1990s, the Greek police, using unjustified physical violence, deported about 300.000 Albanian citizens who had the required documents, along with those who for dire economic needs had to work illegally in Greece. Their savings earned through hard work were confiscated. Thus, thousands of Albanians who were paid far less than the Greek workers were deported from the country. They used to send to their families in Albania a contribution of about 9.375.000 Dollars per month, a great part of which returned to Greece for imported food products, thereby increasing Greek exports as well. Greece also gained no less than 1 billion Dollars a year from the cheap labour of Albanian workers. As a result of unexpected and violent expulsions, many Albanian immigrants could not take with them even their own savings and personal belongings, estimated at about 10.000.000 dollars. On the other hand, in recent years, torture and ill-treatment against the Albanian nationals under custody have been observed and reported by reliable human rights organizations. It has also been established that those Albanian nationals who accept to become Greek and change their religion are given work-permissions and even Greek passports. In other words, Greece, a member country of the European Union and a state which has put her signature under almost every international agreement related to the protection of human rights forces people under duress to exchange their ethnic and cultural identities for economic livelihood. ------------------------------ The Offical Stance of the Greek Government on the Question - Denial of ethnic identity, brutal forms of assimilation, restrictions on the cultural rights and harassment against minority leaders are the main methods employed by Greece against its ethnic minorities. Ethnic Albanians are subject to these treatments as well. - Official Greek allegations that both northern and southern Epirus are historically greek lands are in dispute with the historical facts. The famous King Pirro, who founded the Kigdom of Epir in III. Century AD is called “Barbarian”, namely “not Greek”, in the writings of many greek historians. As the Western sources confirmed, the Epirus region has always been ethnically Albanian. - Even supposing that Cham people cooperated with Nazis during the second World War, the repatriation of the greeks who collaborated with Nazis during the second World War with general amnesties in 1970s as against the violent expulsion of 300.000 Cham Albanians from the lands that bequeathed to them from their forefathers, is bitter evidence of the chauvinist approach of the Greek government against ethnic minorities. - While the Greek political leaders demand from the Albanian government to recognize the minority rights of the Greeks in northern Epirus, they vehemently deny the existence of an Albanian minority in Greece. Following excerpts from a statement made by the then Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis on 14 July 1993 are noteworthy with regard to the double standard employed by the Greek government in the case of the Albanian minority in particular, and other minorities of Greece in general. "The Albanian government must end all interference with the right of Albanian citizens to declare whatever ethnic identity they wish according to international principles . . .” (Presently, despite the provisions of the international agreements, not only the existence of ethnic Albanians, but also all other ethnic minorities, namely Turks, Macedonians, Vlahs and Roma, are vehemently denied by the Greek government. The government maintains that Greece is a “homogeneous” country.) “The Tirana Government refused to allow the teaching of the Greek in public schools beyond the first few grades and even then, it was allowed only in a few arbitrarily designated “minority zones” (Teaching of the minority languages in Greek schools, except Turkish, is strictly forbidden in Greece. Albanians and Macedonians are not even allowed to speak their mother tongues.) “Breaking all rules protecting religious freedom and in violation of article 16 of Albania’s own human rights law, the Tirana Government hampered the operation of the orthodox church in the country by failing to return church property taken during the hard years of communist rule, by insisting that the liturgy be conducted in Albanian and by harassing the few priests allowed to serve Greek communities.” (Though the Greek government accepted the right of Albanians, Macedonians and Vlahs to establish their own autonomous Orthodox churches with the Sevres Treaty of 1920, today this is only on paper and the religious life of all orthodox communities in Greece is under the tight control of Greek Orthodox Church. ) “The Albanian government did not facilitate the repatriation of the tens of thousands of ethnic greeks who were forcibly removed from Northern Epirus during 40 years of the Stalinist regime of Enver Hoxha. It did not restore their property to them..” ( In this context, one should remember thousands of Chamides, Macedonians and Turks who were expelled by Greece in the course of twentieth century to Albania, Macedonia and Turkey respectively. ) Today, the ethnic minorities of Greece, namely Turks, Macedonians, Albanians, Vlahs and Roma demand no more than what the Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis asked for the so-called Greek minority in Albania, in 1993. A Just and Peaceful Solution to the Greece's Albanian Question International pressure should be exerted upon Greece, a member of EU, Council of Europe, OSCE, to stop its persecution of ethnic Albanians and to compensate their material losses . Everyone who advocates the supremacy of law and contemporary humanitarian values should extend their support to the Chameria Albanian Associations all around the world. They stand for the recognition of 4000 Albanians who have been exterminated by Greece, for the rights of 150.000 who have been forced away from their ancestral lands and thus who do not even have a chance to see the graves of their parents, and 100.000 currently living in Greece. In this context, the realization of the following points are of vital importance for a just solution to the question of ethnic Albanians in Greece : -Summoning an international conference with the participation of the Albanian government for the restoration of the rights of Albanian minority in Greece and for the recognition of the genocide of Cham Albanians. -Greece’s recognition of the ethnic identity of the orthodox Albanians and Cham Albanians, in the same way as the Albanian Government is recognizing and respecting the rights of the Greek minority in Albania. -Compensation of the properties of the Cham population by the Greek Government. -Permission for the establishment of an independent church for orthodox Albanians, which is a right conferred to them by the Sevres Treaty signed by Greece in 1920. -Repatriation to Greece of the Cham population expelled to Albania and indemnity of the losses resulting from the exploitation of the real estate of the Cham population for the last 55 years. -Restoring to the Cham population their Greek citizenship which was unlawfully taken away from them. -Bringing an end to the discriminatory treatment against Albanian nationals in Greece and giving them back their properties which were unlawfully confiscated by the state authorities. Relevant Provisions of the Sevres Treaty of August 10, 1920, Through Which the Greek Government Recognized the Albanian Minority and Its Rights Article I Greece undertakes that the stipulations contained in Articles 2 to 8 of this chapter shall be recognized as fundamental laws, and that no law, regulation or official action shall conflict or interfere with these stipulations, nor shall any law, regulation or official action prevail over them.

Article II Greece undertakes to assure full and complete protection of life and liberty to all inhabitants of Greece without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion. All inhabitants of Greece shall be entitled to the free exercise, whether public or private, of any creed, religion or belief, whose practices are consistent with public order or public morals.

Article III Greece admits and declares to be Greek nationals ipso facto and without the requirement of any formality Bulgarian, Turkish or Albanian nationals habitually resident at the date the coming into force of the present Treaty in territories transferred to Greece by Treaties subsequent to January 1, 1913. Article VII All Greek nationals shall be equal before the law and shall enjoy the same civil and political rights without distinction as to race, language or religion. In particular, Greece undertakes to put into force within three years from the coming into force of the present Treaty an electoral system giving due consideration to the rights of racial minorities. Differences of religion, creed or confession shall not prejudice any Greek national in matters relating to the enjoyment of civil or political rights, as, for instance, admission to public employments, functions and honours, or the exercise of professions and industries. No restriction shall be imposed on the free use by any Greek national of any language in private intercourse, in commerce, in religion, in the press or in publications of any kind, or at public meetings. Notwithstanding any establishment by the Greek Government of an official language,adequate facilities shall be given to Greek nationals of non-Greek speech for the use of their language, either orally or in writing, before the courts. Article VIII Greek nationals who belong to racial, religious or linguistic minorities shall enjoy the same treatment and security in law and in fact as the other Greek nationals. In particular they shall have an equal right to establish, manage and control, at their own expense, charitable, religious and social institutions, schools and other educational establishments, with the right to use their own language and to exercise their religion freely therein. OTHER IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS VIOLATED I.UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS Article 18, Freedom of Religion Article 19 Freedom of Expression

II.INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS Article 18, Freedom of Religion Article 19 Freedom of Expression

III.EUROPEAN CONVENTION FOR PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS Article 9-Freedom of Religion Article 10-Freedom of Expression Irakki Kochollari, Arvanites - Edwin E. Jacques, The Albanians : Ethnic History From Prehistoric Times To The Present - UNPO Yearbooks and UNPO News - International Journal of Albanian Studies - Border and Territorial Disputes, Third Edition, Albania Greece (Northern Epirus), Longman, Harlow, 1992 - Eastern Europe Newsletter, Albania : A General Briefing, 10 August 1992 - Minority Rights Group, The Balkans : Minorities and States in Conflict, London, 1991 - RFE/RL Research Report, vol.2, No:33, Albanian-Greek Relations : The Confrontation Continues, 10 August 1993

more to come.......

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2004

Alexander was born near mount olympus, in the city of pella. Which is in the area of modern Greece. I t was then an area that the Greeks called Makedon or Macedon, southern Makedon was a deeply Hellenised place. Speaking Greek worshiping the Greek God's etc. Nationality's did not exist back then, it depended on what city you came from, although they were all related they still thought against each other. They did however unite to fight off enemies of different nationalities such as the Persians. Since the Macedonians also fought along with there fellow Greeks, and they were alowd to compete in the strictly Greek Olympic games it is certain that the area, cities and peoples of ancient Macedonia were part of Greece those two and a half thousand years ago just as they still are today. Albania was just a small kingdom called Illria and had nothing to do with the hellenistic world.

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2004

Please watch your language bill. Arber might be talking shit but that doesn't me you should lash out.

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2004