Norwich bulletin., 1916-10-26
THE WAR PRIMER By National Geographic Society

Epirus-W hat portion of northern Epirus Greece wished the Entente Allies to promise her as the price of her participation in the European war will not be known, perhaps, until the terms of peace are made public. That portion of the ancient district of coveted both by Italy and the govern | ment at Athens lies in the new prin- cipality of Albania.
 The EpiruS district, without respect | to its modern Greek, and AIbanian-is the subject of the follow ing war geography bulletin issued by the National Geographic Society:
 Tn ancient times the name Epirus
 (mainland) was given to an extensive area of northwestern Greece to dis tinguish it from the islands of the Ionian Sea, which form a fringe to the west. It extended from an indefinite northern boundary, somewhere in the
 southern part of the territory now embraced in the infant principality of Albania, to the Corinthian Gulf, and
 although the Athenians, Corinthians and Spartans were wont to look upon
 the inhabitants of the district as semi
 barbarous, no less an authority than
 Aristotle gave it as the original home
 of the Hellenes.
 Owing to it's extremely mountain ous character, Epirus has never been a great grain producing section, but from ancient times up to the present 1t has been famous for it's fine cattle ! and horses, also for a peculiar breed of dog, the MoloSSian. In the eastern
 part of the district towers Mt. Lac-
 mon, the backbone of the Pindus
 range, on which rise three of the great
 rivers of northwestern Greece.
 Epirus became World-renowned
 even before historic times on account
 of the great oracle of Dodona, the
 ruins of whose temples were discoN-
 cred during the last half of the 18th
 century only a few miles southwest of
 the modern Macedonian town of Jan-
 ina. The messages from the gods were
 received at Dodona through the rust lings of the leaves of an oak tree in which Zeus was supposed to reside, but a local legend says that the first
 message was delivered by a dove speaking from the tree with a human voice. At any rate, the priestesses of the oracle were called Peleaides (doves). Herodotus reports that while on a visit to Egyptian Thefbes he learned that the oracle had been found ed by an Egyptian princess who had been spirited away by Phoenicians
 AS the rivalry between the oracle of Zeus at Dodona and that of Apollo at Delphi grew more keen the priest esses of the former invented new methods of receiving messages, among these being the Interpretation of the
 murmur of a bubbIing fountain near
 the oak tree, the sound of the wind rushing through the brazen cauldrons which stood in a circle near the tenn ple and the sounds made by a metal tiped whip as the wind drove it | against a bronze tripod. Many Ath- enians, Spartans and Eastern poten- | tates consulted the oracle and it is said, that Croesus, the last king of Lydia, also consulted Dodona as to whether he should attempt campaign against 1 Cyrus, king of the Persians. Un- happily the famous rich man acted upon the advice of the Delphic Oracle | which told him that he would destroy a great kingdom And the prediction of the oracle was verified, but the | kingdom which he destroyed was his own. ''The Hellenes founded many colo nies on the Epiran shore and these served as stepping stones to dominion | over the Adriatic. The Wealthiest of l the ancient cities was Phoenice which became the head of an Epirotic Lea que after the fall of the NIolossian | kingdom.
 "The Molossians, most powerful and | progressive of the fourteen tribes which inhabited Epirus, were ruled by | chieftains who professed to be des- cendants of Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, who was supposed to have settled in this part of the world after 1 the fall of Troy
 "One of the most noted of the Mo | Iossian kings was Aryrnbas IT, who gave his brothers daughters an ex- cellent education, married one of them l himself and gave the other, Olymp1as, | to Philip II of Macedon. Olympias | lives in history as the mother of AL | exander the Great. From Alexander's | aunt descended Pyrrhus, who waged a 1 long war with Rome in behalf of the Tarentines and who made Epirus a | power in world politics for a short l time. More than 150 years after the l death of Pyrrhus Epirus again came l in conflict with Rome as the ally of | Perseus, the Macedonian who mount | ed a throne over the body of his mur- dered brother Demetrius. The Ro- | mans under Aemilius Paulus annilated l the forces of Perseus at Pydna (16S B. l CD, and took the defeated king in tri- 1 umph to the ca pital. The punishment | meted out to Epirus for ihs share in | the war was the destruction of 70 of
 her principal cities and the enslave- ment of 150,600 of it's people---a blow from which the kingdom never recov- \ cred.
 With the partition of the Roman l empire Epfrus was given to the East l arn emperors. When the Latips took | Constantinople in 1904 it became 1 possession of Michel Angelus Com | menus. In succeeding centuries the territory has been variously governed
 nd misgowerned by Albanians, Ven- etianS, and Turks"