414 IIISTUUY OF GI.'KKCK the same respecting the Athamanes, whom Plato numbers aa Hellenic. 1 As the Epirots were confounded with the Hellenic communities towards the south, so they become blended with the Macedonian and Illyrian tribes towards the north. The Macedo- nian Orestrc, north of the Cambunian mountains and east of Pin- dus, are called by Hekataeus a Molossian tribe ; and Strabo even extends the designation Epirots to the Illyrian Parorseia and Atintanes, west of Pindus, nearly on the same parallel of lati- tude with the OrestaB. 2 It must be remembered, as observed above, that while the designations Illyrians and Macedonians are properly ethnical, given to denote analogies of language, habits, feeling, and supposed origin, and probably acknowledged by the people themselves, the name Epirots belongs to the Greek language, is given by Greeks alone, and marks nothing except residence on a particular portion of the continent. Theopompus (about 340 B. c.) reckoned fourteen distinct Epirotic nations, among whom the Molossians and Chaonians were the principal. It is possible that some of these may have been semi-Illyrian, others semi-Macedonian, though all were comprised by him under the common name Epirots. 3 Of these various tribes, who dwelt between the Akrokerau nian promontory and the Ambrakian gulf, some, at least, appear to have been of ethnical kindred with portions of the inhabitants of southern Italy. There were Chaonians on the gulf of Taren- tum, before the arrival of the Greek settlers, as well as in Epirus ; we do not find the name Thesprotians in Italy, but we find there a town named Pandosia, and a river named Acheron, the same as 1 Herodot. ii, 56, v, 92, vi, 127; Thucyd. ii, 80; Plato, Minos, p. 315. The Chaonians and Thesprotians were separated by the river Thyamia (now Kalamas), Thucyd. i, 46; Stephanus Byz. v, Tpoia. 2 Hekataeus, Fr. 77, cd. Klausen; Strabo, vii, p. 32G ; Appian. Illyric. c. 7. In the time of Thucydides, the Molossi and the Atintanes were under the same king (ii, 80). The name "HTrsipiJTai, with Thucydides, means only inhabitants of a continent, oi TO.VTT) T/neipuTai (i, 47; ii, 80) includes vEtolians and Akarnanians (iii, 94-95), and is applied to inhabitants of Thrace (iv, 105). Epirus is used in its special sense to designate the territory west of Pindus by Xenophon, Hellen. vi, 1, 7. Compare Mannert, Geographic dcr Griech. und Homer, part vii, book 2 p. 283. 3 Strabo, vii, p. 324.
