Pa i hequr as edhe nji presje diskutimit tuaj, do te shfrytezoja rastin te ju njoh me disa paragrafe injorante te Hammondit (filo-greku me i madh qe ka prodhuar ndonjehere Anglia) sesi mundohet t'i helenizoje Pellagonet e Derriopet.
Ky njeri s'asht n'tokes t'bukes, si thot fjala. Ne njeren ane pranon menyren e organizimit qe ishte shume e ngjashme me at' ilire e ne anen tjeter sebet ca mbishkrimeve (te shkruejtuna ne nje greqishte pedante) na i nxjerr per grek“The district of Derriopus adjoined Illyrian territory, namely that of the Penestae, who were called 'Penestae Illyrii … bellicosum genus', when Pleuratus sent them to serve in the Macedonian army (Livy 44. 11. 7); as 2,000 were engaged in the defense of Cassandrea, they were a large tribe. Livy and Strabo both say that the Erigon rose in the 'Illyrian mountains' and this perhaps implies that the Penestae held the head of the valley, and that the frontier of Derriopus was not much above the defile of Styberra [see Map 9]... The territory Derriopus is clearly related to the river, as all its cities are said to have been beside it. As it is already a large river when it enters the plain, it forms a natural frontier with the Pelagones. Derriopus then was the district west and south of the river, [Macedonian] Styberra being at that time [BBB: p. 67 talks of different sites for Macedonian and Roman Styberra] on the right bank... the limits of Derriopus on the west may be set at the ridge between Demir Hisar and Suvodol... This country probably belonged to the Penestae. To the south of Demir Hissar there is a flat plain by Suvodol, and on crossing an oak-clad ridge one descends through a wide valley with arable slopes, which merges into the main Pelagonian plain just north of Monastir. It is likely then that the country to the south of Demir Hissar goes with the main plain, and that it belonged to the Derriopes. This receives some support from three inscriptions in Greek found at Suvodol ... These inscriptions are appropriate to the territory of the Derriopes and not that of the Penestae. The richest part of Derriopus was the plain west of Cerna Reka which is well watered by the tributaries flowing from the western hills... The Cerna Reka makes a great bend at Brod and flows north-eastwards into the difficult country known as the Morihovo. There the Derriopes held both sides of the river valley ... the river Osphagus was the river Semnica, and Pluinna, obeying the rule of Derriopan cities, was by the river near Trnovo ...” (Hammond; Macedonia Vol 1 69-71)
“The Pelagones held the plain east of the river and the hills to the east. One of the three cities of Strabo's Πελαγονια τριπολιτις was at Belovodica. Its name was perhaps Andraristus; for Ptol. 3. 13. 34 mentions only Andraristus and Stobi as cities of the Pelagones, and Andraristus was therefore probably close to the Roman road, as is the ancient site at Belovodica. Another city was Azorus, the only one named by Strabo (C 327). As Stobi was Paeonian in Strabo's time, the third city may have been Pissaeum, although Plb. 5. 108. 1 calls it a 'polisma'. As it was sacked by Scerdilaidas the Illyrian, it was probably in north-west Pelagonia. The frontier of Pelagonia marched with that of the Derriopes on the south-west, south, and south-east, and with that of the Illyrian Penestae of the Velcka valley on the north-west. To the east s frontier was most readily defended at the defile above the confluence of the Rajetz and the Cerna near the station 'Euristo. on the Roman road.” (Hammond; Macedonia Vol 1 71-72)
“Within the tribal states of the Lyncestae, the Dassaretii, the Antani, the Deriopes and the Pelagones there were smaller units. Such units were the Heracleotae, the Lychnidii and the Styberraei who lived mainly in an urban centre. Other units were smaller tribal groups. Thus within the large tribal state of the Pelagones we find η των Αργεσταιων πολις, which passed its own decrees and honoured a Roman proconsul ... and probably within the community of the Argestai we find a small community paying its devotion to Hera Νεαπολειτων το κοινον Ηραν θεον ετους ηος. In this case the dating by the Macedonian era to AD 150 shows that the Neapoleitae considered themselves to be Macedonians and so were Pelagonians not Paeonians. Within the tribal state of the Derriopi an inscription was found by Kazarow in the church of Pestani, south of the Cerna and south-east of Dunje, which recorded a vote of gratitude by Δοστωνεω[ν] το κοινον. Another inscription, this time in Latin and dating to AD 120, was found at Vitoliste, nowadays the chief place in the Morihovo district. This records the laying of boundary-markers between the Geneatae (possibly Ceneatae) and another group whose name ended in -xini. It seems likely that here too we have small communities of a tribal kind rather than of an urban character.// A smaller community still is the κωμη. The acts of such a community are recorded in Greek inscriptions found at Suvodol in western Derriopus (Spomenik 98 (1941-8) no. 58; see p. 70 above). Another is mentioned in an inscription found at Bela Tsarkva, a village to the north of Tsepicovo, where it was built into a church wall. It is dated by the Macedonian era to A.D. 192. It records a gift of money to τη Αλκομεναιων κωμη, ταις φυλαις, and arranges for four tribes to make sacrifices on the same day, one to Zeus Agoraeus and Hera in the agora and the other three 'at the altar in Alcomena (εν Αλκομενα) which the donor had made and inscribed and Octavius (?) had delighted in. Alcomena is a kome, a corporate group of persons known as the Alcomenaei, and there can be no doubt that it is one of several komai which made up Alalcomenae, one of the cities of the Derriopes (Str. 7 C 327 αι των Δευριοπων πολεις ... ων το Βρυανιον και Αλαλκομεναι και Στυβαρα); or the Derriopan cities were on the Erigon, and Bela Tsarkva is beside the northern branch of the Cerna, the Blato. The four tribes in the kome are presumably those of the polis of the Alalcomenai, and they presumably existed in all the constituent komai. The ephebic inscription which was found also at Bela Tsarkva begins with the words αλειφουσης της πολεως (not της κωμης) and the polis is probably Alalcomenae. The inscription is dated by the Macedonian era to A.D. 121. We may visualize here a polis of the early Dorian type, such as Sparta was in the time of Thucydides, ουτε ξυνοικισθεισης πολεως ... κατακωμας δε τω παλαιω της Ελλαδος τροπω οικισθεισης (Thuc. 1. 10.2).
This structure of large tribal groups, containing lesser tribal groups, and forming into political units of εθνος, φυλη, πολις, κωμη, and κοινον, is one which we should regard in central and southern Greece as typical of the archaic period. Was it indigenous in these remote north-western territories or was it imposed by Macedonian or Roman rulers? All historical parallels suggest that it was indigenous, a survival of a system congenial to the peoples of this high and mountainous terrain and as old as the time of their first arrival. The ethnos and the komai were already in Lyncus in the fifth century (Thuc. 2. 99. 2 and 4. 124. 4). If the structure is Greek, it may not be exclusively Greek; for all we know, the Illyrian Penestae or the Dardanii may have had similar institutions. But there is another point of distinction, not only the use of Greek speech but the very high proportion of Greek names. The ephebic lists found at Tsepicovo, being evidently those of the Styberraei, and those of the ephebarchus and the ephebes found at Beta Tsarkva, being probably those of the Alalcomenaei, contain a great many names. These are almost to a man Greek names; the exceptions are some Latin names, due no doubt to legionary fathers, and an occasional Illyrian or Thracian name, such as Epicadus, Beithys, Sitas, and Getriporis. If the Derriopes were in fact Illyrians or Thracians in descent, it is impossible to account for the purity of their Greek speech and for the almost complete dominance of Greek names, especially as the occasional one which is admitted cannot be regarded as substantial evidence of Illyrian or Thracian survival. It seems clear that these people were Greek by descent; that is they bore the mark of institutions, language, and nomenclature which distinguished the Hellenic tribes from their neighbours, and they were Greek in this sense before they became Macedonian in a political sense.
The closest parallels to the origin and situation of the Derriopes, Pelagones, and the others are to be seen in the tribes of Epirus, which were also neighbours of Illyrians. There we have the same tribal structures in large groups, e.g. Molossi or Chaones, and numerous small tribes making up a large group but each having its own koinon; the same use of Greek language and the same dominance of Greek nomenclature, both seen from inscriptions of 370-368 B.C. and neither attributable to the extension of Macedonian rule. But, more than this, we have a close similarity in the formation of the ethnics of north-western Macedonia and of Epirus: Lyncestae, Dolenestae and (in Epirus) Hyncestae, Ethnestae, Orestae; Derriopes and Hellopes; Alcomenaei and Eurymenaei; Argestaei and Aegestaei; Limnaei and Larisaei; Combreatae, Geneatae, (?) Maleiatae and Oriatae, Phylatae, Edonesatae; Pelagones and Chaones, Amymones, Sylliones. The names of the Derriopan cities are also comparable to those in Epirus: Styberra (Strabo's Stybara) to Kemara (modern Himarre), Alalcomenae to Eurymenae, Bryanium to Bryanium, Pluinna to Gitana. These analogies are so close that we have no reason to doubt the ancient tradition in Str. 7 C 326 and 9 C 434 that the Pelagones, Elimiotae, and Orestae, and in general the inland tribes bordering on the Illyrian mountains (οι υπερκειμενοι και συναπτοντες τοις Ιλλυρικοις ορεσι) were Epirotic tribes. I shall discuss later the origin and significance of Strabo's statements. They rest upon observations of ethnic relationships rather than of a way of life; for Strabo goes on in C 326 fin. to say that 'some' (indicating a different source) call the whole area up to Corcyra 'Macedonia' because of similarities of tonsure, dialect, and dress (the chlamys).
While we have the geography of the north-western area in mind, it is desirable to note the extent of Strabo's statement in C 326. The Illyrian mountains begin for him in book 7 to the north of the Via Egnatia, and the traveller has on his right 'the Epirotic tribes’ (C 323); in general these tribes lying inland and bordering on the Illyrian mountains occupy rough country, and some of them are 'close to the Macedonians’ rather (than to ? central Epirus), whereupon Orestias is mentioned (C 326). But the Illyrian tribes are interspersed there, that is those tribes by the south part of the (Illyrian) mountain range and those inland of the Ionian Gulf; for the Bylliones and Taulantii (being inland of the Ionian Gulf) and the Parthini and the Brygi (being at the southern end of the Illyrian range, ie. where the Shkumbi cuts through it) live inland of Epidamnus and Apollonia. After a short digression he adds apparently to his list of 'the Epirotic tribes' the Lyncestae, Derriopus, Pelagonia, the Eordi, Elimea, and Eratyra. And at the end of the chapter he explains, as he does also at C 434, that as a result of imperialism the Epirotes close to the Macedonians became part of their domains and indeed all except a few inland of the Ionian Gulf (C 326 fin. Πλην ολιγων των υπερ του Ιονιου κολπου). Now if his list of the interspersed Illyrian tribes is complete, it means that the Dassaretii, the Amantes, the Parauaei, and the Chaones are regarded by him as Epirotic, and of these the few close to Macedonia and inland of the Ionian Gulf who escaped Macedonia's clutches were the Dassaretii and the Parauaei. There are also independent reasons for supposing these two peoples to have been in some sense Epirotic; for FGrH I (Hecataeus) F 103 describes the Dexari—those after whom the district Dassaretis was named—as a Chaonian tribe living under Mt. Amyron, which is the great mountain behind Berat, Mt. Tomor; and FGrH 265 (Rhianus) F 19 attributes the Parauaei to Epirus as a Thesprotian tribe. I conclude then that the Dassaretii were a Greek-speaking people of the so-called Epirotic group, akin to the Lyncestae and the Orestae, for instance, and to the more southerly tribes of the Chaones. (2)
(2) Because the territory west of Macedonia and north of Epirus was known generally as Illyris and later was part of the Roman province of Illyric” (Hammond; Macedonia Vol 1 88-92)
Ky Hammondi jo qe s'ka qene n'dijeni, por thjesht i ka fshehur lidhjet e ketij kompleksi fisesh me simotrat e tyre ne Dalmaci ne menyre qe te arrije qellimin djallezor te de-ilirizimit te ketij rajoni....