Apollonia, Albania

The Monument of Agonothetes dominates the ruins of Apollonia, Illyria. It commemorates the death of a high-ranking official's soldier brother and was the assembly place of the local council.The most important of the several Apollonias was the one in Illyria (modern Albania), the ruins of which are situated near the city of Fier. It was founded in 588 BC by Greek colonists from Kerkyra (Corfu) and Corinth. The site was already used by Corinthian traders and the Taulantii, an Illyrian tribe, who remained closely involved with the settlement for centuries and lived alongside the Greek colonists. The city was said to have originally been named Gylaceia after Glyax, its founder, but the name was later changed to honour the god Apollo.

Odeon (Theater)Aristoteles considered Apollonia an important example of an oligarchic system, as the descendants of the Greek colonists controlled the city and prevailed over a large serf population of majority Illyrian origin. The city grew rich on the slave trade and local agriculture, as well as its large harbour, said to have been able to hold a hundred ships at a time. Apollonia, like Dyrrachium further north, was an important port on the Illyrian coast and one of the western starting points of the Via Egnatia leading east to Thessaloniki and Byzantium in Thrace. It had its own mint, stamping coins that have been found as far away as the basin of the Danube.

The city was for a time included among the dominions of Pyrrhus of Epirus. In 229 BC it came under the control of the Roman Republic, to which it was firmly loyal; it was rewarded in 168 BC with booty seized from Gentius, the defeated king of Illyria. In 148 BC Apollonia became part of the Roman province of Macedonia, later being incorporated into the province of Epirus. In the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar supported the latter, but fell to Marcus Iunius Brutus in 48 BC. The later Roman emperor Augustus studied in Apollonia in 44 BC under the tutelage of Athenodorus of Tarsus; it was there that he received news of Caesar's murder.

SFC Steve Chenault