Butrint (Albanian: Butrint or Butrinti) is an Ancient Greek[1][2][3] city and an archeological site in Sarandë, Albania, close to the Greek border. It was known in antiquity as Βουθρωτόν Bouthroton or Βουθρώτιος Bouthrotios [4] in Ancient Greek and Buthrotum in Latin. It is located on a hill overlooking the Vivari Channel. Inhabited since prehistoric times, Butrint has been the site of an Epirus city, a Roman colony and a bishopric.
Contents
[hide]
-
1 Ancient history
-
2 Archaeological excavations
-
3 Directions
-
4 See also
-
5 References
-
6 Further reading
-
7 External links
|  [edit] Ancient history
Bouthroton was originally a town within the ancient region of Epirus. It was the one of the major centres of the local Greek tribe of Chaonians with close contacts to the Corinthian colony on Corfu and Illyrian tribes to the north. According to the Roman writer Virgil its legendary founder was the seer Helenus, a son of the king Priam of Troy, who had married Andromache and moved West after the fall of Troy. The Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus as the Latin poet Virgil wrote that Aeneas visited Bouthroton after his own escape from the destruction of Troy.
First archaeological evidence of sedentary occupation dates to between 10th and 8th centuries BC. The original settlement probably sold food to Corfu and had a fort and sanctuary. Bouthroton was in a strategically important position due its access to the Straits of Corfu. By the 4th century BC it had grown in importance and included a theatre, a sanctuary to Asclepius and an agora.
In 228 BC Bouthroton became a Roman protectorate alongside Corfu and Romans increasingly dominated Bouthroton after 167 BC. In the next century, it became a part of a province of Illyricum. In 44 BC, Caesar designated Bouthroton as a colony to reward soldiers that had fought on his side against Pompey. The local landholder Titus Pomponius Atticus objected to his correspondent Cicero who lobbied against the plan in the Senate. As a result, Bouthroton received only small numbers of colonists.
Bouthroton in Antiquity
In 31 BC, Emperor Augustus fresh from his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium renewed the plan to make Bouthroton a veterans' colony. New residents expanded the city and the construction included an aqueduct, a Roman bath, houses, a forum complex, and a nymphaeum.
In the 3rd century AD, an earthquake destroyed a large part of the town, levelling buildings in the suburbs on the Vrina Plain and in the forum of the city centre. Excavations have revealed that city had already been in decline and was becoming a manufacturing center. However, the settlement survived into the late antique era, becoming a major port in the province of Old Epirus. The town of late antiquity included the grand Triconch Palace, the house of a major local notable that was built around 425.
Remains of the 6th-century baptistery
In the early 6th century AD, Buthrotum became the seat of a bishop and new construction included a large baptistry, one of the largest such Paleochristian buildings of its type, and a basilica. Emperor Justinian strengthened the walls of the city. The Ostrogoths under King Totila sacked Buthrotum in 550. Evidence from the excavations shows that importation of commodities, wine and oil from the Eastern Mediterranean continued into the early years of the 7th century when the early Byzantine Empire lost these provinces. In this, it follows the historical pattern seen in other Balkan cities, with the 6th to 7th century being a watershed for the transformaiton of the Roman World into the Early Middle Ages.
By the 7th century, following the model of classical cities throughout the Mediterranean, Buthrotum had shrunk to a much smaller fortified post and with the collapse of Roman power was briefly controlled by First Bulgarian Empire before being regained by the Byzantine Empire in the 9th century. It remained an outpost of the empire fending off assaults from the Normans until 1204 when following the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantine Empire fragmented, Butirnt falling to the breakaway Despotate of Epirus. In the following centuries, the area was a site of conflict between the Byzantines, the Angevins of southern Italy, and the Venetians, and the city changed hands many times. In 1267, Charles of Anjou took control of both Buthrotum and Corfu and renovated the walls and the basilica.
The Republic of Venice purchased the area including Corfu from the Angevins in 1386; however, the Venetian merchants were principally interested in Corfu and Buthrotum once again declined. In 1490, they built a tower and a small fort. The area was lightly settled afterwards.
In 1797, Butrint came under French control when Venice ceded it to Napoleon as a part of the Treaty of Campo Formio. In 1799, the local Ottoman governor Ali Pasha Tepelena conquered it, and it became a part of the empire until Albanian independence in 1912. By that time, the site of the original city had been unoccupied for centuries and was surrounded by malarial marshes.
|
Yüklə 3.52 Mb.