Quotes about Albanians

There is much difference of opinion as to the proportions of various nationalities and races among the inhabitants of modern Greece. It is alleged by some that a very large proportion of the population is Sclavic Albanian and it is certain that a considerable majority of the people living in Attica Messenia and Bceotia and a goodly number of those living in Laconia and parts of Achaia Elis Salamis Corinth Argolis Arcadia and Achaia are Albanians. Yet it is probable that the Albanian Greeks do not constitute more than from one fifth to one sixth of King George's subjects These Albanians are however the most thrifty and enterprising of the dwellers in Greece and form the large body of the farmers They are strong and patient men sedentary keeping close to their affairs and their ambition does not extend to the holding of office. Every evening says Edmond About at sunset you will meet near Athens long processions of Albanians returning with their wives from the labors of the fields. They almost all live at the foot of the Acropolis where the Pelasgians lived of old. The Albanians speak an original tongue which does not mix with any of the other Sclavic idioms.

PELASGIANS a people spoken of by the ancient Greeks as the early inhabitants of the Grecian peninsula the islands and coasts of the Egean and portions of Asia Minor and Italy. Our knowledge about them is very vague and contradictory Several Egyptologists including Lenormant and Chabas suppose they find in the Egyptian inscriptions detailed accounts of the Pelasgic race. According to them the Pelasgians were even earlier than the 15th century BC a mighty people in possession of the northern coasts of the Mediterranean. They carried on an extensive commerce both by sea and land and had a navy large enough to venture on a war with Egypt. They formed a confederation with the Libyans Tyrrhenians and Acliasans during the reign of Rameses II which nearly conquered Lower Egypt and at one time advanced beyond Memphis. Ancient Greek writers speak of the Pelasgians as tribes not formed into a nation without a navy not warlike but migratory and agricultural. Homer regards them as the aborigines of Greece whose original seat was in the neighborhood of Dodona and who spread themselves over Thessaly Boeotia Attica and a portion of the Peloponnesus especially Argos and Arcadia. He connects them also with Asia Minor and Crete Eschylus makes Pelasgus the king from whom the race derived its name a ruler over the whole of Greece while Herodotus says that Greece was called Pelasgia and includes under the common name of Pelasgians the Athenians the Arcadians the lonians of Asia Minor the Lemnians the Samothracians and the Crestonians On the other hand Thucydides says the Pelasgians were only the most numerous of the many kindred races which inhabited Greece. They came from the east passing over from Asia Minor where they had built the two cities which bore the name of Magnesia to the islands and the mainland of Greece and establishing themselves principally in Thessaly Epirus and the Peloponnesus. In Italy the southern tribes such as the Peucetians Enotrians and Japygians were of Pelasgic race and at one time the population of Etruria was also Pelasgian to a very great extent. Judging alone from these vague allusions to them by the ancient Greeks it would seem that at the beginning of the history of Greece the Pelasgians of Asia were declining holding only a few scattered posts the last strongholds says Rawlinson of a people forced everywhere to yield to conquerors The natural explanation of the historical phenomena is that the Pelasgi were the original population of western Asia and that their emigrations across the sea into Europe were occasioned by the pressure upon them of immigrants from the east Lydians Phrygians and Carians who forced them westward and so caused their occupation of Greece and Italy. They were skilled in fortification and in every land which they once inhabited their presence can still be traced by numerous works of defence built of immense polygonal blocks of stone fitted together without mortar or cement which have outlasted the structures of succeeding ages and races. These works are commonly called Cyclopean from their grandeur and antiquity. No historic mention of the Pelasgians occurs in the later writers. Hence it is impossible to determine who they really were and whatever is advanced in regard to them is mere conjecture. In speaking of the origin and relationship of the Greek language mention has been made of some of the numerous hypotheses recently brought forward. It is also unknown to what language the name Pelasgian belongs some declaring it Greek others Semitic and other Thraco Illyric. Some connect it with (UHof or riffcryiiv) names of equally uncertain origin others with Pelishti or Pelashi Philistine meaning emigrant and referring to a supposed expulsion from Egypt and others adopt the popular tradition of modern Greeks that Shkipetaric the language of the Albanians is the modern representative of the ancient Pelasgian

and others adopt the popular tradition of modern Greeks that Shkipetaric the language of the Albanians is the modern representative of the ancient Pelasgian

The Italian tribes closely related to the Hellenic held the greater part of Italy in the dawn of recorded history but they were probably preceded by the Pelasgians During the earlier part of the Bronze Age it is probable that the Etruscans had the supremacy in Italy and that both Italians and Pelasgians were at first tributary to them or became mingled with them in some parts of Italy The Pelasgians were widely distributed over the two peninsulas and the Thracian land Their place in the Aryan family is still unsettled Donaldson thinks they were Slavs but the general opinion is that they were an early tribe of the same blood with the Hellenic and Italic races in an inferior stage of development. Professor Pott calls them Illyrians, Rev FW Farrar Albanians both agreeing in considering them an offshoot of the yet undivided Graeco Italic stock. They seem to have held the Grecian peninsula at the time of the first Hellenic settlements.

DR FLIGIF R ON THE PELASGIANS
The ethnographic position of the Pelasgians has been discussed for the last one hundred years by the most learned antiquarians but the arguments were not such as to arrive at a result acceptable to the majority of scientists. Aug Boeckh paid much attention to this question he thought this people were the racial ancestors of the later Greeks and their name was but another form of the term (pelasgian in written in pelasgian letters, I think lol, my notes)ancient. Dr Fligier thinks that the purely philological method of research must be abandoned in inquiring after the origin of the Pelasgians. In his recent article published in the "Archiv d'Anthro pologie vol 13 No 4 188O entitled Die Urzeit von Hellas und Italien 50" pages 410 he rests his argumentation not merely on the statements transmitted to us by antiquity but also on those furnished by modern linguistic ethnographic and anthropologic research. The Pelasgians had scattered over the whole of Hellas and the Peloponnesus over eight of the Egean islands through Thessaly the coasts of Macedonia Thracia and Asia Minor. They spoke a language which was not Greek but the people afterwards became hellenized in several districts Fligier thinks they were lllyrians or the ancestors of the present Albanians. The people of Epirus were Pelasgic also and the ancient colonists in southern Italy for instance the Japygians Peuketians Messapians just as well. They held the whole of what is now Greece and must be considered as the aboriginesl But early prehistoric immigrants from the Leleges and Carians reduced their territory. Thracians and Phrygians formed a second immigration and the four divisions of the Hellenes, or Greeks a third one. Thus the Pelasgians lost their independence by the overpowering influx of allophylic nations and fell into a condition of bondage. The Italian peninsula was originally inhabited by a pelasgic population similar to that of Greece. Fligier attempts to prove it linguistically by the identity of local names in both countries.

Very different from these Greeks are the Albanians with whom they have often been confounded. This people called by the Turks Arrnauts and by themselves Shkipeturs Mountaineers are 1,300,000 in number and inhabit the coast of the Adriatic between Servia and the kingdom of Greece. According to Herr von Hahn whose theory is now adopted by most ethnologists the Albanians are descended from the ancient Pelasgi who in Greece assimilated the Hellenic element in Southern Italy the Italian and in Illyria and Albania the Slavonian. They are a proud and martial people and have but little sympathy either with the Slavonians or the Greeks against both of whom they have frequently fought under Turkish generals Indeed they have preserved a sort of semi independence ever since the days of Pyrrhus whom as well as Alexander the Great they claim as their countryman. They were never thoroughly subdued by the Romans and when they were conquered by the Servians a number of them embraced the Roman Catholic faith in order to preserve the distinction between them and their conquerors. The Turks too found in Albania a more determined resistance than in any of the other provinces of the old Servian empire. The Albanian hero Scander beg (Prince Alexander) defeated them in twenty two battles and it was not until after his death in 1467 that the Albanians submitted but only on condition that they should be allowed to keep their arms and be exempt from taxes. To this day the Catholic Albanians or Mirdites who inhabit the northern part of the country enjoy a sort of independence under a hereditary prince and in the south the native pashas rule more like tributary sovereigns than the officials of a central government. The Mahometan Albanians have, it is true been the most devoted defenders of the Porte against the Greeks and have provided the sultans with some of their ablest and most energetic ministers but they never cease to strive afier their own independence. At home says Madame Dora d'lstria, they are troublesome vassals who only think of shaking off the Ottoman yoke,

The Shkipetars or Albanians are subdivided into two leading tribes or nations the Tosks and the Gheges both of whom are no doubt descended from the ancient Pelasgians but have in many places become mixed with Slavs Bulgarians and Rumanians and perhaps even with other nations for whilst in some tribes we meet with the purest Hellenic types there are others the members of which are repulsively ugly. The Gheges are the purest of their race and they occupy under various tribal names the whole of Northern Albania as far as the river Shkumbi. The territory of the Tosks extends from that river southward The dialects of these two nations differ much and it is not easy for an Acroceraunian to understand a Mirdit or other Albanian from the north Gheges and Tosks detest each other. In the Turkish army they are kept separated for fear of their coming to blows and when an insurrection has to be suppressed amongst them the Turkish Government always avails itself of these tribal jealousies and is certain of being served with the zeal and fury which hatred inspires. Up to the period of the migration of the barbarians the whole of Eastern Turkey as far as the Danube was held by Albanians But they were then pushed back and Albania was entirely occupied by Servians and Bulgarians.

FIFTEENTH MEETING
Fifteenth Meeting 26th February 1887 the President in the Chair Exchanges since last meeting 30 GM Rae and TG. Mason were elected members Mr AF Chamberlain BA read a paper on "Pre historic Ethnology". He said man probably originated in a continent occupying in former times the ocean south of Africa and Australia. He approximated in physical features to the negro. At a very early date the primitive stock divided into two branches one with lighter skin and Lair less woolly than the other. From the latter of these the surviving negro races have descended from the former the brown races of Africa from the parent stem of which have descended the Aryan and Semitic nations who passed into Europe and Asia respectively from Africa. The Semites are probably less Caucasian in type than the Aryans. The primitive seat of the Aryans before their dispersion was in Europe The Swiss lake dwellers and the old Pelasgians who survive in the Albanians of to day were descended from the primitive Aryan stock.

Nay the Albanians who have settled as colonies in modern Greece have adopted the Romaic language by the side of their own and in several places have forgotten the latter. In this way alone were the immortal Suliotes Greeks and even the noble Hydriotes whose destruction we shall perhaps have to deplore before the publication of this volume are Albanian setlers.

cosi le ragioni della lingua, cosi come quella della storia, delle tradizionie dei costumi provano che gli albanesi siano i diretti discendenti degli Illiro-Macedoni e degli Epirioti della antichita, rendendo percio sncora piu probabile l'opinione di chi fa degli Albanesi i continuatori degli antichi pellasghi, i Neo-pelasgi

Ricomporre a unita letteraria le disgiunta membra del popolo albanese., della gente di Pirro, Alessandro, di Giorgio Castriota e di Marco Bozzari.

The general ancient name of the Albanians was Epirotes. Epiras has produced its share of celebrities among them Pyrrhus the son of Achilles himself a neighbouring Thessalian Olympia the mother of Alexander the Great George Castriot better known as Scanderbeg Mustapha Bairactar the celebrated Pacha of Bustchnk who placed Sultan Mahmoud on his throne and perished in a subsequent revolt of the Janissaries in 1808

“..The rich Hydriote ship-owner, Conduriottis, held the title of President of Greece. He was an Albanian, unable to speak Greek. And so the leaders of both armies in the war came, as did many of the fighting men, from that violent illiterate race who had not yet learned to prefer nationalism to other loyalties”

“..It was probably at this time that the Albanian dress made its decisive step towards being regarded as the national dress of Greece. The Government party, being largely Albanians themselves, favoured the dress and a version of it was common among the Greek “klephts” and “armatoli”. Now it seemed that anyone who donned an Albanian dress could claim to be a soldier and share in the bonanza”

“..European friends of Greece, in their moments of disenchantment with Colocotrones, Mavrocordato, and the rest, had always been able to console themselves with the belief that the Greek fleet at least was sound. Here at least, despite the unfortunate fact that they were undeniably Albanians, were the worthy descendants of Themistocles and Artemisia”

“..As the news became more detailed there was a search for heros. The Mainotes were of course the Modern Spartans but Marco Botsaris, the Albanian Suliote leader, was usually taken as the Modern Leonidas. When stories appeared of a woman of Hydra, Boubolina, leading the Greeks in battle, she was dubbed the Modern Artemisia or the Greek Joan of Arc."

"...The first Christian Albanian migrations to what is today Greek territory took place as early as the 10th-12th century (Trudgill, 1975:5; Banfi, 1994:19), although the main ones most often mentioned in the bibliography happened in the 16th-17th centuries, when Albanians were invited to settle in depopulated areas by their Byzantine, Catalan or Florentine rulers (Tsitsipis, 1994:1; Trudgill, 1975:5; Nakratzas, 1992:20-24 & 78-90; Banfi, 1994:19).

...So, some have estimated that, when the Ottomans conquered the whole Greek territory in the 14-15th century, some 45% of it was populated by Albanians (Trudgill, 1975:6). Another wave of Muslim Albanian migrations took place during the Ottoman period, mainly in the 18th century (Trudgill, 1975:6; Banfi, 1994:19). All these Albanians are the ancestors of modern-day Arvanites in Central and Southern Greece"

“...Greece included considerably fewer than half of those who regarded themselves as Greeks by virtue of their language,their religion, and (less plausibly) their race"

"....It is a striking fact that the leading defenders of Greek liberty at this time were largely Non-Greek. Koundouriotis was decended from the Albanian invadors of Greece in the 14th century...One of the few leaders who maintained resistance far to the north of the Gulf of Corinth was the Souliote,Marko Botsaris,whos followers were largely Albanian"

"...It would be amazing if the people who are now called Greeks are of the physical types as what are styled Ancient Greeks, which generally means the inhabitants of Athens and Sparta. The Greeks have spread around the Aegean and Black Seas, and come into contact with the inhabitants of the littoral. The Macedonian Empire must have had a large non-Hellenic substratum. Constantinople and all Continental Greece were for centuries ruled by Romans, and during many subsequent centuries invaded and colonized by Slavs. The Crusades and Latin conquests brought a large influx of western Europeans, commonly called Franks; and in later times, extensive Albanian settlements were made in Greek districts. Clearly the Modern Greek must be of very mixed blood.

"..It must be confessed that, though the Greeks showed more energy than any other Christian race, those who now remain in Turkey (except the islanders) are not remarkable for physical vigour or military capacity. This, is no doubt, partly due to the fact that the people who revolted against Mahmud WERE largely Hellenized Vlachs and Albanians, who, under the modern system would not be regarded as Greeks. Nowadays the robust agricultural population is rarely Hellenic in its sympathies, for, as already mentioned, there are comparatively FEW parts where it is really Greek."

Page 31:

"....The height standard for the Greek army is nominally 5 feet 1 inch the average Hellene by no means being a tall man. Nor is this standard rigidly adhered to, for a recruit is not rejected on the score of height, if certified physically fit in other respects. Some of the hardiest soldiers are recruits among the Albanians and pastoral Koutso-Vlachs of Thessaly who form an important contingent."

"...His feet are shod with Albanian red leather shoes the upturned, pointed toes of which are finished with woolen turfs"

"...All Greek soldiers are required to be able to read and write, and if a conscript on joining has not already acquired those rudiments of education, he is put to school. Not-withstanding the educational efforts of the Government as many as 30 percent proved fifteen years ago or so to be completely illiterate, which not more than 25 percent had advanced beyond the ´three R´s´. This may be partly accounted for by the fact that these conscripts include both Albanians from the settlements in Attica and other parts of the Kingdom and pastoral Koutso-Vlachs, all of whom habitually speak their own dialects, and learn Greek only as a foreign tongue."

“...The Academy was built with bequest from Simon Sinas, the hugely wealthy son of Georgios Sinas, a Hellenized Vlach whose family came from Moschopolis in Southern Albania, who made his fortune in the Habsburg Empire and was himself the donor of Theophilos Hansen's observatory (1843-6)”.

“...Among the numerous islands of the Aegean, arise several barren rocks, some of which are however gifted by nature with small and commodious heavens. Of this number are Hydra Spezzia and Ipsara, the two first close to the Eastern shore of the Peloponnesus, and the later not far from Scio, on the Asiatic coast. Tyranny and Want had driven some families, whose origin like that of nearly all the peasants, who inhabited proper Greece, WAS Albanian, to take refuge on the desolate crags, where they built villages, and sought a precarious existence by fishing.”

“...One of Greece’s first and best Prime Ministers was John Kolettis, a Vlach who dressed like a Turk and had been court physician to Ali Pasha.”

“Most of the old Greek race has been swept away, and the country is now inhabited by persons of Slavonic descent. Indeed there is a strong ground for the statement that there was more of the heroic blood of Hellas in the Turkish army of Edhem Pasha than in the soldiers of King George.”

“The Modern Greek has been called a ‘Byzantine Slav.’ King George himself and Constantine his son are only aliens placed on the Grecian throne to suit the convenience of outer powers, being in fact descendants of tribes which to the ancient Greeks were merely Barbarians.”

“...In 1715 the Ottomans with a large disciplined army set themselves to recover the Morea [later renamed the Peloponnesus], the Venetians were left without support from the Greeks. The peninsula was rapidly recaptured and by the Peace of Passarowitz (1718) again became a Turkish dependency. The gaps left about this time in the Greek population were largely made up by an immigration from Albania”

“...The Athenian women are neither beautiful nor well made; they have neither the physiognomy of French women, nor the full beauty of the Roman dames, nor the pale white delicacy of the Turkish women –one sees nothing in the town but ugly creatures with broad noses, flat feet and ill-formed waists. It is because Athens, twenty five years ago, was only an Albanian village. The Albanians formed and still form, almost the whole of the population of Attica; and within three leagues of the capital, villages are to be found where Greek is hardly understood. Athens has been rapidly peopled with men of all kinds and nations; that explains the ugliness of the Athenian type.”

"...Venizelos advanced the famous theory of national consciousness as the test of nationality..."One may be temped", he said, "to raise the objection that a substantial portion of the Greek population uses ALBANIAN as its mother tongue, and is, consequently, in all probability, of Albanian orgin.."

"It may be useful to add that the present vice-president of Greek Ministerial Council, Mr Repoulis; the commander-in-chief of the Greek army, General Danglis; the commander-in-chief of the Naval forces and Minister of Marine, Admiral Koundouriotis; and the majority of the crews of the Greek navy, speak ALBANIAN as their mother tongue"

"...The Koundouriotis family, which produced the first president of the Greek Republic, was Albanian, like many of Idra's settlers, who fled here from the Turks in the 15th century. Despite popular mistrust of the Albanians today in the face of a new wave of immigration, elements of Albania have penetrated Greek culture: the foustenella or kilt that's a part of the formal attire if Greek soldiers is based on the Albanian fighting gear, and is sometimes referred to as the "Albanian Kilt".

“...In 1715 ...The gaps left about this time in the Greek population were largely made up by an immigration from Albania”

There is something hazardous, though alluring, in attempting to discover points of resemblance between modern and ancient customs; yet one may venture to hint, that the Albanians, from whomsoever they may have learnt the practice, preserve in this amusement something very similar to the military dances of which we find notice in Classical authors ...
But to return to the characteristic of this nation. Their love of arms is so ardent, that those who may fear too long an interval of peace in (their own country, enter into the service of the Pashas in every part of the Turkish empire. The guard of the sacred banner from Mecca to Constantinople, used to be entrusted to one hundred and fifty of them, armed and dressed in their own fashion.
The traveller Brown saw them pass through Damascus in procession. Egypt is at present in in their hands, under a Bey, a friend of Ali Pasha's ; and it was, in a great measure, their troops who compelled our unfortunate army to retreat from that country.

The Stradiotes, or Albanian cavalry, made a conspicuous figure in the old Italian wars; and to this day, have furnished the Kings of Naples with a regiment. Some of them we have seen in our service at Malta.

The famous Ghalil, commonly called Patrona, was an Albanian. This man, though a common seaman and a pedlar, headed the insurrection of 1730, in which Sultan Achmet III. was dethroned, and with a success of which neither ancient nor modern history can furnish another instance, remained for three weeks absolute master of Constantinople.

The Morea has been perpetually disturbed by those of this restless people, who have been either long settled in the country, or who (since they were called in to quell the insurrection of the Greeks in the year 1770) have constituted the guard of the Pasha of Tripolizza. These formerly amounted to about six thousand; they are now under Veli Pasha, not quite so many.
In the year 1799 they marched from ISapoli di Romania, and were near surprising the city of Tripolizza itself.

The troops with which Mustapha Bairactar opposed and quelled the Janissaries, were principally Albanians ; and since the death of that daring Vizier, the appearance of one of this nation in the streets of Constantinople, as it was once formidable, is now displeasing, to their late enemies.
A man boasted, in my hearing, that a friend of his had made forty Janissaries fly before him, and that any Arnoot could do the same. Without believing the enormous superiority, you may by this form understand some notion of the spirit of this people.

"The Albanians, these tigers of mountain wars ... have as their religion rebellion. Even their worst warrior is one of the strongest and bravest on the battle-field, just as if he was a knight on the legendary horse. But he has no horse, nor proper weapons for battle. Instead of the horse, he has a lance which strikes as lightning, he has spears who's points are full of poison as the sting of hornets, he has also a wooden bow with some arrows. Furthermore, he is stronger than iron ... "

- Ibn Kemal, Historian of the Turkish court during Skanderbeg's war against the Turks.

"The story of the Albanians deserves a study in itself. Attracted by the 'sword, the gold trappings, and the honours, they left their mountains chiefly in order to become soldiers. In the sixteenth century they were to be found in Cyprus, in Venice, in Mantua, in Rome, in Naples, and Sicily, and as far abroad as Madrid, where they went to present their projects and their grievances, to ask for barrels of gunpowder or years of pension, arrogant, imperious, always ready for a fight."

- Nicholas Pappas

"The Albanians have been born to resist and disobey."

- Dursam Bey, during the second siege of Kruja

"They are Nietzsche's over-men, these primitive Albanians — something between kings and tigers."

- Henry Noel Brailsford

"...isn't the Albanian, who, being a slave, did not allow enslavement, freedom-loving? This is a question that could hardly be understood by anyone who has not lived in Albania. The most liberty-loving people in the Balkans is the Albanian people. The Albanian, taken alone, as an individual, is an anarchist by nature. He would brook no bondage let alone on his people, he would not let anything, seen as possibly humiliating, befall his house. The Albanian house stands alone and apart from the rest..."

- Description from a brilliant Bulgarian observer and connoisseur of Albania. (1924)

They may be only soldiers, but never let them get close to your plate, and don't make them kneel before you, if you don't intend to decapitate them.

- Pasha Sulejman the Lightened

For Albania was not fashioned,
Made by God for the Circassians,
Nor for darkskinned Turks and Moors,
But for mountain hawks, those heroes
Whom the world calls the Albanians,
That they keep it for their children
For as long as life continues.

- Gjergj Fishta 1908

They are strewn with the wreckage of dead Empires–past Powers–only the Albanian "goes on for ever."

- Edith Durham

"The men who marched to Babylon , Persia and India were the ancestors of the Albanians..."

- Wadham Peacock

"The true history of mankind will be written only when Albanians participate in it's writing."

-Maximilian Lambertz

"Gli Skipetarë sono un popolo che conserva intatte le tradizioni dei loro antenati, un popolo orgoglioso ed assettato di libertà"

- Pietro Tassini, ambasciatore della Repubblica di Venezia, nel 1455.
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TRANSLATION FROM ITALIAN

"The Skipetarë are intact people who conserve the traditions of their ancestors, proud and tidy people of freedom "

- Peter Tassini, ambassador of the Republic of Venice, in 1455

I assure you they are Bismarcks — veritable Bismarcks. Some day they will demand, and Europe will have to give them what they ask !

A Christian Ottoman official speaking to Edith Durham about Albanians

.... Anon from the castle walls

The crescent banner falls,

And the crowd beholds instead,

Like a portent in the sky,

Iskander's banner fly,

The Black Eagle with double head.

And shouts ascend on high

.....'' Long live Scanderbeg.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Luboteni wrote:Pershendetje forumiste te nderuar

Nder te tjerash ka kohe qe ne mjediset virtuale citohet nga shumekush kjo thenie:

"The ancient populations of Illyria were of the same nationality as the Macedonians"(Appianus, Bell. Mithr. 55)

Une pajtohem katerciperisht me te, mirepo jam i interesuar qe ta di prej cilit autor eshte thene (a eshte Apiani qe njohim ne apo eshte ndonje tjeter), ne c'vend eshte thene, ne c'kontekst, ne c'faqe, dmth referenca e plote.

Ju lutem nese dikush mundet le te me ndihmoje!

62] "We first came to Asia with an army when Antiochus, king of Syria, was despoiling you. We drove him out and fixed the boundaries of his dominions beyond the river Halys and Mount Taurus. We did not retain possession of you when we had delivered you from him, but set you free, except that we awarded a few places to Eumenes and the Rhodians, our allies in the war, not as tributaries, but as clients. The proof of this is that when the Lycians complained of the Rhodians we deprived them of their authority. Such was our conduct toward you. You, on the other hand, when Attalus Philometor had left his kingdom to us in his will, gave aid to Aristonicus against us for four years. When he was captured most of you, under the impulse of necessity and fear, returned to your duty. Notwithstanding all this, after a period of twenty-four years, during which you had attained to great prosperity and embellishment, public and private, you again became puffed up by ease and luxury and took the opportunity, while we were preoccupied in Italy, some of you to call in Mithridates and others to join him when he came. Most infamous of all, you obeyed the order he gave to kill all the Italians in your communities, including women and children, in one day. You did not even spare those who fled to the temples dedicated to your own gods. You have received some punishment for this crime from Mithridates himself, who broke faith with you and gave you your fill of rapine and slaughter, redistributed your lands, cancelled debts, freed your slaves, appointed tyrants over some of you, and committed robberies everywhere by land and sea; so that you learned immediately by experiment and comparison what kind of defender you chose instead of your former ones. The instigators of these crimes paid some penalty to us also. It is necessary, too, that some penalty should be inflicted upon you in common, as you have been guilty in common, and something corresponding to your deserts. But may the Romans never even conceive of impious slaughter, indiscriminate confiscation, servile insurrections, or other acts of barbarism. I shall spare even now the Greek race and name so celebrated throughout Asia, and for the sake of that fair repute that is ever dear to the Romans I shall only impose upon you the taxes of five years, to be paid at once, together with the cost of the war expended by me, and whatever else may be spent in settling the affairs of the province.