12 Facts About Molossians

Molossians were a group of ancient Greek tribes which inhabited the region of Epirus in classical antiquity.

The Molossians sided against Rome in the Third Macedonian War and were defeated.

The Thesprotians, the Chaonians, and the Molossians were the three principal clusters of Greek tribes that had emerged from Epirus and were the most powerful among all other tribes.

Molossians were renowned for their vicious hounds, which were used by shepherds to guard their flocks.

Molossians were among the Greek colonists that reached the Ionian shore of Asia Minor during the period of its colonization.

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The stratagem worked, and the Molossians fell upon the Illyrians, who were encumbered with booty, and defeated them.

Molossians briefly sided with the anti-Roman Macedonian-Illyrian pact in the Third Macedonian War.

Molossians connected the measures taken by the Romans to Charops of Epirus, member of a rival tribe the Chaonians – a Roman ally – who in order to gain command of the region, pushed for the extermination of the Molossians.

Eugene Borza argues that the Molossians originated from those Proto-Greek tribes that inhabited northwestern Greece in c 2.

In each given historical era, the Molossians were regarded as "barbarians" by contemporary Greeks, not on the basis of language, but because of their tribal way of life, their organization, and their pastoral economy.

An important point is that the function of this construction of a fictional genealogy by the ruling dynasty of the Molossians was not to Hellenize the ethnic origin of their people, but to heroize their house.

Once a year the king of the Molossians, having sacrificed to Zeus Areios as god of war, made a formal exchange of oaths with the Molossian tribes, swearing to rule in accordance to the laws.