Epirote League in 218 B.C.

Epirote League — Spring 218 BC · The Social War.

The Koinon of the Epirotes — the federal republic of the three great tribal stocks of the north-west: the Molossians of the inland glens, the Thesprotians of the coast, and the Chaonians of the far north. Less than a generation ago the last of the Aeacid kings, the house of Pyrrhus, was swept away, and the tribes bound themselves into one federal state with its assembly at Phoinike and its soul at the oracle of Dodona. In 218 the League stands with Philip V and the Hellenic Symmachy against the Aetolians — who but a year ago burst over the mountains and burnt the holy place of Zeus.

The kings are gone — the Aeacid line of Pyrrhus extinguished scarcely a dozen years past — and the Molossians, Thesprotians and Chaonians now rule themselves as one koinon, their general chosen yearly and their voice the assembly at Phoinike. But the new republic was tested at once in fire: last summer Dorimachus the Aetolian led an armed foray into the highlands of Epirus and came to Dodona, where he burnt the colonnades and threw down the very temple of Zeus. So in this Social War the Epirotes march with Philip of Macedon and the Symmachy, repaying impiety with the spear.