[5] Strabo, vii, p. 315; Arrian, i, 5, 4-11. So impracticable is the territory, and so narrow the means of the inhabitants, in the region called Upper Albania, that most of its resident tribes even now are considered as free, and pay no tribute to the Turkish government: the Pachas cannot extort it without greater expense and difficulty than the sum gained would repay. The same was the case in Epirus, or Lower Albania, previous to the time of Ali Pacha: in Middle Albania, the country does not present the like difficulties, and no such exemptions are allowed (Boué, Voyage en Turquie, vol. iii, p. 192). These free Albanian tribes are in the same condition with regard to the Sultan as the Mysians and Pisidians in Asia Minor with regard to the king of Persia in ancient times (Xenophon, Anab. iii, 2, 23).
[6] Diodor. xv, 13: Polyb. ii, 4.
[7] See the description in Thucydidês (iv, 124-128); especially the exhortation which he puts into the mouth of Brasidas,—αὐτοκράτωρ μάχῃ, contrasted with the orderly array of Greeks.
“Illyriorum velocitas ad excursiones et impetus subitos.”
(Livy, xxxi, 35.)
[8] See Pouqueville, Voyage en Grèce, vol. i, chs. 23 and 24; Grisebach, Reise durch Rumelien und nach Brussa, vol. ii, pp. 138-139; Boué, La Turquie en Europe, Géographie Générale, vol. i, pp. 60-65.
[9] Skymnus Chius, v, 418-425.
[10] Thucydidês mentions the ὑφαντὰ τε καὶ λεῖα, καὶ ἡ ἄλλη κατασκευὴ, which the Greek settlements on the Thracian coast sent up to king Seuthês (ii, 98): similar to the ὑφασμαθ᾽ ἱερὰ, and to the χεριαρᾶν τεκτόνων δαίδαλα, offered as presents to the Delphian god (Eurip. Ion. 1141; Pindar, Pyth. v, 46).
[11] Strabo, vii, p. 317; Appian, Illyric. 17; Aristot. Mirab. Ausc. c. 138. For the extreme importance of the trade in salt, as a bond of connection, see the regulations of the Romans when they divided Macedonia into four provinces, with the distinct view of cutting off all connection between one and the other. All commercium and connubium were forbidden between them: the fourth region, whose capital was Pelagonia (and which included all the primitive or Upper Macedonia, east of the range of Pindus and Skardus), was altogether inland, and it was expressly forbidden to draw its salt from the third region, or the country between the Axius and the Peneius; while on the other hand the Illyrian Dardani, situated northward of Upper Macedonia, received express permission to draw their salt from this third or maritime region of Macedonia: the salt was to be conveyed from the Thermaic gulf along the road of the Axius to Stobi in Pæonia, and was there to be sold at a fixed price.
The inner or fourth region of Macedonia, which included the modern Bitoglia and Lake Castoria, could easily obtain its salt from the Adriatic, by the communication afterwards so well known as the Roman Egnatian way; but the communication of the Dardani with the Adriatic led through a country of the greatest possible difficulty, and it was probably a great convenience to them to receive their supply from the gulf of Therma by the road along the Vardar (Axius) (Livy, xlv, 29). Compare the route of Grisebach from Salonichi to Scutari, in his Reise durch Rumelien, vol. ii.