TROJAN DIASPORA

TIME LINE: FROM TROY TO HELLAS

THE HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES OF WHY HISSARLIK (ILIOS/TROY) AND ITHAKA BECAME SO FIRMLY ATTACHED WITH THE NAME OF HOMER CAN ONLY BE ADDRESSED BY UNDERSTANDING HOW HELLAS GRADUALLY ACQUIRED CERTAIN PLACE NAMES MENTIONED IN THE HOMERIC EPICS WHICH WERE TAKEN THENCE BY DORIAN INVASIONS AND IONIAN MIGRATIONS WELL AFTER THE TROJAN WAR.

It is at the time of the Trojan War (or better yet, at the time of the Fall of Troy, c. 1,200 BC) that the term "Illyrioi" comes into historical being as a collective name for a number of independent albeit closely related tribes of a common Slavic stock. Later Greek lore preserved the story that Illyrus was their epIonymous ancestor, and that

(according to one version) he was descended from Kadmos (and hence cognate with the Kadmeioi); thus, the Kephallenes of Neriton will have been the later Illyrian Plerai; also preserved was the anecdote that it was Odysseus who, among the many horrible things he did, assasinated the child Astyanax, born to Hector and Andromache and thus the first of a genuine Trojan stock and anathema to any idea of a new Illirian political order

In the wake of the new political order in the region —namely, a patriarchy established over the former Trojan matriarchy— there follwed a Trojan Diaspora which spread into the four winds, both by land and by sea. See Gesta Trojanorum (Deeds of the Trojans).

Two important sea routes were taken by Aeneas, who eventualy would come to the shores of Latium, and by the Hylleis, who would settle at different places along the Adriatic's Balkan Coast. In time, the Hylleis would become known as Illyrian Taulantioi and Chaones, and, still later, as Ghegs and Tosks.