XXVI – PHOENICIAN AND CAUCASIAN KOLHIGIANS COLONIZE THE WEST BALKAN COAST

XXVI – PHOENICIAN AND CAUCASIAN KOLHIGIANS COLONIZE THE WEST BALKAN COAST

The arrival of the western tribes to the west coast of the Balkans was recorded in prehistory in the Argonaut and the Cadmus and Harmonia myths. Europa, sister of Cadmus, and Zeus’s myth assisted mythologists in explaining the colonization of the Aegean by the Phoenicians. Similarly, the Argonaut myth assisted them in explaining the East Coast colonization by the Kolhigians of the Caucasus. By analyzing these two myths we can conclude that these colonizers belonged to the Egyptian-Phoenician ethno genesis.

Cadmus’s Phoenicians in Enhileia of the Balkans

Cadmus was the son of Phoenician king Agenor, king of Egypt. At one point in his life Agenor left Egypt and settled in Kaan, Phoenicia, where he married Telefasta (Agrippa) who bore him sons Cadmus, Kilik, Foiniks, Tas and Finei and daughter Europa. When Zeus kidnapped Europa, king Agenor sent his sons to find her and ordered them not to return home without her. (Apollodori, Bibliotheca (I-II century BC), III, 1.) And thus began the colonization of the Aegean by the Phoenicians starting with Rhodes, Crete, Thassos and then Boeotia where Cadmus built the Cadmian Fortress (1313 BC), around which the city Thebes later developed. (Eratosthenes: Cakasterismol & Geographica) Cadmus lived a happy life in Thebes with his wife Harmonia who bore five children. In their old age, however, the couple was forced to leave the city and abdicate the Theban throne to Cadmas’s grandson Pentei. After that they were loaded on a cart pulled by oxen and sent to the land of the Enhelei, who believed they would win the war against their neighbours if they chose Cadmus as their leader. Cadmus accepted his role and brought the Enhelei victory over the proto-Slavs and by this he became their king. Harmonia gave birth here to son Ilirei (Apollodori, Bibliotheca (I-II century BC), III, 1.) The land that was conquered from the proto-Slavs was then named Illyria (Steph. Byz., De urbibus, ed Gu. Hylander, Basillae, 1568), after Cadmus’s youngest son. Then, in honour of the oxen that brought Cadmus to this part of the world, he named a city “Budba” (Butoe-Bouthoe).

The Enhileians were a Paleo-Balkan mythological prehistoric tribe and western neighbours of the Macedonians and Brigians. They were dispersed around Lake Ohrid, along the Tsrn and Bel Drim valleys, up to the Boko-Kotor Bay. To the south, the Enheleians occupied the space down to the Kerauskian Mountains, now the Himari, along the shores of Epirus. Their

main occupation was fishing for eel, hence their name “Enheleians” which means “eels”. Tribes that existed to their east were the Desareti and the Penesti. According to Hyginus (Gaius Julius Hyginus, from about 64 BC to the XVII century AD), in his “Fabulae” 184 and 240, he said, “When Cadmus’s daughter Agava was at Thebes attending a Dionysian ecstasy, she saw in her son, Pentei, a wild beast which caused her to go mad. When she came out of the trance she ran from Thebes and went to Illyria where she married king Likoters in whose court she sought protection. However, when she learned that her relatives were in charge of the Enheleians, she killed Likoters and surrendered the kingdom to Cadmus.” According to the chroniclers, Cadmus and Harmonia were buried in Epidamen (today’s Durres). Epidamen (Epidamnon) became a colony of Corinth around 627 BC.

According to the myths “Seven Against Thebes” and “Epigon”, during the seventh generation after Cadmus’s rule, a large number of Cadmians were expelled from Thebes by the Panonian Argeds from the Peloponnesus and found refuge with the Enheleians who were ruled by the descendants of Cadmus.

According to Eratosthenes, the war of “Seven Against Thebes” took place in 1213 BC, and ten years later (1203 BC) the war of the “Epigonite” took place, after which Cadmus’s descendants were expelled. Again according to Eratosthenes, Hercules, who was of Egyptian origin, i.e. a relative of Cadmus, was born in 1261 BC. His son Skit, whom he had with queen Ehidna, was probably born when Hercules was of old age, i.e. around 1230 BC. This shows that the Scythian-Proto-Slavs were present there but as Illyrians, before Cadmus’s arrival in the western Balkans, which confirmed what Herodotus (Herodotus, History, V, 9, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988) said that the lands of the Scythians extended all the way to “Enet in the Adriatic”.

The Enheleians belonged to the Paleo-Balkan mythological population and so did their language of communication. For example, as mentioned earlier, the Enheleians received their ethnic name from the eels they hunted (Enhelis means eel). As for the Desareti, their ethnic name means Shumadinci (forest people) where “dasys” means “dense forest” and “arete” means virtue. The Desareti capital was Lihnida (lihnos means lamp, torch); today’s Ohrid. Located north of their capital was Mount “Karaorman” meaning “black forest”. The ethnic name of the “Penesti” (Penestes) means “labourers”, while “Pirusti” means “fiery”, “combative”. These names are also preserved in a number of horonyms and hydronyms such as Prokletie (pro-klytos: most revered, greatest), Mount Zebes (Zeus) located near the town Kuks, the river Drin (from drys, drymos, dryma meaning oak forest), Himara (himaros meaning baby goat), Durres or Drach (Dyrahion meaning two hills) and others.

From analyzing the above we see that the Enheleians were first colonized by the Phoenicians from Thebes, be it through Cadmus leading the Enheleians in a war against the Illyrians, or through the marriage of Cadmus’s daughter Agave to Likotersei the Illyrian king and by his murder, usurpation of the Enheleian throne. This probably took place after Beoetian Cadmia was built in 1313 BC, which means that the Scythian Illyrians, in that period, were being threatened by the Enheleians.

According to Herodotus (Herodotus, History, IV, 5, 7, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988), the Scythians were the youngest people in the world. “When the Scythians talk about themselves, they say that they are the youngest people in the world...” Further on he said (Herodotus, History, IV, 7, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988), “…from their first king Targitai to Darius’s campaign against them (in 512 BC), on the whole, neither less nor more, a thousand years have passed.” It follows then that if Darius fought against the Scythians in 512 BC, they must have been present in the region since 1500 BC, i.e. during the great migrations of the Indo-European peoples.

Colonization of Hil in Enheleia

The most famous of all so-called “Greek heroes” was Hercules, son of Zeus and Alkmeona, Amphitrion’s wife. He was Persei’s grandson from the Danai Egyptian dynasty and he had two sons, both named Hil (Yllos). The elder Hil, whose mother’s name was Deianira, married the beautiful Iola and settled in Marathon. The older Hil fought a war against his relative Evristei of Mycenae and won, but later was killed in a duel against Ehem. The younger Hil, son of Hercules and the nymph Melita, was the eponimic hero of the Illyrians and the town Hil in Korkira (Corfu), Homer’s Sheria, where the Phoenicians (Phaiekes) lived.

According to Apolonius (Apolonius, Rhodius, Argonautica, ex. Rec. IV. 358, R.Fr.Brunckii, I-II Lipsiae, 1810-1813), Hercules went to Sheria Island after he went mad and killed his children or because of unrest in the continental part of the country, north of Epirus, where they established the coastal city Orikos, near Keraunian Mountain and the Province Hil. Hil was the ancestor of the Hilani. According to Homer (Homer, Odis., VI, VII, VIII, IX), the ruler of Sheria Island was Alkinoi (Alkionos), son of the king of Nausit and Mikrid, who, with Areta had five sons and a daughter named Nausikaia. He lived in luxurious palaces. Nausikaia befriended

Odysseus the sailor who reached the Phoenician coast with great difficulty. Later she married Odysseus’s son Telemachus.

King Alkinoi was also mentioned in the Argonaut myth where he managed to save Medeia from the persecutors of Kolhida.

According to Apolonius (Apolonius, Rhodius, Argonautica, ex. Rec. IV. 538, R.Fr.Brunckii, I-II Lipsiae, 1810-1813), Hil emigrated to the Cronus Sea (Gulf of Kvarnerski) with a group of followers and established a colony in Illyria. Soon after their arrival, the new colonists began to clash with their neighbours the Liburnians, well-known sailors and pirates. During Roman times, Liburnia was continentally spread along the Adriatic coast from the Rasha River in Istria to Krka. Hil was killed during a conflict that erupted over some cattle and was buried in Istria. Since then, the largest part of the peninsula on the Adriatic coast had two horonyms; Hyllis (Shumadia) and Histria, while the southern part was named Hil and its residents were called Hileians (Shumadians). The horonym “Histria” is a complex form from the Ionian word “Histia” (Istiae) meaning house, hearth, altar, food and from the suffix “ria" from the Ionian word Rie (Reie). Rea in mythology was a Titan, Cronus’s sister, who gave birth to goddess Hestia. Thus, the peninsula was dedicated to goddesses Hestia and Rea and the surrounding sea was dedicated to the Titan Cronus.

The Kolhigians of the Adriatic

The Eastern Adriatic shore colonization was introduced in the Argonaut myth by Apollonius of Rhodes (295-215 BC), a poet from Alexandria. Apollonius left Alexandria and moved to Rhodes Island after he had a disagreement on some fundamental issues associated with epic poetry, with his teacher Kalimah. Rhodes became his second home. Here Apollonius published his epic “Argonautika”, which, among other things, introduced us to Kolhigian colonizing plans and their migration from Kolhida in the Caucasus to the Western Balkan coast.

Kolhida (Kolhis) used to be called Eia (Aia), which in mythology was a country of the Caucasus located on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, south of Sauromatska (Scythia) in Asia, in modern day Georgia. Its end was called Mingrelia and Imertia. It was located on the banks of the rivers Riona and Fasis, which constituted the boundary between Europe and Asia (Herodotus, History, IV, 37, 45, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988) where Kolhigians lived. The land was marshy so the buildings had to be placed on top of posts (kol-his, the Macedonian word “kol” means post, spike, stick and the Slavic word “zhizha” means house). The place, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains between the Black and Caspian Sea at an altitude up to 5633 metres, was an unhealthy ecological environment but had great mineral wealth.

The mineral wealth in the Caucasus is tied to the Prometheus myth. Prometheus was the son of the Titans Iapet and Temida (Tamish River). He was the greatest benefactor of mankind. According to Hesiod (Hesiodus, Fragmenta & Theogonia, p. 508, 571), Prometheus gave the people fire, placed hope in their souls, taught them how to build houses, revealed the movement of the stars, the numbers, the alphabet and memory, and everything else that nature had hidden in her womb. This unfortunately angered Zeus and when he became ruler of the Olympic gods he cruelly punished Prometheus. He tied him with unbreakable ties to a rock at the peak of a mountain in the Caucasus where he suffered horrible tortures. Prometheus was saved by Hercules when he passed through the Caucasus on his way to the Hesperiditi. Hercules shot, with an arrow, the terrible bird of prey that ate Prometheus’s liver. In mythology, the eagle was Zeus’s messenger, a prophetic bird, “king” of all birds. The name “airtos” (eagle) belongs to the Paleo-Balkan Glossology. The king of Kolhida was called “Aites” and the old name of Kolhida used to be “Aia”, meaning land of eagles.

Helius gave his son Aites rule of Corinth, in the neighbourhood of his Danai relatives from Egypt who ruled Argolida, but Aites gave up his rule to Boone (Vounos), a Corinthian hero. He did that under the condition that he got his heritage back when he returned from Kolhida. (Apolonius, Rhodius, Argonautica, ex. Rec. III. 242, R.Fr.Brunckii, I-II Lipsiae, 1810-1813.)

Aites became king of Aia in Kolhida of the Caucasus where he lived in a beautiful palace with a fountain from which honey, milk, wine, oil and water flowed. When Friks, son of Atamant, king of the Beotians, flew in Kolhida on the ram with the Golden Fleece, Aites allowed him to marry his daughter Halkiona. In exchange and in appreciation he gave Aites the Golden Fleece. King Aites then placed the Golden Fleece in an oak forest in Arieva and ordered a terrible dragon to guard it. It had been foreseen that Aites would rule Aia for as long as he possessed the Golden Fleece.

Besides Apollonius of Rhodes, the Egyptian origin of the Kolhigians was also confirmed by Herodotus (Herodotus, History, II, 104, 105, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988) when he wrote: “The Kolhigians were originally from Egypt and I personally was convinced of that before I heard it from others... The Egyptians regarded the Kolhigians as the descendants of the Sezostrian soldiers, but I think it is also possible because the Kolhigians had black curly hair and only the Kolhigians, Egyptians and Ethiopians were circumcised (male organs)... and that they made linen cloth like the Egyptians.” Writing about the campaigns of the various Egyptian kings outside of Egypt, Herodotus (Herodotus, History, II, 103, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988) said that Sezostris passed through Europe and Asia “... and arrived at the River Fasid, but I can’t say for sure if Sezostris himself left part of his army to settle there or some of his soldiers, being tired of wandering, decided to settle by the Rived Fasid on their own.” Sezostris belonged to 12th Egyptian dynasty during the Middle Kingdom, which covers a chronological period from 1943 to 1787 BC. (Kurt, A., Old East from 3000 to 330, ZZUNS, Belgrade, 2004.)

Kolhigian exodus and colonization of the Adriatic eastern coast

Apollonius incorporated the Kolhigian migrations as part of the Argonaut myth but here we will use king Aites’s exile and the achievements of the participants to explain the eastern Adriatic shore colonization by the Kolhigians. We will not go into the reasons why the migration took place, for which there may be multiple reasons, especially bad weather, pressure from the nomadic Scythian tribes from the north, or Ibero-Albanian pressure from the east, or Persian and Turkish pressure from the south. We will only follow the migration path and the regions colonized.

When king Aites found out that his daughter Medea had taken the Golden Fleece and fled with Jason on the “Argo” heading for Greece, he ordered his son Apsirt to go in pursuit and to not return without his sister and the Golden Fleece. We will not go into details about Apsirt and the Argonaut Expeditions because these stories were covered in the chapter about the Argonauts.

While the Argonauts sailed along the Danube and Sava (Eridan) Rivers to the Sea of Kronos, the Kolhigians went around through the Bosphorus through the Aegean Sea, down the Peloponnesus, the Ionian Sea and landed at Korkira Island (Drepanon-Corfu). The Kolhigians eventually caught up with the Argonauts at king Alkinoi’s court and asked them to hand over Medea. Then, after the king consulted his wise wife Aretha, Alkinoi promised the Kolhigians that he would hand over Medea only if she was still a virgin. In the meantime, Aretha secretly arranged for a wedding and Jason and Medea were married during the night. At dawn a public announcement was made announcing hat Medea was Jason’s wife.

Being unable to take Medea back and being instructed to not return home without her, the Kolhigians abandoned their plans and some decided to stay in Korkira and together with their relative Hil, son of Hercules, settled in the “black and deep river” in Illyria located near Cadmius’s grave. This confirms that the Kolhigians colonized the western part of the Balkans after the Illyrians, who were of Scythian origin, and so were the Veneti because Herodotus (Herodotus, History, I, 196, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988) wrote that: “The Veneti were an Illyrian tribe, and the Scythians are from Venetia in the Adriatic...” Herodotus in his chapter “Melpomena” (Herodotus, History, IV, 49, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988) wrote: “The River Angra (Drina) runs north from Illyria and becomes Bront (Sava), at the Tribilian Plain (Shumadiska Plane) and Bront flows into the Istar (Danube) River.” From this we can conclude that on the left side, along the basins of the rivers Drina (the landscapes Piva, Tara and Lima on the right), Sutieska, Bistritsa, Pracha etc, lived the Illyrian-Scythian Proto-Slavic tribes before the region, located between today’s Epirus and Montenegro, was settled by the Kolhigians.

The ancient geographer Strabo (63 BC - 19 AD year), born in Amasia in Pont, in his works “Geography” (Strabo, Geographia, I, 2, 3, 9, VII, 5, 5, Meineke, Lipsiae, I, II, III, 1913) wrote that part of the Kolhigian expedition which landed in Korkira went north and built the city Pula on the Istrian coast and another part settled on the Istrian islands not far from Kirkina Aiaia (Lastovo Island), which are now called Apsirtidi (Absyrtides Strabonis) and Apsoros of Kres and Osorus. According to Roman maps, the name “Apsirtidi” (of the Illyrian islands) belongs to the Kvarnerski Islands. Using this we can show the path that the Kolhigians, who were of Egyptian-Phoenician origin, took from the Caucasus to the eastern coast of the Adriatic to the “Illyrian Black-deep river” (Illyrikoio melamvathes potamoio), i.e. to the confluence of the Black Drim and to the Kvarnerski Islands (Absyrtides Strabonis) and to Istria.

Chronologically, the Kolhigian migrations took place during the Argonaut Expeditions, which, according to Eratosthenes, took place in 1225 BC. According to Eratosthenes, Cadmus built Thebes in Baeotia in 1313 BC, probably when he was in his thirties, and during his sixties, around 1283 BC he became military commander of the Enheleians and fought against their Illyrian neighbours. According to historian and geographer Stefan Byzantinski (St. Dyrrahion), Cadmus and Harmonius’s graves were located in Epidamen (Durres). When Ovid (43 BC - 17 AD year), the famous Roman poet, was expelled from Rome he moved to a town called Tom located near the Black Sea, where, according to the Argonaut myth, Apsirt, leader of the Kolhigians, was assassinated. In his works entitled “Metamorphoses” (Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses, IV, 562-602), Ovid said that Cadmus and his wife were buried in Illyria, where Cadmus founded the city Butoe (Budva), which was named after the bull (vous) that pulled the cart that brought them to the land of the Illyrians.

Cadmus’s descendants, the Phoenicians of Beotean Thebes, were expelled from Epigon in 1203 BC and moved to Illyria. At the same time the Egyptian Kolhigians arrived and together, in 1124 BC, they expelled the Pelasgian Tesproti who colonized Thessaly. This shows that the migration between the Caucasus and the Balkans took place before the Trojan War (1193 BC) and before Odysseus’s incidents in the Adriatic and before the arrival of the Dorian Hellenes (1104 BC).

The Kolhigians and their Egyptian counterparts left many place names, which are similar to those in the Caucasus, in the region between the Keraunsian mountains (Keranya - now Kimara), along the coast of Epirus and along the Boka-Kotor Bay. Details about these can be found in Vukcheviħ’s works (Г. Вукчевиħ, О поријеклу Илира, Подгорица, 1992). Included among the onomastics of Phoenician origin are Budva (Buthoe), Tivat (Thebe), Foinitsa (Foinikia, exit point of the Phoenicians from present-day Lebanon), in Bosnia, west of Sarajevo, a rich mining centre, etc. Left from the Kolhigian onomastics are mostly toponyms around Lake Skadar such as Chani, Kolhinium, Ulci Pola (mouth of the Black Drim), Poti, Tuzi, Kavaia, etc. And the hydronyms Kir, a tributary of the Black Drim, the River Drina and others.

With this we have determined that the colonizers of Enheleia were of Phoenician (Theban and Kolhigian) origin. However, in addition to all these mythological ethnonyms the Cadmians and Kolhigians left behind in the western Balkans there is also the ethnic name Illyrians. Unfortunately the study that deals with the “Illyrians” is a relatively young discipline.

Illyrians of the Western Balkans

According to Mpampiniotis (1998) the ethnonym “Illyrians” (Illyrioi) is of unknown origin and it means “to live”, “to be here” (diamenö), i.e. native. Its origin is Indo-European. During Roman rule Illyria encompassed the region near the Adriatic Sea from Istria to Drilon in Epirus, with the mountainous region in the background, extending to the Sava and Drina Rivers. In archaeological terms, the Illyrian tribes belonged to the “Urn Field” carrier Culture from the Scythian region of Pannonia.

The verb “illö” means “to reign” while the word “ilys” is of old Slavic origin and means mud (Mpampiniotis, G.: Synhroni gramatiki tis koinis neas Elinikis, Athinai, 1967). There are several theories surrounding the etymology of the word “Illyrians”. Some say the name originated from the words “ille-il-aos”, meaning god loving and from the suffix “lyra” meaning harp, minstrel, which will be the subject of this study.

It has been said in mythology that the Enheleians were natives to the western Balkans but were overwhelmed by their neighbours, the Illyrians, so they chose Cadmus of Boeotia as their leader because they were confident he could help them overcome their problems. In this myth Cadmus was represented as a snake and when he became victorious over the Illyrians, the Enheleians made him into their king. His wife Harmonia gave birth to a son named Ilirei. (Apollodori, Bibliotheca (I-II century BC), III, 5, 4, and beyond.) According to Apian (Apian, Historia Ilyrica, II), Ilirei’s sons were eponymic heroes of the Illyrian tribes.

According to Herodotus (Herodotus, History, IV, 49, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988), the country which belonged to the Illyrians extended from where the River Drina (Ango-Aggros) entered the flow of Brong (Vrongos – Sava), to the Tribilian Plain (Trivallikon pedion), i.e. in Shumadia where Brong flows into the Istar (Istros-Danube). With that he defined the Illyrian northeastern boundary. Further on he wrote that in the east Illyria bordered with Scythia (Herodotus, History, IV, 49, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988) which lay just behind Thrace (now Bulgaria) and ran through Istar, a country belonging to the Sigini (Sigynnai) tribe, extending all the way down to Enet in the Adriatic Enet (Herodotus, History, V, 9, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988), thus designating the northern border of Illyria.

Regarding Scythian customs, Herodotus (History, I, 19, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988) wrote: “... In my opinion, the smartest custom is similar to that of the Illyrian Veneti tribe...” According to Herodotus, the land of the Scythians extended from Venetia in the Adriatic to Media and Persia in the east, and “all together they were called Skoloti (Sköloi), named after their king; the Hellenes, however, called them Scythians”. Further on Herodotus wrote: “When Hercules was pursuing Gerion’s herd he arrived in a country called Hileia (Ylaie), (i.e. S.umadia...) which was now called Scythia (Skythia), and got caught by the winter and ice, and slept while wearing his lion’s skin... and his horses disappeared in a mysterious way...” (History, IV, 8, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988) “When he woke up, Hercules looked for his horses everywhere but could not find them having traveled all over the country... he then went to Hilea... and there in a cave he met a creature half woman half beast whose name was Ehidna, queen of Hilea… who told him that she had his horses and would not give them back unless Hercules mated with her. Under the circumstances Hercules obliged her and got his horses back... from that encounter three sons were born… The first was given the name Agatirs, the second Gelon and the youngest was named Skit (Skythos)... And from this Herculean son descended all subsequent Scythian kings.” (30 History, IV, 9, 10, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988.) The above story written by Herodotus took place in Shumadia, in the Tribilian Valley, where the kings were Scythian Triballis (a compound word consisting of the number 3 and the word “bal” or “baal” meaning king, leader; i.e. Vojvodina). South of the Tribilians were the Scythian Dardanians (Aplonoius, Rhodius: Argonautica, ex rec, II. 178, R. Fr. Brunckii, I-II Lipsiae, 1810-1813., And Diod. Sic., Bibl., IV, 43), then the Scythian Peonians and the Scythian Linkestians located around Lakes Ohrid and Prespa. Further to the south, in Orestidia, were the Scythian Macedonians of the Argead Dynasty who took pride in their Herculean origin. Here too Herodotus was right (Herodotus, History, XIII, 137, Matica Srpska, Belgrade, 1988) regarding Illyria’s boundaries which he describes as follows: “Three of Temens descendants, brothers Gauan, Aerop and Perdiccas, fled from Arg to Illyria and from Illyria crossed into Upper Macedonia.”

On the south, Illyria bordered Epirus, which according to Thucydides (Thucydides, Povijest Peloponeskog installment, p. I, 24, Dereta, Belgrade, 1991) was “Near Epidamen (Durres) where the barbarian Taulanchanti (Taylantioi), an Illyrian people, lived”. With this information, ancient historians and logographers determined Illyria’s borders, which were also accepted by the Romans as Illyricum, as well as the Adriatic coast up to Drilon (Drinos or Lumi Shushitsa) with the mountainous region in the background up to the Drina and Sava Rivers.

Due to the study of the Illyrians being a relatively young science, it was established by archeology in the middle of XIX century. Scientists so far have included the following tribes in the Illyrian fold: Taulanti, Desareti, Partini, Penestri, Arditsi, Pleraetsi, Daorsi, Ardiaitsi, Labeateitsi, Diokleateitsi, etc., up to Liburno and Veneto in Istria and Venice.

Adhering to Herodotus’s descriptions of the Scythian tribes in the Balkans, among which included were the Veneti-Eneti (Enetoi), and the fact that the Veneti were an Illyrian tribe of the Adriatic, (Херодот, Историја, I, 196, Матица Српска, Београд, 1988) we can conclude that the Illyrians in the Balkans were of Scythian Proto-Slav origin and not related to the Cadmian Phoenicians and Kolhigians which the topo-onomastics confirm in the Western Balkans.

The existing archaeological, linguistic, mythological, prehistoric and migration studies can be largely explained by the genetic roots of the Balkan peoples and confirmed by the genetic profile provided by “iGenea”, the Swiss Institutes of Genetics. All these scientific studies are potentially interesting from an anthropologic, ethno-genetic and a humanitarian point of view, that the vast majority of the people in the Balkans are of Aeolian origin (Aia-country h’olos-all, totally, completely, i.e. “Aioleis” - compatriots) with a common history and a common future, a biological imperative.