Pyrrhus

Dude I know you can't believe this but is written by Plutarch!

Or you can read the whole part, not just the 1st paragraph try to have more patience!

9In order to enlarge his interests and power he married several wives after the death of Antigone. He took to wife, namely, a daughter of Autoleon, king of the Paeonians; Bircenna, the daughter of Bardyllis the Illyrian; and Lanassa, the daughter of Agathocles of Syracuse, who brought him as her dowry the city of Corcyra, which had been captured by Agathocles. By Antigone he had a son Ptolemy, Alexander by Lanassa, and Helenus, his youngest son, by Bircenna. He brought them all up to be brave in arms and fiery, and he whetted them for this from their very birth.

The Life of Pyrrhus

He was raised in Illyria by king Glaucus and he had an Illyrian wife and a son

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/L ives/Pyrrhus*.html#2

Pyrrhos enjoyed an excellent reputation for tactics and generalship in ancient times and allegedly authored a tactical manual. In fact, many ancient thought Pyrrhos the greatest tactician:

"Prokles of Carthage gave higher marks for good luck and glittering successes to Philip's son Alexander, but for infantry and cavalry tactics and for inventive generalship he reckoned Pyrrhos was the better man"

-Pausanias 

Pyrrhos came very close to creating a western based empire similar to Alexander's eastern one, and this against tougher opponents. If he were not 'a fool of hope' history could have been much different.

I don't care at all about your postings since you can't provide any counter arguments to my sources that prove that Epirotes were Greek. What does hellenized mean by the way? It is well known that both Macedonians and Epirotes spoke northwestern Greek dialects, as it is obvious by inscriptions and other texts. If they had been hellenized lingually they would use dialects and types of southern Greeks. However, both of them had their own distinctive ways of speech as we have found out.

The fact that you consider Epirus to be an Illyrian land proves your expansionist dreams to lower south. If you want my homeland, come and get it (although I doubt it).

Even if i dont want to enter in your currect discussion about Epirus, i couldnt stop laughing while you are talking about propaganda and paste the link of one of the most well-known propagandistic site in the net aka http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/ to support your claims.

At least can you back up your claims founded in this quote "Its clear the Epirotes were not Greek, nor was Alexander and he didn't really care about Helleniztion" or all your claims about Alexander are taken as well from the above site???

Nothing you claimed is true and the argument that Pyrrhus' people were of Illyrian origin is totally false. He was king of the Molossians, the strongest nation in the region of Epirus. The propaganda that Epirote tribes were Illyrian is weak since archaeological findings scattered throughout Epirus prove their pure Hellenic origin.

For example, the oracle of Dodona in the territory of the Molossians was one of the most respectable worship sites of the Greek world, dedicated to Dodonaios Zeus (Zeus of Dodona). All the inscriptions found there during excavations are Greek and written in a northwest Greek dialect, which is a subcategory of the Dorian lingual family.

But if linguistics is not enough to persuade you, we can take a look at ancient sources regarding historical and ethnological issues. So, according to Diodorus of Sicily at 15, 13: "The Illyrians...came down to Epirus and established Alcetas as king of the Molossians...after those events the Molossians resisted and a great battle was fought, in which the victorious Illyrians slaughtered more than 15000 Molossians". The translation is mine since I couldn't find an English one but I assure you it is correct since I understand easily texts of the koine Greek language.

My main questions are two: 1) How come Molossians, the nation of Pyrrhus, were an Illyrian tribe since we see clearly the distinction in the passage between "Illyrioi" and "Molottoi"?
2) Moreover, if the glorious Hellenic nation of Molossis was of Illyrian stock, why would Diodorus mention that Illyrians invaded Epirus? (again we see a clear distinction of geographical nature this time).

But after all, let's see what Pyrrhus himself had to say about Greeks and "barbarians" (non Greeks). According to Plutarch's biography of the great Greek king, he is supposed to comment on the marching army of consul Laevinus as follows: "Megacles, this formation of barbarians is not barbarian, but we will see their acts" (16, 7-8). I must remind you that only a Greek would have described Romans as "barbarians" in the 3rd century BC.

Please try not to make such mistakes and avoid propaganda because you might offend other peoples' past and heritage.