Buthrotum/Bouthrotos (Butrint, Albania)

1 Buthrotum/Bouthrotos A settlement or sanctuary existed on the Acropolis by the seventh century BCE,judging (Butrint, Albania) from imported Corinthian pottery recovered at DAVID R. HERNANDEZ the site. Having launched excavations at Butrint in 1928, L. M. Ugolini unearthed the theater and On the coast of EPIRUS, Buthrotum/Bouthrotos the Sanctuary of Asklepios (see ASKLEPIOS). To was an ancient port city, located opposite the date, 219 Greek inscriptions have been discov- island of CORCYRA. Naturally oriented toward ered at Butrint; most are manumission decrees the sea, Buthrotum occupied a headland on a dating to the second century BCE. Excavations short navigable water channel (Vivari), which in the Roman Forum have demonstrated that joined an inland lagoon (Lake Butrint) to the the second century BCE represented a major Ionian Sea (Hodges 2006). The importance of phase of urbanism, entailing the construction the sea to the ancient Roman inhabitants of of the theater and buildings defining the Sanc- Buthrotum is illustrated by the city’s necropo- tuary of Asklepios and the AGORA (Hernandez lis. Monumental tombs built on both banks and C¸ ondi 2008). of the water channel faced the seafarers who As a port of call along the important approached the city’s “muddy” harbor (Strabo trade route linking Italy and the East via the 7.7.5). Buthrotum is described in VERGIL’s Straights of Otranto, Buthrotum had a Aeneid as a “little Troy” (parva Troia), founded geostrategic and commercial significance in the by Helenus, son of King Priam (Verg. Aen. western Balkans. During Rome’s civil war, JULIUS 3.289–505). Hecataeus of Miletos classified CAESAR stationed one legion at Buthrotum and Bouthrotos as a polis around 500 BCE (Steph. later established a plan to colonize the city Byz. Frag. 106), but Corcyra may have claimed (Caes. B Civ 3.16; Cic. Att. 16.16). With the it as a mainland possession (peraia) by the time help of CICERO, T. POMPONIUS ATTICUS vigorously of the Archidamian War (Thuc. 3.85). resisted the colonization program. Atticus

Two Story Building (Imperial Cult Temple?)

Roman Peristyle Tripartite Building Building Stoa

Temple

Statue Base Forum

Statue Shrine of Asclepius Base

Aqueduct

Bath

Road

0 50 m

Figure 1 Plan of Butrint’s urban center. Courtesy of David R. Hernandez.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 1225–1226. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah16211 2 owned an estate at Buthrotum, from which he Baptistery, whose stunning mosaic floor received substantial income (Nep. Att. 14). survives. Butrint’s hinterland includes a large Buthrotum was colonized in July 44 BCE pre- Roman villa at Diaporit and a Roman suburb dominantly by settlers who came from the on the Vrina plain (Hansen and Hodges 2007). urban poor of Rome. Just like the contempo- The latter was subsequently transformed in rary colonies at CORINTH and CARTHAGE,the Late Antiquity into a complex with a central colonization of Buthrotum was intended to Christian Basilica. relieve population pressure at Rome and stim- ulate trade with the eastern Mediterranean (see SEE ALSO: Baptisteries; Manumission, COLONIES, ROMAN EMPIRE (WEST)). Greek and Roman; Polis; Villa. An aqueduct and paved FORUM were con- structed in the Augustan period. In imperial REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS times, baths, fountains, and public buildings were constructed by civic benefaction. In the Hansen, I. L. and Hodges, R., eds. (2007) Roman second century CE, an elite woman, Junia Butrint: an assessment. Oxford. Rufina, adorned in marble a spring dedicated Hernandez, D. R. and C¸ ondi, Dh. (2008) “The Roman forum at Butrint (Epirus) and its to nymphs (Hodges, Bowden, and Lako 2004). development from Hellenistic to mediaeval Major changes came to the city in the fourth times.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 21: 275–92. century, when the classical urban center was Hodges, R. (2006) Eternal Butrint: an UNESCO permanently destroyed, owing to an earth- world heritage site. London. quake. Large-scale construction projects in Hodges, R., Bowden, W., and Lako, K., eds. (2004) the fifth and sixth centuries created the Byzantine Butrint: excavations and surveys Triconch Palace, the Great Basilica, and the 1994–99. Oxford.