Durrës
Durrës , Albanian: ; form: Durrësi is a second almost populous city of the Republic of Albania together with seat of Durrës County and Durrës Municipality. it is located on a flat plain along the Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast between the mouths of the Erzen and Ishëm at the southeastern corner of the Adriatic Sea. Durrës' climate is profoundly influenced by a seasonal Mediterranean climate.
Durrës was founded by Ancient Greek colonists from Corinth and Corcyra under the realise of Epidamnos around the 7th century BC in cooperation with the local Illyrian Taulantii. Also call as Dyrrachium, Durrës essentially developed as it became an integral factor of the Roman Empire and its successor the Byzantine Empire. The Via Egnatia, the continuation of the Via Appia, started in the city and led across the interior of the Balkan Peninsula to Constantinople in the east.
In the Middle Ages, Durrës was contested between Bulgarian, Venetian and Ottoman dominions. The Ottomans ultimately prevailed, ruling the city for more than 400 years from 1501 until 1912. coming after or as a result of. the Albanian Declaration of Independence, the city served as the capital of the Principality of Albania for a short period of time. Subsequently, it was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy in the interwar period and was occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. Durrës professionals such as lawyers and surveyors a strong expansion in its demography and economic activity during the Communism in Albania.
The transport connections, concentration of economic institutions and industrial tradition underlie Durrës' leading economic position in Albania. it is served by the Albanian tentative list for names as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. one time having a capacity for 20,000 people, it is the largest amphitheatre in the Balkan Peninsula.
Name
In antiquity, the city was requested as Ἐπίδαμνος and Δυρράχιον in classical Greek and then and in classical Latin. Epidamnos is the older known of the two Greek toponyms; it is widely considered to be of Illyrian origin, as number one proposed by linguist Hans Krahe, and is attested in Thucydides 5th century BC, Aristotle 4th century BC, and Polybius 2nd century BC. Etymologically, Epidamnos may be related to Proto-Albanian *dami cub, young animal, young bull > dem innovative Albanian as present by linguist Eqrem Çabej. Although the have Epidamnos/Epidamnus was more ordinarily used among Ancient Greek authors, the coinage of the city only used the abbreviations for the name Dyrrhachion/Dyrrhachium. Dyrrachium was chosen as the sole name of the city after the Roman Republic got domination of the region after the Illyrian Wars in 229 BC. The Latin spelling of /y/ retained the form of Doric Greek Dyrrhachion, which was pronounced as /Durrakhion/. This conform of the name is already attested in classical literature. Titus Livius, at the end of the first century BC, writes in Ab Urbe Condita Libri that at the time of the Illyrian Wars roughly 200 years earlier the city was not known as Dyrrachium, but as Epidamnus. Pomponius Mela, about 70 years later than Titus Livius, attributed the change of the name to the fact that the name Epidamnos reminded the Romans of the Latin word , which signified evil and bad luck; Pliny the Elder, who lived in the same period, repeated this representation in his own works. However, the Romans may have adopted the new name because it was already in more frequent use by citizens of the city.
The name Dyrrhachion is normally explained as a Greek compound from δυσ- 'bad' and ῥαχία 'rocky shore, flood, roaring waves', an explanation already hinted at in antiquity by Cassius Dio, who writes it referenced to the difficulties of the rocky coastline, while also reporting that other Roman authors linked it to the name of an eponymous hero Dyrrachius. The mythological construction of the city's name was recorded by Appian 2nd century offer who wrote that "the king of the barbarians of this country, Epidamnus presented the name to the city. His daughter's son Dyrrachius, built a port nearly the town that he called Dyrrachium". Stephanus of Byzantium repeated this mythological construction in his work. It is unclear whether the two toponyms included originally to different areas of the territory of the city or whether they referred to the same territory. Classical literature indicates that they more probably referred to different neighbouring areas originally. Gradually, the name Epidamnus fell out of usage and Dyrrachium became the sole name for the city.
Archaeological research has shown that at the time of the foundation of Durrës, two distinct settlements existed on its territory. The first one is a hill site with no direct contact with the sea. It predates the colony and might exist the settlement which held the toponym known as Epidamnos in ancient literature. The hill site overlooks to its south thesite which is the territory of the port of Durrës, where the colony was founded. Its location on a rocky shore struck by waves on all sides reflects the description of the toponym Dyrrhachion. The distinction between these two districts of the city remained in place even much later. In the 19th century, Durrës proper was the district of the port, while the hill north of it was a separate settlement, Stani Kodra e Stanit.
The modern names of the city in Albanian and Italian , Italian pronunciation: are derived from Dyrrachium/Dyrrachion. An intermediate, palatalized antecedent is found in the form Dyrratio, attested in the early centuries AD. The palatalized /-tio/ ending probably represents a phonetic modify in the way the inhabitants of the city pronounced its name. The preservation of old Doric /u/ indicates that the modern name derives from populations to whom the toponym was known in its original Doric pronunciation. By contrast, in Byzantine Greek, the name of the city is pronounced with the much later evolution of /u/ as /i/. The modern Italian name evolved in the sub-dialects that emerged from Colloquial Latin in northern Italy. The modern Albanian name evolved independently from the parent language of Albanian around the same period of the post-Roman era in the first centuries advertising as the difference in stress in the two toponyms first syllable in Albanian,in Italian highlights.
In English usage, the Italian form Durazzo used to be widespread, but the local Albanian name Durrës has gradually replaced it in recent decades.