Talk:Epirote League

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Epirote League seems to be the official name of the ancient state of Epirus. I believe that the title 'Epirus (ancient state)' is more representative and common.Alexikoua (talk)
 * It should be merged with Epirus,ancient stateMegistias (talk) 19:41, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Off course not. Epirote or Molossian League existed before and after the unified state/kingdom of Epirus (330-231 B.C.) It has also an interesting epigraphical history, unknown to the primary historical sources Catalographer (talk) 07:00, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Koinon
The word is rather general, meaning at root "the common thing." The equivalent in Latin is Res Publica. I know in English we like to make a republic into any non-autocratic country. The best example I can think of the contrast is the creation of the Roman Republic, which took the government out of the hands of the autocrat (the king) and placed it in the control of the public. It was "the common thing." The problem is, in ancient Greece, anything at all by way of government was "the common." After all, what is government of any type by anyone unless the concern of the people in common; that is, everybody? It does not mean any one type of government. We have a whole range of words: federation, confederation, alliance, and others, but the Greek uses koinon for all of those as well as any one of them. I think the article on koinon makes that clear. to koinon is "the government," never mind whose, how or why. This is not our use. The meaning for which we are searching is NOT in the koinon. It is in the qualifier to the koinon. In words such as Delian League, Peloponnesian League, Epirote League, everyone knew that Delos, Peloponnesus and Epirus were not states. Epirus was the highland country, like Macedonia. A good parallel is Austria-Hungary. Everyone knows that there was never and is not now any such country. But what, exacly, was it? If three tribal states decide to act in consonance under the kingship extended of one of them, what exactly is that? If later two of them are allied with different countries in a common war, what is that? And yet, everyone knew that the Athenian government was a koinon, and not the same koinon as the Delian League, which it dominated. Our political science vocabulary fails us here. There is no eye, there is no ear, there in no federation, there is no league. If you don't know what it is, how can you disambiguate? It remains ambiguous I fear, just as it was in ancient Greece. No, it can't go under Epirus (ancient state). That name is wrong anyway. There was no ancient state of Epirus. These old places had tribal states, and no matter what the superficial arrangements were, they remained tribal states. A search reveals only one use for koinon, "the common government," so, I am taking out the disambig tag. In English it seems to me the term "coalition" used below is sufficiently non-committal so I'm putting that in.Branigan 00:42, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

PS While I appreciate the "epirote communities" of the author cited in the next note, which I would certainly leave in there, what he really means is Epirote communities acting as tribal. Athens of course and many other urban states broke somewhat with the tribal concept, substituting geographic regions for tribes. The "tribal name" became the name of the location, pretty much as Paris from Parisii. Things were different in the back country. When the Epirote League split, it was not among community lines, but along tribal lines. Tribes did not split nor did their communities act independently. They did merge, however, as the top three tribes of Epirus were the result of the merger of 24 or more. The top tribe of course were the Molossians. They had the king. So, I'm changing communities to tribes. We don't understand it because we don't have it. Afghanistan still has it, I believe.Branigan 01:14, 28 October 2014 (UTC)