The Opening Campaigns and the Battle of the Aoi Stena in the Second Macedonian War

In writing a book on Epirus which is in the press I omitted a full description of the battle of the Aoi Stena and of the campaigns in which it is set partly because it involves areas outside Epirus and partly because I had not space for such a description. My travels in Albania included the traversing of the higher ground just east of the Myzeqija plain (see Map II) and the crossing by ferry of the three great rivers, the Genusus (Shkumbi), the Apsus (Semeni) and the Aous (Vijosë), in late March and early April 1931. At that time these rivers were in spate, and the upper parts of the plain were full of sheep, enjoying the spring pastures before moving up to the summer pastures of the mountains. I went from Durazzo (Dyrrachium) up the Shkumbi valley to Elbasan, inspected some sites on the south side of the valley, walked through the low sink which separates the Shkumbi from the Devoli SSW. of Elbasan, and then visited Berat (Antipatrea). On other occasions I walked through the hill country southwards of Berat to Byllis and to Han Qesarat (Map I) in the middle Vijosë valley. In other years I explored the lower Vijosë valley as far as Apollonia, walked through the Aoi Stena and traversed the Vijosë valley from Kelcyrë to Konitsa and the whole length of the Drin valley. The course of these and other travels I have made is shown on Map I. Acquaintance with this terrain has enabled me, I think, to present a new interpretation of parts of Philip's campaigns and of the battle of the Aoi Stena; new in the sense that it is different from those of Kromayer and De Sanctis, who did not visit this area. The paper falls into the following parts: A, a geographical description; B, the campaigns of 200 and 199 B.C. in as far as they concern this area; C, the campaign of 198 B.C. An appendix, dealing with some topographical points, is added.