From the Illyrians to the Albanians ( sixth to eleventh century AD)

At the beginning of the sixth century AD the country of Illyria, including the regions which belonged to the western Empire overthrown in 476, was entirely under the authority of the Eastern Empire. From an administrative point of view these countries were divided into eleven provinces, as opposed to the twenty-five which Byzantium now had in the Balkans. We can find the list, with its principal towns, in Hierocles, drawn up in sixth century in the reign of Justinian. Three of these towns, Dalmatia, Savia and the Mediterranean Noric, formed part of the diocese of western Illyricum attached to the prefecture of Italy, while lower Pannonia, first Moesia, Mediterranean Dacia, second Macedonia, and four southern provinces covered the present area of the Albanians, that is to say, Dardania, Prevalitania, New Epirus, Ancient Old Epirus with their respective metropolises, Scupi, Scutari (Shkodra), Dyrrachium, Nicopolis.

At the beginning of the sixth century the Emperor Anastasius undertook to construct at Dyrrachium, his birth town, a ring of fortresses with triple ramparts, with an exterior wall 7 kilometres long and a central wall so thick that if one can believe the Byzantine writer in the twelfth century, Ann Comnenus, four horseman could travel abreast along the top road. Remains of some remarkable pieces of works still survive: to mention only a few, the palaeochristian baptistery at Buthroton, the basilica with fifteen hemicycles in the village of Lin and the majestic colonnades in the amphitheatre discovered at Dyrrachium (Durres).

But these were final decades of the old society. On the northern bank of the Danube new troops of barbarian were massing, who aimed to pillage the riches of the Balkan and Constantinople, the capital of Empire. To check these invasions, Justinian had a large number of castles built along the boundaries and hundreds of citadels in the various provinces. His biographer, Procope of Caesarea, has left us in his book “De aedificiis” the list of 167 fortresses constructed or reconstructed in the four southern Illyrian provinces. In Dardania alone Procope counted 72, on of which, called Justiniana Prima, was built at Tauresian, Justinian's birthplace.

The inhabitants abandoned their villages at the approach of the barbarians.