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On the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, approximately halfway between the ruins of the Acropolis in Athens and those of the Colosseum in Rome, lie the ruins of a string of colonies the Hellenes established on Illyrian soil — in what is now the country of Albania. These Hellenes founded colonies, not only on the Adriatic Coast, but also on the Black Sea, Sicily, North Africa and other parts of the Mediterranean.

The ancient ruins, hardly known to the general public today, are closely connected to the Classical Greek civilization. These colonies were organized in the typical Greek fashion and ran as autonomous political entities — enacting their own laws, organizing their own defense, and contracting accords with other city-states and foreign powers.

The Roman poet, Virgil, tells us in his Aeneid (Book III) that this area of the Adriatic coast was founded by a Group of Trojan exiles, Helenus, the son of Priam and Hecuba, fled Troy after the first Trojan War and settled in Illyria or Epirus. There Helenus and his followers founded the cities of Buthrotum and Chaonia.

Buthrotum (now known as Butrint) was established on a headland on the shores of a fine bay only 9 miles from the island of Corfu. This location fell within the land of the Caeones, an Illyrian tribe already settled there when Helenus arrived. The name Buthrotum means “place abounding with cattle and grazing land” and was a perfect place for the new city, it lies just south of Saranda on a rocky peninsula. Its legendary founding as a New Troy was by the Trojan Prince Helenus and Andromache, widow of Hector.