Durazzo

(anc. Epidamnus ). A town of Albania, European Turkey. It is fortified, and is a place of considerable antiquity. Durazzo was founded about 627 B.C. by a conjoined band of Corcyræans and Corinthians under one Phaleus, a Heracleidan. It became a great and populous city, but was much hara ed by the internal strifes of party, which ultimately led to the Peloponnesian war. Under the Romans it was called Dyrrachium (whence its modern name). Here Pompey was for some time beleaguered by Cæsar. In the 5th century it was besieged by Theodoric, the Ostro-Goth; in the 10th and 11th centuries by the Bulgarians; and in 1081 it was captured, after a severe battle, by the Norman, Robert Guiseard of Apulia.