The "Second Sun of the Illyrian Land

 (Decoding the Inscription of Leontius in Gortyn, Crete)

A unique epigraphic discovery from the ancient city of Gortyn on the island of Crete provides an interesting look into the history of Illyricum. Designated by epigraphists as IC IV 325, this well-preserved inscription honors a high-ranking imperial administrator named Leontius.

The text has sparked significant interest, particularly within Albanian historical and cultural circles online, due to its explicit poetic reference to the "Illyrian land" (γέης Ἰλλυρίδος) and its potential implications for regional history and alternative historical interpretations.

The Inscription: Text and Translation

The monument consists of a rectangular marble statue base dating roughly between 412 and 441 AD. It originally supported a statue of Leontius, erected by a local official named Callinicus on behalf of the provincial council of Crete.

Original Greek(the language of the Romans)Text

Εἰκόνα τήνδ’ ἐσάθρει με Λεοντίου ἅγνου ὑπάχου

ὃς Κρήτην πολιὴν μοῦνος ἔθηκα νέην.

Ἀγχίθυρος δ’ἔστηκα Δίκης· κριντῆρσι γάρ εἰμι

ἤπιος εἰθυδίκοις, τοῖ(ς) δ’ ἀδίκουσι δέος.

Στῆσε δὲ Καλλεινικος ἐνηεῖ δόγματι νήσσου,

γέης Ἰλλυρίδος δεύτερον ἠέλιον.

Standard English (Academic Translation)

"Consider me, statue of the worthy prefect Leontius, who alone made the Cretan city young again. I was set up by the portals of Dike [Justice]; for I am mild to just judges, but terrible to the unjust. Callinicus set me up, on the benevolent behest of the island, me, the second sun of Illyricum."

Literal English Translation

Look upon me, this image of the pure prefect Leontius,who alone made ancient Crete young again.I stand right at the doorway of Justice; for I am gentle to upright judges, but a terror to those who do wrong.Callinicus set me up, by the benevolent decree of the island, [me,] the second sun of the Illyrian land.

Understanding the Context: Administrative and Judicial Reform

The inscription describes a period of municipal and institutional rejuvenation in Gortyn, which served as the capital of the Roman province of Creta et Cyrenaica (and later the separate province of Crete).

Leontius served as the prefect (ὑπάχου) or governor. According to the verse, he single-handedly revitalized a "graying" or decaying Crete (Κρήτην πολιὴν... νέην), restoring its institutions. The text emphasizes his judicial reforms—he claims to stand right at the doors of Dike (the goddess of Justice), acting as a protector to honest judges but a source of terror to corrupt ones.

The Linguistic Debate: "Illyricum" vs. "Illyrian Land"

The most compelling part of the inscription lies in its final line, where Leontius is given a striking title: γέης Ἰλλυρίδος δεύτερον ἠέλιον.

A point of critique raised by regional commentators is the standard English translation of γέης Ἰλλυρίδος as simply "Illyricum" (referring to the Roman administrative Praetorian prefecture).

A more literal, precise translation of the ancient Greek is "of the Illyrian land" (γῆ meaning earth/land, and Ἰλλυρίς being the adjective for Illyrian). Therefore, the phrase translates exactly to:

"The second sun of the Illyrian land."

The title "second sun" (δεύτερον ἠέλιον) was a comparison used to honor the great deeds of the Prefect Leontius,  whose brilliance, benevolence, or governing power brought a metaphorical rebirth to a region.

Historical Interpretation and Alternative Perspectives

The assertion that Leontius calls himself the "sun of the Illyrian land" while governing Crete has led to two distinct historical viewpoints:

1. The Alternative/Cultural Viewpoint

From an alternative historical perspective, this testament challenges mainstream paradigms. Proponents argue that by explicitly tying the identity of Crete's restorer to the "Illyrian land," the inscription implies a deep, underlying ethno-cultural or demographic connection between the ancient inhabitants of Crete and the Illyrians. Under this interpretation, the monument serves as historical evidence that contradicts conventional geographical and linguistic boundaries—such as the Jireček Line (a conceptual boundary dividing Latin and Greek linguistic influences in the ancient Balkans)—by suggesting a much wider Illyrian footprint that reached into the Aegean islands.

2. The Mainstream Academic Viewpoint

Mainstream historians and epigraphists interpret the phrase through the lens of Roman provincial administration. During the 5th century AD, Crete was administratively subordinate to the Praetorian Prefecture of Illyricum, which was one of the major administrative divisions of the Late Roman (Byzantine) Empire.

In this context, Leontius was likely an elite administrator originally native to the region of Illyria, or someone who had achieved great acclaim ruling within the Prefecture of Illyricum before being deployed to revitalize Crete. Calling him the "second sun of the Illyrian land" was a poetic way for the Cretan council to honor his homeland and administrative pedigree, celebrating him as Illyria’s greatest gift to their island.

Conclusion

The mainstream viewpoint, is a far fetched one, it first adapts the translation from “Illyrian land” to Illyricum, and then assumes Leontius was from Illyria, ignoring the fact that the inscription calls Crete: “Illyrian land” , not Leontius himself.

Thë inscription itself, gives a great clue why the Romans called the entire Balkans and Crete as the Praefectura Illyricum meaning this territory is the land inhabited from the Illyrian nation, although we can certainly exclude, the name Illyrians to denote an ethnic entity, similar to the modern nations today.

REBRANDED HELLENES

1. Greek(demotiki) was the Language of the Church, NOT a Race

Demotiki was the vernacular evolution of Koine Greek, which survived and maintained its continuity primarily because it was the language of the Orthodox Church, the liturgy, and the administration of the Rum Millet.

• For centuries, the Greek language survived as a sacred and administrative tool of the Christian faith, rather than an "ethnic" marker.

• When peasants spoke variations of Demotiki, they were speaking the vulgar, localized descendant of the religious language that bound their community together.

2. “Greek" Meant Orthodox

Before the 19th-century national re-branding, if you asked a peasant in the Peloponnese what they were, they would not say "Greek" or "Hellene." They would say Romios (Roman/Orthodox Christian) or Xristianos (Christian).

• To the Ottoman state and to the people themselves, the word "Greek" (Yunan) was often used by outsiders as a linguistic shorthand, but the actual lived identity was entirely religious.

• There was no secular "ethnic Greek" identity separate from the Church.

3. The 19th-Century Secularization

The major project of 19th-century Greek nationalism—driven by intellectuals influenced by the French Enlightenment—was to take this religious community and forcibly convert it into a secular, European-style ethnic nation.

To do this, they had to decouple the Greek language from its purely Orthodox Byzantine context and re-attach it to an imagined, ancient classical past. They took the vulgar variant of the religious language (Demotiki), tried to sanitize it with Katharevousa, and told the people that their language wasn't just the way they prayed, but proof that they were a distinct, ancient race.

I think this is the correct perspective of the Greek history and it hits on the exact mechanism of how modern nations are constructed: they take pre-existing religious or imperial linguistic structures (like the vulgar Koine preserved by the Church) and re-brand them as ancient, biological, ethnic inheritances to justify the creation of a new state.

Did they really speak Greek?

 Ancient Macedonia, was not a country which would look like a modern state, with an unified language and culture. Most of the ancient state entities were run by powerful theocrats who usually didn't speak the same language/s as the regular people.

The Macedonian rulers and theocrats, most likely have used a Greek dialect, for their religious activity,  but the regular people must have used one or more different spoken languages. We simply don’t know. We don’t even know if the Greek spoken by the elite, for their liturgy, is the Greek we know, because although many believe Greek was the vernacular language of a distinct nation, in fact it wasn’t. But that’s another issue, which leads to a long discussion, because people use the modern standards, to judge about the ethnicity and nationality of the past.

So for now lets leave the ancients, and lets go to the Middle ages.

In 1685 Petro Bogdano the archbishop of Scopie and Kingdom of Serbia, published in Italy his bilingual Gospel called “Cyneus Prophetarum” in Italian and Epirotic

What language is the Epirotic? It is certainly Albanian and there is no discussion about that:

but Bogdano calls himself a Macedon, which apparently is another identity. Not for Bogdano thou, he calls himself: born a Macedonian who master only Albanian, his native language well, out of the two languages Italian and Epirotic(Albanian) that he wrote the book.

So Macedonian is the Epirotic language, Albanian language.
Now someone would assume that because of the “bad habit” of the Middle Ages authors to call the new nations by their ancient names, will justify the fact that Macedonian and Epirotic are called Albanian . Fair enough, but then what happened to the Greek if the language of Macedonians and Epirots were to be originally Greek?
At this point someone will assume… I don’t know what.
The truth is that we don’t know what face the Greek language, have had in the past, but during Middle ages, the language scholars called it DEAD LANGUAGE, SCHOLASTIC a language USED ONLY BY THE LEARNED, NOT A NATIONAL LANGUAGE.

And by that we already know that the Greek, has been in the first place A SACRED LANGUAGE, not used by regular people.

The same authors(Johannes Amos Comenius 1592-1670), of the Great Didactic (Didactica Magna) keep calling Epirotic as Albanian, used in Epirus and Macedonia, and not strangely enough Serbian a dialect of the Bulgarian, and by Bulgarian they mean Old Church Slavonic, another sacred language, created almost 1000 years after, ancient Macedonia.

Now, the same Petro Bogdano, gives a time and a place about Alexander the Great Monarchy:

At this point, the time is not important but the place is, according to Bogdano, is Petrela Albania, which in Italian version is Pella. Strangely enough the name Macedonia(in Italian version) is called Matti in Albanian version, which reminds us the old name of it Emathia, a significant meaning in Albanian language: e mathia= the big one. As if this was not enough, he calls Alexander the Great: LEKA I MATH, which means the same thing: Alexander the Great, with a meaningful difference, that calling him like this, means he was son of that land, Albanian land. It’s clear that Bogdano, didn’t just create a spoiled name for Alexander, but he calls him by the name his own people call their son LEKA, and the name that 400 years after, Albanian nation would name their currency LEK

The same LEKA, was not an unclaimed Albanian figure, Scanderbeg himself, claimed him, his followers and Epirots who successfully fought against Rome, as Albanians:

But Scanderbeg had no idea that a time would come that a new nation created only in the 19th century will manage to convince the entire world, that Macedonians were Greeks, a thesis they will have hard time to prove, because the intellectuals long before them, in their own language, have permanently established what nation the Macedonians belong:

The Albanians more than any other nation on the face of Earth deserve to be called Macedonians.

Abbreviation of the semantics and the semantics of the abbreviations

 

Con—συν—Κοινή—oμόνοια--common—comune=N=I=1

All these terms regardless the language (Latin/English/Greek) dedicate their meaning to the uni-ty, number one.

                                                                             fig1

Number one pronounced in different languages:

Uno(ital)---One(Eng)----Ena(Greek)

Unit—unison-unite-unity-universal, are all terms derived from the number 1 (un-o) semantics.

Unit---one entity

Unite---join in one

Unity----joined around one

Universal---one inclusion

So all these terms in English are about joining around a singularity.

Now linguistically, the analog terms in every language, has in common the letter N:

Latin-unus, Neolatin-uno, Germanic eins, Semi Latin/Germanic one, Greek ena, Catalan un

And goes like this for every language of this family. Therefore is obvious that the sound /N/, is the ideosound behind the meaning of this word, the ideo-sound of the singularity and continuity.

If you watch the structure of this word in most languages, we have v-c-v structure. Albanian is an exception, in this language we have a pure c-v monosyllabic structure një( and the dialectical variations nja, nië, një, njo, nje) which keep the nasal /N/ as the meaning spinal bone followed by a fluid vowel, which performs the function of a closing sound.

It’s obvious that in Proto-Albanian, a primitive NATURAL  language, this language employees an the ideo-sound /N/, to give a meaning to the word one-një. If we had to explain how did we arrive from proto n-à një, the evolution went like this. The sound /n/ although a powerful ideo-sound that serves as a bone, is not a complete body of a word, to express a complex semantics, like the meaning of singularity and unity, it needs a “flesh” around it, and this “flesh” is a the closing vowel /i/ in the case of Albanian:

N(as a ideosound)--->ni(completed followed by a closing sound)

But “ni” in Albanian creates a sound ligature: "nj", a phoneme on its own, which would request the necessity of  another vowel, to follow, usually ë, a, o, that doesn’t carry a semantic value, but is just there to complete the pronunciation, as a closing sound. So the initial /n/ evolves to “një” in a real spoken language, without losing the ability, to tell us the former primitive form. Other languages all derivates of a Sacred cultivated languages carry an initial vowel, which in fact different from the closing vowel, carries a semantic value, and this value is the meaning: is(to be)

is-est-është-osht-asht are all equal to a meaning e(in latin-italian). So if we had to use an abbreviation of this meaning, we simply use the initial vowel:

ena= e na= is one  (Greek)

one= o ne= is one  (English)

unus= u n(e) –us(parasitive suffix)  (Latin)

It’s clear that the words in these languages are manufactured terms and not a product of a spoken language.

Let’s get back to the Greek, this language is no exception, every single word in that language in this particular dictionary(fig 1), has originated from the meaning of one( unus), The word συν that normally has been translated “together” is just the “Greek version” of the Latin “con”=together, where:

c(latin)= σ (greek)

and υν =un=uno=one=1

What do represent c & σ? They simply are a short form of the word “qui” in Latin, and they instate its meaning by being represented as this same family letters:

σ->c->ç-> k->q in words like this:

cili or që (Albanian)---qui(Latin)---quale(Italian)---(whi)ch(English) and dozens of similar words in other languages.

So  συν in Greek, is exactly the same meaning as “con” in Latin=which one=which are included in one= together

And kοινή is exactly the same qi në= qui one

The word mono(μόνο) simply means: me no=with one, only one

Oμόνοια—>o-oμόνο-ια= the unity( ia feminine noun suffix) and o a definite article creating  an adjacent word παρακείμενος, par exelence.   The examples are countless, every single word in every language does follow the rules  of the semantics, and the abbreviations used by “the language engineers”,  who created the sacred languages.  There is NO PIE language, this hypothetical language, is a pure fabrication of the linguists mind,  it’s a falsehood theory, which fails to understand that languages are in two forms,  natural and cultivated by men, none of them comes from empiric primitive roots,  but the former are created by served ideo-sounds in nature, mostly onomatopoeic ,  and the latter are just adjacent forms of the natural words, that join together in one the  simple meanings, making them visually more complex.

ILLUMINATION

Shouldn't be any debate, about the concept, if the sun is a star or not and vice-versa, and not because the Modern Astronomy says so. What is common between the sun and a star, is the illu-mination concept. Now a concept or a thought is the immediate post-action in our brain, after our perceptive senses, in our case the sight, are affected by a phenomenon, in this case the sun and star significant ability to "re-le-ase the li-ght". A thought is like a silent word, or a silent sentence "read" or "written" inside our brain. During their existence, different cultures for example the Ancient Greeks, mastered to express and/or graphically convey these "read" or "written" "words" and "sentences", inside our brain, and they 'decided', to call it ἥλι(ος) or ἥέλι(ος)( in its archaic form-Homeric) which is strikingly identical to the second part "ielli" of the word Dielli=sun in Albanian. Semantically the word Di-ielli, means "the day star" in Albanian, and is the final result after a series of minor sound treatment and changes, since the real word for "day" in Albanian is "dita", but the root "di" is followed by the ending 't' and nominative "a", the same like : dri-ta, na-ta, pa-ta, ty-ta etc. 

(Similar root we can find in Latin 'dies', which obviously yield 'dia' in Spanish or 'diorno' becoming 'giorno' in Italian after dg-->g sound transformation or 'journée' in French which probably yields the "journey" in English.)

So in few words the terms ἥλιος or ἥέλι(ος) in Greek or Illi(ylli)[star] & Dielli(sun) are graphical representatives of a thought/s about a object/s which illu-minate/s.
Lexically and phonetically, now we are dealing again with involvement of an onomatopoeic syllabic supplement- structure: l+vowel, which happens to be a lexeme in Albanian 'le'=re-le-ase~lë-shoj(Al) unlike any other IE language. 

Definition of illumination, in every culture is:

1 : the action of supplying or brightening with light or the resulting state. 2 : the luminous flux per unit area on an intercepting surface at any given point — called also illuminance.

This "light supply"(illumination) or the synonym brightening, is called ndriç-im(ndritshim) in Albanian and is acquired : në drite(in light)-->n(ë)dritë)--->ndrit(verb)=gleam=glitten=briten

The involvement of a primitive onomatopoeic structure such as l-e, is done due to the automatic semantic reflexes the palatal "l" carries as an ideo-sound [or as an ideograph, to imitate the sound or the phenomenon it suggests. The automatic deployment of a following vowel in this minor phonetic structure is inevitable, and its frequent shifting to a different vowel occurs due to deflection or in some rare case preservation and prevention. This change in a phonetic environment is very normal for the reason expressed above, and certainly for the reason that a language is a vivid organism, which always changes, without losing the DNA, making it distinct among other languages. While the following vowel might shift to a different one, during declension or word meaning expansion, the phoneme "l", will never le-ave, but always will serve as a vessel to carry that initial abstract meaning, which will not be lost even during the word meaning expansion or contraction. 
Using this, is one path, to phonetically/graphically convey the illumination/sun~ star concept. In the case of a "star", Greek (and Latin) is using a different path, to achieve the same objective, coming from a different logics. It's called 'semantics transferability ', from Albanian to create certain dictionary in Greek. The word ἀστήρ (which predates the Latin 'aster'), is an adjacent compound word:

ἀστήρ= ἀ+στήρ

ἀ---> privative preposition = to English un or NOT
στήρ--> is the Albanian meaning sterrë=dark, black

STERRË mb.
1. Shumë i zi; shumë i errët. Natë sterrë. Me leshrat sterrë. U nxi qielli, u bë sterrë.
2. Shumë i ngrysur a i zymtë. U bë sterrë në fytyrë.
3. fig. Që u ka bërë shumë të këqija të tjerëve ose që u dëshiron të keqen, i zi; i përlyer. E ka ndërgjegjen sterrë. E ka shpirtin sterrë.
4. si ndajf. Shumë, fare (për ngjyrën e zezë). Sterrë i zi. I zi sterrë.

carrying the same meaning with:

TERR m.
Errësirë. Terri i natës. Iku (u zhduk) nëpër terr. Erdhi për terr erdhi nëpër errësirë; erdhi në të errur, erdhi vonë. Dolëm nga terri.

which derives again from:

ERR kal.
1. E mbaj dikë deri vonë natën, e vonoj derisa ta zërë nata. Më erri nata më zuri nata. Mos më err.
2. E bëj dikë të mos shohë fare a të mos shohë mirë për një farë kohe, e verboj.
Ia erri sytë dielli.
3. fig. E bëj të mjerë a fatkeq, nxij. Ia erri jetën.
* I erri sytë vdiq.

s(initial reinforcement sound) +t (vowel treated 'të' article) +err(make dark, not-visible-verb)

The compound word simply means: not-dark, since a star is the only object which illuminates in the night sky darkness and it's not result of any descendance from the presumed PIE root garbage.
This is not an isolated case in Greek, when semantics transferability protocol "borrowing" semantics from Albanian, is enforced. There are many, but one should have a deep understanding in Albanian, to realise that connection between two languages.
The word 'αφρός' seems to have no connection with its cognate in Albanian : 'shkumë'. But, the truth is that it borrows its meaning from another Albanian concept afr-oj=appro-ach . The sea-foam is an object in nature, which "the Greeks" have seen to always reach the coast, coming from a certain distance from the sea.
The word itself is used to name the "Morning Star"--Afro-dita, which roughly can be translated : "The day is approaching" which means the "Dawn is coming close". This post will help, to understand that the truth simply can't be hidden in darkness forever, the sun will bring the light, and it will be Aferdita, to signal it first.

THE FATHERS CALL FOR THE TRUTH

The people are interested to know the ethymology of the words sometime, or anytime if you are a person who likes the languages and their origin. So it’s natural to open an Etimology Dictionary(usually to take the wrong information). So did we, being interested for the word ethnic, we opened the ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY:

ethno-  

comb. form of Gk. ethnos “people, nation, class” (see ethnic), used to form modern compounds such as ethnology (1842, by J.S. Mill) and ethnocentric, 1900, which was a technical term in social sciences until it began to be more widely used in the second half of the 20th century.

Felt a little bit surprised, because we found nowhere an etymological explanation of the word ethnos(which we already know the meaning, just asked for etymology of the word) we continued our search. So far so good,

ethnic  

c.1375, from Scottish, “heathen, pagan,” and having that sense first in Eng., from Gk. ta ethne, used in Septuagint translation to render Heb. goyim, pl. of goy “nation,” especially of non-Israelites, hence “Gentile nation.” Ta ethne is from Gk. ethnos “band of people living together, nation, people,” prop. “people of one’s own kind,” from PIE *swedh-no-, suffixed form of base *s(w)e- (see idiom). Sense of “peculiar to a race or nation” is 1851, return to the word’s original meaning; that of “different cultural groups” is 1935; and that of “racial, cultural or national minority group” is Amer.Eng. 1945. Ethnicity is from 1953; ethnic cleansing is from 1991.

At this point we are stunned. Ethnos –according to the “proffesional linguists”-derives from

THE TROJAN WAR AND THE “PURITY” OF A FAMOUS RACE

Our modern understanding of the “nationality” is a complex one and  we are not certain if we could apply the same toward the people of antiquity. However we will follow a simple rule: During all the times every person is borne with a nationality. This rule must be valid for the people who in Classical Era were called Hellenes. We will start right there, Classical Era. It has been widely accepted that the classical Hellenes were not an uniform body of people, many nationalities were forming  the “nation” called Hellenes.

It was  two mayor distinct groups among  many other nationalities :

1. Pelasgians(which were not proper Hellenes), a pre-Hellenic people which include:

a.    Ionians

b.    Athenians

c.     Aeolians

d.    Islanders

    2. Hellenes

            a. Dorians