Epirote Islands are considered those northern Ionian islands that are in close proximity to the Epirus mainland. Those include Kerkyra (Corfu), Ithaca (the island of Odysseus) Paxoi, Antipaxoi and Lefkada.

Neoptolemos or Pyrros the late hero of Trojan war, sailed to the Epirot Islands and then became the king of Epirus exiling Odysseus after he killed a large number of suitors that pestered his wife, Penelope. Neoptolemos was son of Achilles by princess Deidamea daughter of of Lycomedes, the King of Scyros. Achilles was send there by his mother Thetis who knowing that she botched the job of rendering him invulnerable (she failed to expose his "Achilles' "heel to the sacred fire), didn't want him to fight in the Trojan War, so she disguised him as a girl in the court of Skyros. With Andromache the widow of Hector, who had been enslaved, Neoptolemos was the father of Molossos and ancestor of the main tribe of Epiros the Molossoi. Molosoi were the guardians of the main Greek oracle of Zeus in Dodona. The Zeus connection seems to stem from the legend that the ghost of Achilles appeared to the survivors of the Trojan war, demanding Polyxena, the Trojan princess, be sacrificed before anybody could leave. Neoptolemos did so, but in contrast to Achilles, who had previously shown mercy to Priam, her father and King of Troy, he also sacrificed him to Zeus.

In the 4th century BCE under another king Neoptolemos of the same dynasty, Molossoi (or Molossians) became more urbanized inhabiting also the area of contemporary Zagoria, where significant archeological findings (kept in the Ioannina archeological museum) were excavated in the villages of Elafotopos and Vitsa by the Vikos gorge. Still herding the western highlands of the Pindos in Zagoria , Molossoi were in constant friction over grazing, with Macedonians on the other side of the range. When Neoptolemos died (c.360 BCE) his brother Arymbas who became king, made a treaty with the new king of Macedonia Philippos II (Philip of Macedon, 360-336). The alliance was cemented with a diplomatic marriage. Neoptolemos' daughter (Arymbas niece) Olympias became queen of Macedonia. Her younger brother Alexandros (later king of Molossoi and invader of Italy in 334) was also send to the Macedonian court. Olympias, the mother of Megas Alexandros (Alexander the Great) has met Philip before the marriage when they were among the celebrants at the Kaveiria mysteries of Dionysus in Samothraki. The marriage was stormy and in the fall of 357, Olymias being neglected and in anger went back to Epirus where she spend the winer. Late in spring of 356, under pressure from her uncle the Epirotan king she returned to Pella the Macedonian capital-pregnant. Alexander III , known as Alexander the Great was promptly born late July, 356 BCE. Philip, his wife not being a Macedonian was scorned as not having a pure-blooded heir. Olympias obliged and with Epirotan pride, insisted that she got impregnated by Zeus while napping under an oak tree, the sacred tree of Zeus. Contemporary Zagorian sheepherders still take naps under oak trees.Alexander apperered to have believed the tale, as he later went to seek- and probably received -confirmation of his devine descent at the sanctuary of Zeus Ammon (of the sands) in the Siwa Oasis in Egypt.

Philip II may not have been the physical father of Alexander the Great but to some he was the greatest political mind that Europe has ever produced. He is credited for puting an end to the quarels of democratic city-states fought with "week end" soldier-citizens and starting the militaristic imperialist monarchies based on continuously exercising war-ready, standing armies. Born in Pella in 382 BC, he was the youngest son of King Amyntas III of Macedon, but the deaths of his elder brothers, allowed him to take the throne in 359 BC. Originally appointed Regent for his infant nephew, Philip managed to take the kingdom for himself. His military skills and expansionist vision of Macedonian greatness brought him early success, and it was not until his armies were opposed by Athens at Thermopylae in 352 BC that he faced any serious resistance. In 346 BC, he intervened effectively in the war between Thebes and Phocis, but his wars with Athens continued intermittently. Having defeated an alliance of Thebans and Athenians at the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, he created and led the League of Corinth.Two years later, in 336 BC, when he was about to embark on an invasion of Persia, Philip was assassinated by a bossom friend Pausanias, in the theater where he had just introduced his likeness as the 13th among the twelve Olympian gods!

On November 8, 1977, Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos found unopened the tomb of Philip II at Vergina (site of ancient Pella) in the prefecture of Pieria close to mount Olympos. The finds from this tomb (which is presently an amazing museum) were later included in the traveling exhibit The Search for Alexander displayed at four cities in the United States from 1980 to 1982. The identification of the tomb with Philip has not only been of great archeological importance, but of considerable importance for the US history buffs: for 2112 years (336 BCE year of Philip's death to 1776 CE year of the U.S. Declaration of Indipendence), men were no longer equal. Men would become Kings and then even Gods.

Megas Alexandros-Alexander III the Great (born late July, 356 BE in Pella -died June 10, 323 BCE in Babylon), King of Macedon (336 BC-323 BCE), was one of the most successful military commanders of the ancient world. Following the unification of the multiple city states of Greece under the rule of his father, Philip II of Macedon, Alexander conquered the Persian Empire, Egypt and many other smaller kingdoms in just 12 years. By the time of his death in 323 BC, his empire stretched from Greece to present-day Pakistan, Afghanistan and northern India. Alexander's conquests and the fusion of Greek culture with eastern cultures ushered in the age of Hellenistic Greece across much of Europe, Asia and northern Africa. .After his death his kingdoms were split up into three main sections: the Ptolemids in Egypt, the Antigonids in Macedonia and the Seleucids in Syria, Asia Minor and the Middle East.

Greek, established as the "lingua franca" of the ancient word became the vehicle for spreading Christianity, since the Gospels were written in common (koine) Greek and the Old Testament was tranlated to Greek by the God-inspired "seventy". Already during his lifetime, and especially after his death, Alexander's exploits inspired a literary tradition in which he appears as a towering legendary hero in the tradition of Achilles, his ancestor from his mother's side and himself as son of Zeus if we believe her and the legends. Certainly one can also find analogies in the frendship (filia) of Achilles to Patroclus and Alexander and Hephaistion emphasized in the recent Oliver Stone movie. Later, Hellenized monotheists of the CE could not fail to notice analogies of Immacculate Conceptions of neglected wives decendants of Achiles or David, impregnated by God and giving birth to Kings, Sons of Gods who would triumph in life and die at 33 years of age!