Durazzo (Serb Dratsch, Albanian Durrësi), a port of Turkish Albania, on the Adriatic, 50 miles S. of Scutari. It is a poor, decayed place, with 1200 inhabitants, and a ruined citadel; but the harbour, though sanding up, is the most important of Middle Albania.—Durazzo is the ancient Epidanus, founded about 625 B.C. by Corcyraeans and Corinthians. It became a great and populous city, but was much harassed by the party strifes, which ultimately led to the Peloponnesian
War (q.v.). Under the Romans it was called Dyrrachium (whence its modern name), and became the principal landing-place for those sailing from Brundusium in Italy to Greece; and the great military road to the Hellespont began here. The town is memorable for the battles of Cæsar and Pompey in 48 B.C.; but it attained its highest consequence about the end of the 4th century A.D., when it became the capital of the Byzantine province of New Epirus. After being possessed successively by the Ostrogoths, the Bulgarians, the Normans, and the Venetians, and destroyed by an earthquake in 1273, it was finally conquered by the Turks in 1501.