Hecataeus of Miletus in the context of "Illyrians"

The Enchelei were an ancient people that lived around the River Drin and the region of Lake Shkodra and Lake Ohrid, in modern-day Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. They are one of the oldest known peoples of the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. In ancient sources they sometimes appear as an ethnic group distinct from the Illyrians, but they are mostly mentioned as one of the Illyrian tribes. They held a central position in the earlier phase of Illyrian history. In ancient Greek literature they are linked with the end of the mythical narrative of Cadmus and Harmonia, a tradition deeply rooted among the Illyrian peoples.

The name Sesarethii/Sesarethioi was used by Strabo as an alternative name for the Enchelei in the lakeland area of Ohrid. Mentioned for the first time by Hecataeus of Miletus in the 6th century BC, the name Sesarethii/Sesarethioi is also considered a variant of Dassaretii/Dassaretioi, an Illyrian tribe that has been recorded since Roman times and that is attested in coinage and inscriptions found around lake Ohrid. The weakening of the kingdom of the Enchelei presumably led to Enchelei's assimilation and inclusion into a newly established Illyrian realm at the latest in the 6th–5th centuries BC, marking the arising of the Dassaretii, who appear to have replaced the Enchelei in the lakeland area. During Classical and Hellenistic antiquity the Enchelei were more a historical memory than a contemporary group.

The Iberians (Latin: Hibērī, from Greek: Ἴβηρες, Iberes) were an ancient people indigenous to the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula. They are described in Greek and Roman sources (among others, by Hecataeus of Miletus, Avienius, Herodotus and Strabo). Roman sources also use the term Hispani to refer to the Iberians.

The term Iberian, as used by the ancient authors, had two distinct meanings. One, more general, referred to all the populations of the Iberian peninsula without regard to ethnic differences (Pre-Indo-European, Celts and non-Celtic Indo-Europeans). The other, more restricted ethnic sense and the one dealt with in this article, refers to the people living in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, which by the 6th century BC had absorbed cultural influences from the Phoenicians, Carthaginians and the Greeks. This pre-Indo-European cultural group spoke the Iberian language from the 7th to at least the 1st century BC. The rest of the peninsula, in the northern, central, and northwestern areas, was inhabited by Vascones, Celts or Celtiberians groups and the possibly Pre-Celtic or Proto-Celtic Indo-European Lusitanians, Vettones, and Turdetani.

Illyricum /ɪˈlɪrɪkəm/ was a Roman province created by Augustus in 27 BC to secure the northeastern Adriatic frontier. It combined Upper Illyricum (Dalmatia) and Lower Illyricum (Pannonia) under a governor resident at Salona, administering coastal and Danubian territories across what are now Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. The province incorporated the rugged Dinaric Alps, the eastern Adriatic islands, and the fertile Pannonian Plain, bringing Roman civil and military institutions to long-established Illyrian, Celtic, and Hellenized communities.

The term Illyrians was used to describe the inhabitants of the area as far back as the late 6th century BC by Hecataeus of Miletus.

The Albanoi (also Albani; Ancient Greek: Ἀλβανοί, Albanoi; Latin: Albani) were an Illyrian tribe. They were possibly first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus (550-476 BCE) under the name Abroi. Ptolemy (100–170 CE) is the first author who mentions them under the name Albanoi. Their central settlement was called Albanopolis (Ἀλβανόπολις) and was located roughly between the Mat and Shkumbin rivers, in central Albania. The archaeological site of Zgërdhesh has been identified as the likely location of Albanopolis. Stephanus of Byzantium who reproduced Hecataeus added an entry for another settlement named Arbon in Illyria whose inhabitants were called Arbonioi or Arbonites. Another Arbon was recorded by Polybius. John of Nikiû wrote in the 7th century CE about a people known as Arbanitai in the Greek translation of the manuscript.

In the Middle Ages, the names Albanoi and Arbanitai/Albanitai referred to medieval Albanians as an ethnic group. The equivalent terms in Latin are Albanenses/Arbanenses, in Slavic Arbanasi and later in Turkish Arnaut. These names reflect the Albanian ethnic endonym Arbëreshë/Arbëneshë, which itself derives from Albanoi. In the archaeological record, the Albanoi are mentioned on a funeral inscription in Stobi and Albanopolis is mentioned on another funeral inscription near Scupi. Another ethnonym, Arbaios found in Phoenice is likely linked to them.

Lionel I. C. Pearson (30 January 1908 – 18 September 1988) was a British classical scholar. He is primarily known for his work Early Ionian Historians, in which he outlines the historical methods of Hecataeus of Miletus, Xanthus the Lydian, Charon of Lampsacus, and Hellanicus of Lesbos.