Molosijci (grčki: Μολοσσοί [Molossoi]) su bili drevno grčko[1][2][3][4][5] koje je naselilo Epir u mikensko doba. Na sjeveroistočnoj granici su živjeli Haonijanci a na njihovoj južnoj granici su bili Tesprotijanci, dok su na sjeveru bili Iliri. Molosijci su bili članovi Epirskog saveza, sve dok im zemlju nije anektiralo Rimsko Carstvo i 150.000 stanovnika otjeralo u roblje.
↑Smith, William. A New Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, Mythology and Geography. "The Molossi were Greek people, who claimed descent from Molossus, the son of Pyrrhus (Neoptolemus) and Andromache, and are said to have emigrated from Thessaly into Epirus, under the guidance of Pyrrhus himself. In their new abodes they intermingled with the original inhabitants of the land and with the neighbouring Illyrian tribes of which they were regarded by the other Greeks as half barbarians. They were, however, by far the most powerful people in Epirus, and their kings gradually extended their dominion over the whole of the country. The first of their kings, who took the title of King of Epirus, was Alexander, who perished in Italy B.C. 326. The ancient capital of the Molossi was Pasaron, but Ambracia afterward became their chief town, and the residence of their kings. The Molossian hounds were celebrated in antiquity, and were much prized for hunting."
↑Errington, Malcolm R. A History of Macedonia. University of California Press, 1993, ISBN0-520-06319-8. "The Molossians were the strongest and, decisive for Macedonia, most easterly of the three most important Epeirot tribes, which, like Macedonia but unlike the Thesprotians and the Chaonians, still retained their monarchy. They were Greeks, spoke a similar dialect to that of Macedonia, suffered just as much from the depredations of the Illyrians and were in principle the natural partners of the Macedonian king who wished to tackle the Illyrian problem at its roots."
↑Borza, Eugene N. (1992). In the Shadow of Olympus: the Emergence of Macedon (Revised Edition). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. "Speakers of these various Greek dialects settled different parts of Greece at different times during the Middle Bronze Age, with one group, the 'northwest' Greeks, developing their own dialect and peopling central Epirus. This was the origin of the Molossian or Epirotic tribes." "[...]a proper dialect of Greek, like the dialects spoken by Dorians and Molossians." "The western mountains were peopled by the Molossians (the western Greeks of Epirus)."
↑Crew, P. Mack (1982). The Cambridge Ancient History - The Expansion of the Greek World, Eighth to Sixth Centuries B.C., Part 3: Volume 3 (Second Edition). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. "That the Molossians[...]spoke Illyrian or another barbaric tongue was nowhere suggested, although Aeschylus and Pindar wrote of Molossian lands. That they in fact spoke Greek was implied by Herodotus' inclusion of Molossi among the Greek colonists of Asia Minor, but became demonstrable only when D. Evangelides published two long inscriptions of the Molossian State, set up p. 369 B.C at Dodona, in Greek and with Greek names, Greek patronymies and Greek tribal names such as Celaethi, Omphales, Tripolitae, Triphylae, etc. As the Molossian cluster of tribes in the time of Hecataeus included the Orestae, Pelagones, Lyncestae, Tymphaei and Elimeotae, as we have argued above, we may be confident that they too were Greek-speaking."
↑Hammond, NGL (1994). Philip of Macedon. London, UK: Duckworth. "Epirus was a land of milk and animal products...The social unit was a small tribe, consisting of several nomadic or semi-nomadic groups, and these tribes, of which more than seventy names are known, coalesced into large tribal coalitions, three in number: Thesprotians, Molossians and Chaonians...We know from the discovery of inscriptions that these tribes were speaking the Greek language (in a West-Greek dialect)."