Although known for being sociable, the Illyrians were also known for their bravery in war and aggressively maintained their lands against the many other clans throughout the Balkan region. Although influenced culturally as the result of conquest by Greece, Rome, and ultimately the Visigoths, Huns, and Ostrogoths, large numbers of Albanian peasants nonetheless managed to retain their customs, culture, and language by living in small, remote towns in the mountains where, due to the lack of roads, they were able to resist all efforts at assimilation by conquering cultures. Influenced by many years under Roman rule and subsequently made a part of the Byzantine Empire, Albania could boast a flourishing culture, established trade, and a strong economy by the middle ages; this situation would change for the worse after the region was overrun by the Ottoman Turks in 1388.
The Ottoman Empire expanded from Anatolia into the Balkans during the 1300s and by 1400 marauding Muslim armies had pierced the boundaries of the once-mighty Byzantine Empire. The city of Constantinople, built by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in 330 and the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church, was destined to fall to Islam in little more than a half-century.
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