Illyrian Wars

Agron was king of that part of Illyria which borders [*](B.C.230) the Adriatic Sea, over which sea Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, and his successors held sway. Agron captured a part of Epirus and also Corcyra, Epidamnus, and Pharus in succession, where he established garrisons. When he threatened the rest of the Adriatic with his fleet, the isle of Issa implored the aid of the Romans. The latter sent ambassadors to accompany the Issii and to ascertain what offences Agron imputed to them. The Illyrian vessels attacked the ambassadors on their voyage and slew Cleemporus, the envoy of Issa, and the Roman Coruncanius; the remainder escaped [*](Y.R. 525) by flight. Thereupon the Romans invaded Illyria by land [*](B.C.229) and sea. Agron, in the meantime, had died, leaving an infant son named Pinnes, having given the guardianship and regency to his wife, although she was not the child's mother. Demetrius, who was Agron's governor of Pharus and who held Corcyra also, surrendered both places to the invading Romans by treachery. The latter then entered into an alliance with Epidamnus and went to the assistance of the Issii and of the Epidamnians, who were besieged by the Illyrians. The latter raised the siege and fled, and one of their tribes, called the Atintani, went over to the Romans. After these [*](Y.R. 526) events the widow of Agron sent ambassadors to Rome to [*](B.C.228) surrender the prisoners and deserters into their hands. She begged pardon also for what had been done, not by herself, but by Agron. They received for answer that Corcyra, Pharus, Issa, Epidamnus, and the Illyrian Atintani were already Roman subjects, that Pinnes might have the remainder of Agron's kingdom and be a friend of the Roman people if he would keep hands off the aforesaid territory, and agree not to sail beyond Lissus nor to keep more than two Illyrian pinnaces, both to be unarmed. The woman accepted all these conditions.

This was the first conflict and treaty between the Romans and the Illyrians. Thereupon the Romans made Corcyra and Apollonia free. To Demetrius they gave certain castles as a reward for his treason to his own people, adding the express condition that they gave them only conditionally, for they suspected the man's bad faith; and [*](Y.R. 532) before long he began to show it. While the Romans were [*](B.C.222) engaged in a three years' war with the Gauls on the river Po, Demetrius, thinking that they had their hands full, set forth on a piratical expedition, brought the Istrians, another Illyrian tribe, into the enterprise, and detached the Atintani from Rome. The Romans, when they had settled their business with the Gauls, immediately sent a naval force and overpowered the pirates. The following year they marched against Demetrius and his Illyrian fellow-culprits. Demetrius fled to Philip, king of Macedon, but when he returned and resumed his piratical career in the Adriatic they slew him and utterly demolished his native town of Pharus, [*](Y.R. 534) which was associated with him in crime. They spared the [*](B.C.220) Illyrians on account of Pinnes, who again besought them to do so. And such was the second conflict and treaty between them and the Illyrians.

The following events I have written as I have found them, not in due order according to their times of occurrence, but rather taking each Illyrian nation separately. When the Romans were at war with the Macedonians during the reign of Perseus, the successor of Philip, Genthius, an Illyrian chief, made an alliance with Perseus for money and [*](Y.R. 586) attacked Roman Illyria. When the Romans sent ambassadors [*](B.C.168) to him on this subject he put them in chains, charging that they had not come as ambassadors, but as spies. The Roman general, Anicius, in a naval expedition, captured some of Genthius' pinnaces and then engaged him in battle on land, defeated him, and shut him up in a castle. When he begged a parley Anicius ordered him to surrender himself to the Romans. He asked and obtained three days for consideration, at the end of which time, his subjects having meanwhile gone over to Anicius, he asked for an interview with the latter, and, falling on his knees, begged pardon in the most abject manner. Anicius encouraged the trembling wretch, lifted him up, and invited him to supper, but as he was going away from the feast he ordered the lictors to cast him into prison. Anicius afterward led both him and his sons in triumph at Rome. The whole war with Genthius was finished within twenty days. When Æmilius Paulus, the conqueror of Perseus, returned to Rome, he received secret orders from the Senate to go back on particular business relating to the seventy towns that [*](Y.R. 587) had belonged to Genthius. They were much alarmed, but [*](B.C.167) he promised to pardon them for what they had done if they would deliver to him all the gold and silver they had. When they agreed to do so he sent a detachment of his army into each town appointing the same day for all the commanding officers to act, and ordering them to make proclamation at daybreak in each that the inhabitants should bring their money into the market-place within three hours, and when they had done so to plunder what remained. Thus Paulus despoiled seventy towns in one hour.

The Ardei and the Palarii, two other Illyrian tribes, made a raid on Roman Illyria, and the Romans, being otherwise occupied, sent ambassadors to scare them. When they refused to be obedient, the Romans collected an army of 10,000 foot and 600 horse to be despatched against them. [*](Y.R. 619) When the Illyrians learned this, as they were not yet prepared [*](B.C.135) for fighting, they sent ambassadors to crave pardon. The Senate ordered them to make reparation to those whom they had wronged. As they were slow in obeying, Fulvius Flaccus marched against them. This war resulted in an excursion only, for I cannot find any definite end to it. [*](Y.R. 625) Sempronius Tuditanus and Tiberius Pandusa waged war [*](B.C.129) with the Iapydes, who live among the Alps, and seem to [*](Y.R. 635) have subjugated them, as Lucius Cotta and Metellus seem [*](B.C.119) to have subjugated the Segestani; but both tribes revolted not long afterward. [*](Y.R. 598)

The Dalmatians, another Illyrian tribe, made an [*](B.C.156) attack on the Illyrian subjects of Rome, and when ambassadors were sent to them to remonstrate they were not received. The Romans accordingly sent an army against them, with Marcius Figulus as consul and commander. While Figulus was laying out his camp the Dalmatians over-powered the guard, defeated him, and drove him out of the camp in headlong flight to the plain as far as the river Naro. As the Dalmatians were returning home (for winter was now approaching), Figulus hoped to fall upon them unawares, but he found them reassembled from their towns at the news of his approach. Nevertheless, he drove them into the city of Delminium, from which place they first got the name of Delmatenses, which was afterward changed to Dalmatians. As he was not able to attack this strongly defended town from the road, nor to use the engines that he had, on account of the height of the place, he attacked and captured some other towns that were partially deserted on account of the concentration of forces at Delminium. Then, returning to Delminium, he hurled sticks of wood, two cubits long, covered with flax and smeared with pitch and sulphur, from catapults into the town. These caught fire from friction and, flying in the air like torches, wherever they fell caused a conflagration, so that the greater part of the town was burned. This was the end of the war waged by Figulus against the Dalmatians. At a later period, in [*](Y.R. 635) the consulship of Cæcilius Metellus, war was declared [*](B.C.119) against the Dalmatians, although they had been guilty of no offence, because he desired a triumph. They received him as a friend and he wintered among them at the town of Salona, after which he returned to Rome and was awarded a triumph.

At the time when Cæsar held the command in Gaul these same Dalmatians and other Illyrians, who were then in a very prosperous condition, took the city of Promona [*](Y.R. 704) from the Liburni, another Illyrian tribe. The latter put [*](B.C.50) themselves in the hands of the Romans and appealed to Cæsar, who was near by. Cæsar sent word to those who were holding Promona that they should give it up to the Liburni, and when they refused, he sent against them a strong detachment of his army who were totally destroyed by the Illyrians. Nor did Cæsar renew the attempt, for he had no leisure then, on account of the civil strife with Pompey. When the civil strife burst forth in war Cæsar crossed the Adriatic from Brundusium in the winter, with what forces he had, and opened his campaign against Pompey in Macedonia. Antony brought another army to Cæsar's aid in Macedonia, he also crossing the Adriatic in mid-winter. Gabinius led fifteen cohorts of foot and 3000 horse for him by way of Illyria, passing around the Adriatic. [*](Y.R. 706) The Illyrians, fearing punishment for what they had done [*](B.C.48) to Cæsar not long before, and thinking that his victory would be their destruction, attacked and slew the whole army under Gabinius, except Gabinius himself and a few who escaped. Among the spoils captured was a large amount of money and war material.

Cæsar was preoccupied by the necessity of coming to a conclusion with Pompey, and, after Pompey's death, with the numerous parts of his faction still remaining. When he had settled everything he returned to Rome and made preparations for war with the Getæ and the Parthians. The Illyrians began to fear lest he should attack them, as they were on his intended line of march. So they sent ambassadors to Rome to crave pardon for what they had done and to offer their friendship and alliance, vaunting themselves [*](Y.R. 709) as a very brave race. Cæsar was hastening his preparations [*](B.C.45) against the Parthians; nevertheless, he gave them the dignified answer that he could not make friends of those who had done what they had, but that he would grant them pardon if they would subject themselves to tribute and give him hostages. They promised to do both, and accordingly he sent Vatinius thither with three legions and a large cavalry force to impose a light tribute on them and receive the [*](Y.R. 710) hostages. When Cæsar was slain the Dalmatians, thinking [*](B.C.44) that the Roman power resided in him and had perished with him, would not listen to Vatinius on the subject of the tribute or anything else. When he attempted to use force they attacked and destroyed five of his cohorts, including their commanding officer, Bæbius, a man of senatorial rank. Vatinius took refuge with the remainder of his force in Epidamnus. The Roman Senate transferred this army, together with the province of Macedonia and Roman Illyria, to Brutus Cæpio, one of Cæsar's murderers, and at the same time assigned Syria to Cassius, another of the assassins. But they also, being involved in war with Antony and the second Cæsar, surnamed Augustus, had no time to attend to the Illyrians.

The Pæones are a great nation on the Danube, extending from the Iapydes to the Dardani. They are called Pæones by the Greeks, but Pannonians by the Romans. They are counted by the Romans as a part of Illyria, as I have previously said, for which reason it seems proper that I should include them in my Illyrian history. They have been renowned from the Macedonian period through the Agrianes, who rendered very important aid to Philip and Alexander and are Pæones of Lower Pannonia bordering on Illyria. When the expedition of Cornelius against the Pannonians resulted disastrously, so great a fear of those people came over all the Italians that for a long time afterwards none of the consuls ventured to march against them. Concerning the early history of the Illyrians and Pannonians, I have not been able to discover anything further, nor have I found in the commentaries of Augustus anything earlier in the chapters treating of the Pannonians.

I think that other Illyrian tribes besides those mentioned had previously come under Roman rule, but how, I do not know. Augustus did not describe the transactions of others so much as his own, telling how he brought back those who had revolted and compelled them again to pay tribute, how he subjugated others that had been independent from the beginning, and how he mastered all the tribes that inhabit the summits of the Alps, barbarous and warlike peoples, who often plundered the neighboring parts of Italy. It is a wonder to me that so many great Roman armies traversing the Alps to conquer the Gauls and Spaniards, should have overlooked these tribes, and that even Gaius Cæsar, that most successful man of war, did not despatch them during the ten years that he was fighting the Gauls and wintering in that very country. But the Romans seem to have been intent only upon getting through the Alpine region on the business they were bestirring themselves about, and Cæsar seems to have delayed putting an end to the Illyrian troubles on account of the Gallic war and the strife with Pompey, which closely followed it. It appears that he was chosen commander of Illyria as well as of Gaul -- not the whole of it, but as much as was then under Roman rule.