READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM 2025

HISTORY OF ROME. THE WAR FOR SUPREMACY IN THE WEST

CHAPTER VI.

THE ILLYRIANS WARS

1

THE FIRST ILLYRIAN WAR, 229-228 B.C.

After the Roman dominion had penetrated as far as the Adriatic Sea, and was there fortified by the foundation of the colonies of Hatria, Castrum Novum, Firmum, Sena, and Ariminum, to which was added before the end of the Sicilian war (244 B.C.) the important town of Brundusium, Rome came for the first time into immediate contact with the countries and the peoples of the opposite coast. The war with Pyrrhus would no doubt have led to the immediate interference of the Romans in the politics of Greece, if Carthage had not for many years engrossed their attention. After the victorious conclusion of the war in Sicily, it was to be expected that Rome would seek to exercise in the East the influence which her recent accession of power had given her.

But the weight of her arm was to fall in the first instance, not on the Greeks proper, nor even on half Greeks like the Epirots of Pyrrhus, but on the Illyrian pirates, the primeval inhabitants of the mountainous coast lands on the Adriatic Sea, which seem destined by nature to be the seat of inextinguishable barbarism. The Illyrians of that time, like their present successors on the mountains of Dalmatia and Montenegro, were peculiarly fitted for a life of robbery. The much indented coast, with its numerous islands and headlands, surrounded by steep and wild mountains, was highly favourable for piratical enterprise. As long, however, as the Greek colonies in the Ionian Sea, especially Corcyra and Epidamnus, flourished, the Illyrian pirates had not ventured far out of their retreats; at least they had not ventured into Greek waters in large numbers and with open violence. It was only when the Greek states had become so weakened by everlasting wars and revolutions as to be scarcely able to protect themselves, that the piracy of the Illyrians assumed larger proportions. They acted now like the Scandinavian sea-kings of the middle ages. With their small, quick-sailing Liburnian ships, they intercepted not only the merchant vessels which traded in those seas, but, sailing in fleets, sometimes of a hundred ships, along the coast of the Adriatic and Ionian Seas as far as Messenia in Peloponnesus, landed where they pleased, took possession of towns and villages, carried away spoils and prisoners, and before it was possible to bring any force against them they were on board again and gone. These piratical expeditions gradually assumed the character of regular wars. Thus a band of Illyrians attacked the flourishing Epirotic town Phoenice, which had a garrison of eight hundred Gallic mercenaries, made common cause with the Gauls, sacked the town, fought a regular battle with the people of the country who rushed to the defence of their city, and at length returned unhurt to their own land with all the spoils. No wonder that Epirus and Acarnania found it advisable to come to an understanding with the Illyrians by which they secured for themselves the protection of the robber state. The Illyrians now extended their raids to other parts. The towns and islands of those parts—Issa, Pharos, Apollonia, and Epidamnus—were in constant terror. Epidamnus was treacherously attacked by a number of men who had asked permission to fetch drinking water for their ships, and when they were hospitably admitted drew forth hidden knives, and cutting down the guards, took possession of the gate till the remainder of the band came from the ships and pressed into the town. The inhabitants succeeded only with the greatest difficulty in overcoming the robbers, and in driving them back to their ships. The Corcyraeans were less fortunate. The Illyrians, in league with the Acarnanians, fought a regular battle with them and their countrymen the Achaeans, and compelled them to give over the island to them. Corcyra seemed destined to be thrown like a ball from the hand of one conqueror to that of another. The Illyrians gave over the government to a Greek from the island of Pharos, called Demetrius, who, judging by the little we know of him, appears to have been a reckless and unprincipled adventurer. By such successful undertakings the robber state of the Illyrians gradually became a considerable power. Their king felt himself to be a potentate not unlike the successors of Alexander the Great; and indeed he seemed fully entitled to consider himself the equal of Pyrrhus or the king of Macedonia, who was obliged to ask his assistance against the Achaeans.

The commerce of the Italian towns had long suffered under the scourge of the Illyrian pirates. At length the Roman senate sent two brothers, Caius and Lucius Coruncanius, to Scodra (Scutari), the seat of the Illyrian kings, complaining of their doings and asking for redress. At that time a queen called Teuta was governing in the place of her young son Pinnes. She promised that she, as queen of the Illyrians, would avoid all hostility against Rome in political matters, but she declared at the same time that she was not in a position to oppose the private undertakings of her subjects. According to Illyrian law she said that every man was free to carry on war with another on his own account. Upon this the younger Coruncanius answered that it was customary among the Romans for the state to punish the transgressions of individuals. They would take good care to make the Illyrians also observe this custom. The queen made no answer to this ill-timed reply, but on the return of the brothers she caused them to be waylaid, and the younger one was killed.

War was now unavoidable. In the year 229 a fleet of two hundred ships sailed across the Adriatic Sea under the command of the consul Cn. Fulvius Centumalus, while a land army of 20,000 men and 2,000 horse marched to take ship at Brundusium under the second consul, L. Postumius Albinus. It was high time that a strong arm should interfere. The recently completed conquest of Corcyra had made the Illyrians so confident and daring that they contemplated nothing less than the reduction of all the independent Greek states of that neighbourhood. They besieged at the same time Epidamnus and Issa, and threatened Apollonia. But one summer campaign sufficed to put an end to their encroachments. When the Roman fleet appeared before Corcyra, the shrewd Demetrius saw at once with what sort of people he had to deal. To sacrifice himself in a hopeless contest for the Queen Teuta was not to his mind. He delivered the island over to the consul Fulvius, and offered his services in the prosecution of the war against the Illyrians. The fleet now sailed northwards under his guidance. Epidamnus and Issa were delivered without difficulty. The legions had in the meantime crossed from Italy. The strongholds and hiding places of the Illyrians fell one after another into the power of the Romans. Now and then there was a serious struggle, but on the whole the Roman arms were irresistible. The Atintanians and Parthinians, two nations subjected by the Illyrians, joined the Romans. The Queen Teuta took refuge in the citadel of Rhizon, where for the time she was safe.

In the autumn Fulvius was able to return with the greater part of the army and the fleet. His colleague Postumius remained in Illyria with forty ships and a few troops, formed an army out of the native people, and thus kept the Illyrians in check during the winter. In the following spring (228 B.C.) the Illyrian queen gave up further resistance and accepted the conditions of peace which Rome prescribed. All the conquests of the Illyrians were restored, and the nations which had been subjected again became independent. The Illyrians pledged themselves to sail no armed vessels further south than Lissus (Alessio), and even to pay a yearly tribute. After the enemy had been thoroughly humbled, the relations of the east coast of the Adriatic Sea were regulated according to the interests of Rome. Demetrius of Pharos, who had shown himself a valuable ally, received, under Roman supremacy, one part of Illyria and the guardianship of the youthful king Pinnes. The Greek towns retained their independence. All the peoples and towns which were freed from the Illyrians entered into an alliance with Rome, which, after the Roman custom, was a sort of mild subjection. It was announced to the Greeks in Hellas proper that the Romans had crossed the sea to release them from their foes. There was unbounded joy at the receipt of this news. The Athenians determined to make the Romans honorary citizens and to admit them to the mysteries of Eleusis. The Corinthians invited them to take part in the Isthmian games. Perhaps the just gratitude felt by the degenerate successors of the conquerors of Salamis stifled their feelings of shame, and caused them to forget the difference between the former times, when the Greeks defied the whole power of the Persian empire, and the present, when they suffered foreign barbarians to protect them from despicable robber hordes.  

2

THE SECOND ILLYRIAN WAR, 219 B.C.

Shortly after the settlement of affairs in Illyria, the war with the Gauls broke out in Italy, which occupied Rome for a few years. The restless Demetrius of Pharos thought this a favourable time to free himself from a of troublesome subjection to Rome. He was already before this time in close friendship with Antigonus, king of Macedonia, who was the first of all the Greek princes to find the neighbourhood of Rome an inconvenience, and to feel the duty of resisting Roman encroachments on the Greek continent. Relying on this connection, and hoping that Rome would soon be engaged in a new war with Carthage, he began to attack the Roman allies, and to treat the conditions of peace of 228 generally with contempt. He sailed with fifty ships so far even as the Aegean Sea, plundering and laying waste the islands. Rome could not tolerate these acts, if she cared to retain the gratitude or respect of the Greeks. Nor was it the dignity of Rome alone, but her interests also, which demanded the prompt chastisement of Demetrius. A new war with Carthage had by this time become inevitable. If, before its outbreak, the quarrel with Illyria was not settled, the east coast of Italy would be threatened, not merely by Demetrius, but also by his friend and ally, the king of Macedonia, whose interest peremptorily demanded a union with Hannibal and a common war with Rome.

Under these circumstances the Romans hastened to settle the Illyrian difficulty as speedily as possible, that they might the sooner oppose Hannibal in Spain. In the spring of the year 219 B.C. they sent the consul L. Aemilius Paullus to Illyria. He discharged his duty with ability and success, took in a short time the fortress of Dimalon, which had been considered impregnable, and by combining stratagem and bravery made himself master of the town and island of Pharos. Demetrius, flying to the king of Macedonia, sought to prevail on him to declare war against Rome, and fell some years later in an attack on the fortress of Ithome, in Peloponnesus.

Thus the danger of a greater war in the East was happily averted. The town of Pharos was destroyed, that it might no longer serve as a refuge for pirates. The former state of things was restored, and Rome, now free from all care, could, after the conclusion of the wars with Gaul and Illyria, look forward with confidence to the struggle which Hannibal for some years past had prepared, and which was now on the point of breaking out.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SECOND PUNIC OR HANNIBALIAN WAR, 218-201 B.C.