Illyrian warfare
The history of the Illyrians spans from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC up to the 1st century AD in the region of Illyria and in southern Italy, where the Iapygian civilization flourished.
It concerns the armed conflicts of the Illyrian tribes and their kingdoms in the Balkans, in Italy as well as pirate activity in the Mediterranean. Apart from conflicts between Illyrians and neighbouring nations and tribes, numerous wars were recorded among Illyrian tribes themselves.
According to ancient sources, the Illyrians were renowned warriors. They were known as skilled craftsmen and shipbuilders in ancient times and controlled much of the Adriatic and Ionian Sea using their numerous warships. Illyrians had effective weapons such as the sica, a curved-tip sword that originated in Illyria and was eventually adopted all over the Balkans and used later by the Romans.
Mythological
Instances of Illyrians engaged in armed conflict occurred in Greek mythology and specifically in the legend of Cadmus and Harmonia, where Cadmus led the Illyrian Enchelii in a victorious campaign against the Illyrians after divine advice from the Oracle. If the legend is true, this war would have occurred around 2000 BC, the time when Cadmus has been claimed to have lived.Tribal conflicts
Illyrian tribes were reluctant to help each other in times of war and even fought amongst each other and they sometimes allied with the neighbouring Romans and Greeks: These conflicts happened because of land, pastures and areas of natural substances such as iron and salt. The Romans, before they conquered Illyria, were involved in tribal conflicts and used them to their advantage. The most known incident is the involvement of the Romans in a war between the Dalmatians and the Liburnians over Promona, which in the end were encouraged to take peace. Commonly the Romans were ordered to act as referees in their bloody fights. The Autariatae tribe fought against the Ardiaei for control of valuable salt mines. The Ardiaei were notorious before being defeated by the Romans. The Daorsi had suffered attacks from the Delmatae to the extent that they requested Roman aid.States
The earliest recorded Illyrian Kingdom was that of the Enchele in the 8th century BC. The Enchele held dominance for two centuries until their state crumbled from the start of the 6th century BC. After the Enchelii, the Taulanti formed their own state in the 7th century BC. The Autariatae under Pleurias were a kingdom. The Kingdom of the Ardiaei began in 230 BC and ended in 167 BC. The most notable Illyrian kingdoms and dynasties were those of Bardyllis, Dardani and of Agron of the Ardiaei, who created the last and best-known Illyrian kingdom. Agron ruled over the Ardiaei and had extended his rule to other tribes as well. As for the Dardanians, they always had separate domains from the rest of the Illyrians.The Illyrian kingdoms were composed of small areas within the region of Illyria. The exact extent of even the most prominent ones remains unknown. Only the Romans ruled the entire region. The internal organization of the south Illyrian kingdoms points to imitation of their neighboring Greek kingdoms and influence from the Greek and Hellenistic world in the growth of their urban centres. Polybius gives us an image of society within an Illyrian kingdom as peasant infantry fought under aristocrats, which he calls in Greek Polydynastae where each one controlled a town within the kingdom. The monarchy was established on hereditary lines and Illyrian rulers used marriages as a means of alliance with other powers. Pliny writes that the people that formed the nucleus of the Illyrian kingdom were 'Illyrians proper' or Illyrii Proprie Dicti. They were the Taulantii, the Pleraei, the Endirudini, Sasaei, Grabaei and the Labeatae. These later joined to form the Docleatae.
Liburnian thalassocracy
The Liburnians navigational skills and the mobility of their swift ships, the Liburna, allowed them to be present, very early, not only along the Eastern Adriatic coast, they reached also the opposite, western, Italic coast. This process started during great Pannonian-Adriatic movements and migrations at the end of the Bronze Age, from the 12th to 10th century BC. In the Iron Age, they were already on the Italic coast, establishing colonies in Apulia and especially in Picenum, where specific Iron Age cultures developed.From the 9th to the 6th century BC, there was certain koine – cultural unity in the Adriatic, with the general Liburninan seal, whose naval supremacy meant both political and economical authority through several centuries. Some similar toponyms attested not only Liburnian but also other Illyrian migrations to the central and south Italy, respectively Apulia and Picenum.
In the 9th century BC, they ruled the inner Adriatic sea and in the first half of the 8th century BC they expanded southwards. According to Strabo, the Liburnians became masters of island of Corcyra, making it their most southern outpost, by which they controlled the passage into the Adriatic Sea. In 735 BC, they abandoned it, under pressure of Corinthian ruler Hersikrates, during the period of Corinthian expansion to South Italy, Sicily and the Ionian Sea. However, their position in the Adriatic Sea was still strong in the next few centuries. Corinth was the first that went up against the Liburnians. The Bacchiade expelled the Liburni and the Eretrians from Corcyra. About 625 BC, the Taulantii asked for the aid of Corinth and Corcyra against the Liburni. The Greeks were victorious.
Liburnian control of the Adriatic Sea coasts started to decrease in the 6th century BC. According to Pliny the Elder, the Liburnians lost supremacy in the Western Adriatic coast due to invasions by the Umbri and the Gauls, obviously caused by the strengthening and expansion of the Etruscan union in the 6th century BC, whose rich material presence in the basin of Po river undoubtedly meant the weakening of the Liburnian thalassocracy influence in the north-west of Adriatic. Celtic migrations into the Italian peninsula after 400 BC, significantly changed the ethnic and political picture there; it directly imperilled remaining Liburnian possessions on the western coast.
Unlike at the western Adriatic coast, Celtic raids to the narrow Liburnian region at the eastern Adriatic coast were peripheral in geographical meaning. Despite the recorded material exchange, Celtic archaeological forms are marginal and secondary in regions settled by the Histri, Iapodes, Dalmatae and are especially rare in Liburnian Iron Age heritage.
Iapygian–Tarentine Wars
The Iapygian-Tarentine Wars were a set of conflicts and wars between the Greek colony of Taras and the three Iapygian peoples, Messapians, Peucetii and Daunians.Conflicts started immediately after the foundation of Tars in 706 BC over domination of the fertile adjacent plains in southern Italy. The expansion of Taranto was limited to the coast because of the resistance of the populations of inner Apulia. In 473 BC, Taranto signed an alliance with Rhegion, to counter the Messapii, Peuceti, and Lucanians, but the joint armies of the Tarentines and Rhegines were defeated near Kailìa, in what Herodotus claims to be the greatest slaughter of Greeks in his knowledge, with 3,000 Reggians and uncountable Tarentines killed. In 466 BC, Taranto was again defeated by the Iapyges; according to Aristotle, who praises its government, there were so many aristocrats killed that the democratic party was able to get the power, to remove the monarchy, inaugurate a democracy, and expel the Pythagoreans.
In c.440 BC, the Messapian city-state of Brindisi entered into an alliance with Thurii. The Brindisi-Thurri army had a leadership advantage in the form of Cleandridas, an exiled Spartan general who had been banished from the Peloponnese for accepting an Athenian bribe as an advisor of the Spartan king Pleistoanax. Taranto supported the Peloponnesian side against Athens in the Peloponnesian War, refused anchorage and water to Athens in 415 BC, and even sent ships to help the Peloponnesians, after the Athenian disaster in Sicily. On the other side, Athens supported the Messapians, in order to counter Tarantine power.
After 330 BC, the Messapians joined forces with the Tarentines against an even greater force, that of Rome. The alliances with Taras and with Cleonimus of Sparta in 304 BC was an anti-Roman campaign. Thus, towards the end of the fourth century, Rome had become a common enemy for both the Iapygians and the Tarentines, even as far as ending the prolonged battles and causing them to make an alliance.
Illyrian expansion
In the 4th century BC, Bardyllis became king of the Illyrians and the creator of a new dynasty after overthrowing Sirras, the previous Illyrian king, who had entered in a peace treaty over the control of Lyncestis. Bardyllis succeeded in bringing various tribes into a single organisation and soon became a formidable power in the Balkans, resulting in a change of relations with Macedonia. Using new war tactics, in 393 BC, the Illyrians won a decisive battle against Amyntas III, expelling him and ruling Macedonia through a puppet king. In 392 BC, Amyntas III allied himself with the Thessalians and took Macedonia under his rule, taking it from the Dardanians. After continuous invasions, Bardyllis forced the Macedonians to pay him an annual tribute in 372 BC.In 385 BC, Bardyllis raided Epirus, which was under Molossian rule. This time, the Illyrians were allied with and aided by Dionysius of Syracuse to place Alcetas, who was a refugee in his court, to the throne. Dionysius planned to control all the Ionian Sea. Sparta had intervened as soon as the events became known and expelled the Illyrians who were led by Bardyllis. Despite being aided by 2000 Greek hoplites and five hundred suits of Greek armour, the Illyrians were defeated by the Spartans led by Agesilaus but not before ravaging the region and killing 15,000 Molossians. Thus their attempt to control Epirus failed. In 360 BC, another Illyrian attack forced the Molossian king Arymbas to evacuate his non-combatant population to Aetolia and let the Illyrians loot freely. The stratagem worked and the Molossians fell upon the Illyrians who were encumbered with booty and defeated them. In the same year Arymbas of the Mollosians defeated the Illyrians after they raided and looted Epirus.
In 360 BC, the southern Paeonian tribes launched raids against Macedonia in support of an Illyrian invasion. In 359 BC, Bardyllis won a decisive battle against the Macedonian king Perdiccas III in which the king himself was killed along with 4,000 of his soldiers and the Illyrians occupied the cities of upper Macedonia. The Macedonian king's attempt to reconquer upper Macedonia had failed.
Following the disastrous defeat of the Macedonians by Bardyllis, when king Philip took control of the Macedonian throne in 358 BC, he reaffirmed the treaty with the Illyrians, marrying the Illyrian princess Audata, probably the daughter or the niece of Bardyllis. This gave, Philip valuable time to gather his forces and to defeat the Illyrians, who were still under Bardyllis, in the decisive Erigon Valley battle by killing about 7,000 and eliminating the Illyrian menace for some time. In this battle, Bardyllis himself was killed at the age of 90 after Philip II refused a peace treaty offered by the Illyrians. In 335 BC the southern Illyrian states were all subjected by Alexander the Great and only at the end of the 4th century BC won their independence.
In 358 BC, Phillip of Macedon defeated Bardyllis, Diodorus Siculus writes this of the event;
And at first for a long while the battle was evenly poised because of the exceeding gallantry displayed on both sides, and as many were slain and still more wounded, the fortune of battle vacillated first one way then the other, being constantly swayed by the valorous deeds of the combatants; but later as the horsemen pressed on from the flank and rear and Philip with the flower of his troops fought with true heroism, the mass of the Illyrians was compelled to take hastily to flight. When the pursuit had been kept up for a considerable distance and many had been slain in their flight, Philip recalled the Macedonians with the trumpet and erecting a trophy of victory buried his own dead, while the Illyrians, having sent ambassadors and withdrawn from all the Macedonian cities, obtained peace. But more than seven thousand Illyrians were slain in this battle.