The Ancients - The Illyrians: Pirates of the Adriatic

Episode Date: November 8, 2023

Inhabiting the Balkans in antiquity, the Illyrians played a vital role in Ancient History. From their renowned reputation as skilled craftsmen, through to their seafaring ways - the Illyrians left their mark on the archaeological record. But what do we actually know about the Illyrians, and were they actually traders - or did they have a more sinister reputation on the high seas?In this episode Tristan welcomes Dr Danijel Dzino to the podcast, to delve into the mysterious world of the Illyrians. Looking at what the archaeology tells us about their tribal societies, how their civilisation flourished, and whether it's fair to call them Pirates - is it possible to define who the Illyrians were? And what can we learn about them from the Balkan Peninsula today?Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code ANCIENTS sign up now for your 14-day free trial HERE. You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode, well, we're talking about another of these more mysterious civilizations that lived in the ancient Mediterranean world. We've done the Etruscans in the past, we've done the Philistines, we've done the Phoenicians and now it's the turn of a group of peoples that lived in the present day central and western Balkans, a bit of the

eastern Balkans too, who were known in Greco-Roman times as the Illyrians. The Illyrians who gained this reputation as being these great pirates, this menace to communities on either shoreline of the Adriatic Sea and indeed further afield. We even have stories of Illyrians making raids into the kingdom of Macedonia at the time of Alexander the Great. But what has the archaeology revealed about who these people actually were? Were they really these fantastic, scary seafarers with renowned ships such as the Lembi, the Lemba singular, these swift, small vessels perfect for raiding? Well, to explain all, I was delighted to interview a few months back Dr. Daniel Gino, a senior lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney. Daniel, he knows all about the Iron Age Balkans, especially the Illyrians, and it was

wonderful to get him on the podcast to explain all about it. I really do hope you enjoy. And here's Daniel. Daniel, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today. Thanks, Rich, and thanks for inviting me in the podcast. And I hope your listeners would learn something about Balkans, Iron Age Balkans today. Well, it is such a fascinating topic. I do love it when we cover these peoples that are less known in antiquity, but have extraordinary stories nonetheless. And you've hinted at that area today. We're talking about what is the modern-day Balkans and the Illyrians. Daniel, big question to kick it all off. Who exactly were the Illyrians?

That's a million-dollar question, I must admit. Plenty of people tried to answer it, questions, I must admit. Plenty of people try to answer it, but we can't come with actually a decent answer. So what we know that the Greeks at some point of time started to call their western neighbors Illyrians in modern-day Albania, Montenegro. And as the time goes by, Romans are conquering that area, and the name sticks, and they call this province Illyricum. So Illyricum expands all the way to Danube, almost to modern-day Hungary. And then after that, the whole area south of Danube becomes known as the Illyrian tax zone within the Roman Empire. So this term then changes in late antiquity, changes in late Roman period when you had those Illyrian emperors. So in any case, the term is very fluid. But what we actually

know who they were, we know that no group, we don't have evidence that any group called themselves Illyrians. And that's tricky. Some Roman authors, such as Pliny and Pomponius Mela, talk about properly called Illyrians being located in southern Adriatic modern day Montenegrin coast and Albania. And we also know that Romans were fighting with political institution that they called Illyrian kingdom. So probably these people or the groups from this area might be called Illyrians. But they also, or at least some of them, were minting coins. And neither of these groups used the term Illyrians on coins. We have Dauersi, we have people of Skodra, Skodreionon, we have, I don't know, Blabeate. We have plenty of these smaller names, but no Illyrians whatsoever.

So I'm inclined to believe that actually we really don't have Illyrians, but the name just stuck on a large area in the hinterland of the Adriatic Sea. So, Daniel, the term Illyrian, the name Illyrian is almost a blanket term for many different, distinct indigenous groups some 2,000 years ago. Is that correct? Yeah, that's a blanket term. And we know of, greek and roman sources are telling us about some of these groups probably a political they use the ethnonyms so this is something that was made some kind of confusion in scholarship but these ethnonyms probably reflect political institutions that are started to be organized after somewhere fifth century bc century BC. So we have Liburni, we have Delmata, we have Desitiates, we have a zillion of these smaller

groups that have these ethnic terms in Greek and Roman written sources. Obviously, I mentioned the coinage in the Southern Adriatic. They use the Greek script on these coins. And for example, there is an inscription on the site that I was involved in excavations, which is called Bribirska Glavica, Varvarija, that's close to the city of Zadar in Croatia. There is an inscription in Greek there. We know very little about their language because most of the scholars try to connect it with Albanian language. And that's very tricky because we are not sure that Albanians are direct descendants of the Iron Age population. So what we have actually is just a few personal names that are preserved in sources like Bato,

like Teuta, like Agran. And on account of that, it's very difficult to reconstruct a language. We mentioned names like Beto and Teuta there, which I hope we'll get back to as the podcast progresses. But let's move on. You kind of hinted at, you know, the types of literature we have surviving being from Greek and Roman writers, and we'll delve into the archaeology soon and the epigraphy. But I'd like to go back almost before the Iron Age populations of this area of the Balkans. Do we know anything about the origins of these people that are labelled Illyrians, about these indigenous groups? Do we know when they came to this area of Europe? I must admit that Paleolithic and Neolithic are not necessarily my forte, but at least

I'm able to explain in very rough lines this for your listeners. Agriculture comes to Balkans very early. And the thing is, the scholarship assumed in 19th, early 20th century that these Neolithic populations were replaced with Indo-Europeans moving in and that the Illyrians were amongst these Indo-Europeans moving in, and that the Illyrians were amongst these Indo-Europeans. But the scholarship somewhere in 1960s, let's say, so after a little bit more sophisticated archaeological methods started to be used. In particular, I need to mention two archaeologists from Sarajevo, Alois Benac and Bory Wojtowicz.

They came up with a theory that there are not so much of these migrations in early Bronze Age. Some, yes, but that most, the bulk of this population are descendants of these Neolithic population with some influences, obviously, from Indo-Europeans. One of them must have been the language, because what little we know about languages, probably not one language, is that they are Indo-European. And the recent genetic analysis of the population that live in the area indicates that we can't assume some large-scale migrations in this period. Well then, okay, thank you for giving that brief overview of that time period. We will delve into the period which you more focus in on now, therefore, the Iron Age. So we seem to still have this largely

indigenous population as we reach the Iron Age, stretching back to the Neolithic in this area of the world. But can you paint a picture of Illyria at this time? Let's say at the start of the first millennium BC, you've got the Greeks further south, you've got the Romans and other Italian peoples starting to really set themselves in the Italian peninsula. When talking about Iron Age Illyrian society, from the archaeology that survives, should we be imagining small, sparse settlements almost like in ancient Germania or Pannonia? Or should we be imagining almost city-states, like large groups of people in almost proto-cities or proto-towns? We don't really have any trace of urbanization. Talking about Bronze Age, there are some large structures,

and we have a rise of these warlords in later Bronze Age. But things come to an end somewhere around 1000 BC, a little bit after that. And one of the reasons might be either the migrations and the appearance of so-called urn fielders. So in Pannonia, a little bit north, we have a change in burial rights. However, we don't have lots of migrations in the areas closer to Adriatic Sea. Well, maybe nothing at all, because we don't have a change of burial rights. But to go back to this question about Iron Age population, no, we don't have any kind of city life.

Or let's say, proturban settlements start to appear under the influence of these Aegean-based Mediterranean globalization or in simplified matters it's the influence of the Greeks and Macedonians. So we have it in southern Adriatic and some of the recent excavations in the bay of Boka Kotorska show some really important elite structures. One of them is called the Palace in Rison in Montenegro. So this is one area where we have a beginnings of urbanization somewhere starting on we can talk 4th century BC and we have it even further a little bit further north there is an important settlement of Ošanići near Stolac in Hercegovina which was probably called the Daur so it was the seat of the political alliance that

we know as the Daur seat. So this is one area. The other area of the proto-urbanization is known as Liburnija and Liburnija is limited on the area of Ravni Kotari between Zadar and Sibenik and Knin in Dalmatia or today's Republic of Croatia and certainly with the attached islands. We have some beginnings of proto-urban life started there under the same influences Urban life started there under the same influences because people living there, these Liburni or Liburnian communities or Liburnian alliance, if you wish, they had a strong exchange with the Greeks, with Southern Italy. So there were no Greek settlements there, but they obviously had a strong exchange. Exchange means trade, but can also mean piracy.

In the ancient world, these lines between trade and piracy were very thin. That's so interesting, because I actually want to keep on that a bit longer, therefore, because one of the pictures, perceptions we have today of the Illyrians is of them as these sea raiders, as these almost, I dare use the word, pirates. But if you look at the archaeology, the Iron Age archaeology of this area of the world, when looking at people like the Liberni, these various groups that make up the Illyrians, can we affirm this? Can we say that they were engaged in raiding? What do we know about their seafaring activities? Trade attracts piracy. So these things are really connected because

sometimes initial capital for a trader was raised by raiding other ships. And we have in sources two areas, or actually even three, if we add history. History are not so much connected with, let's say, ill areas. They are a little bit further north in Istria in Croatia. So we have these three areas, Liburni history and Southern Illyrians with the raise of trade, with establishment of first Greek settlements, especially in Central Adriatic in 4th century BC, piracy appears. But as I said, piracy is something that obviously the elites, especially in Liburnia and southern Illyria, southern Adriatic, had a kind of need to obtain prestigious artifacts such as fine Greek pottery. And you can obtain two ways, either to trade or through piracy. And they obviously

used both. And there is something also very interesting happening especially in Liburnia which is pretty well explored archaeologically is that we have these really fine Greek pottery not only in elite graves but in a large number of graves which means that it was available even to people who were not the upper stratum or elite, if you wish. So, obviously, there was some need for these artifacts.

And obviously, people who live at the sea and off the sea would use it for their own advantage. And we have even some types of ships that are connected with this area. One of them is a Liburnian or Liburna, which is closely connected, obviously, with Liburni. And this is a famous ship because with some changes that we don't really know what kind of changes were done because we don't know what's the original model.

Romans adopted it. And in early empire, that was a ship of line. That was the most numerous ship that was a Byrene class which probably had two rows of oars and Romans used it. The other type of ship is a lemb or lembos which was associated with southern Illyrians. But this is not their ship originally, this is a ship that was developed in the Aegean area, but obviously they adopted it, changed it in some ways, and we have this ship present on coins. And it has very peculiar shape of probably having two pros, but both of these ships were very, very fast and could be used,

as I said, for both of these purposes. And we know for lambs, Illyrian lambs, in particular, that they could be used for trade, for shipment of troops. And it was even being used in fighting, but not necessarily as the best type of fighting ship because they had no chances against the bigger quadriremes or quincarremes, the Roman or the Greek ones. But it is still really fascinating because we think of the Romans with their military, let's focus on the military side of things, how they adopt certain pieces of equipment

from different groups across the Mediterranean. And it sounds almost when they were looking for a swift, fast ship, almost like, I guess, a cutter of more recent times, they looked at the Illyrian lembus or the Illyrian liberni that they were fighting that we know from the sources that we hear of accounts of them swiftly raiding places along that coastline and they almost therefore adopted as their own so this is actually a great example of where you can see an Illyrian influence on the Roman military too yeah absolutely obviously if you want to have best for your army, you'll adopt things that are the best. And we have evidence that even one of the last Macedonian kings, Philip V,

adopted these Illyrian limbs. So we have double technology transfer. We have these thousand Illyrians adopting a Gegean ship, which was a transport ship, small ship, and so on, for their purposes. And then Macedonian king, seeing it, you know, that perhaps it could be used for other stuff, he adopts that and apparently even invites some ship builders to build him a, what, 100 ships or fleet. So, this type of ship was kind of used around 200 BC and a little bit later, but it didn't stuck as a warship. It was obviously not good enough. It was small and fast, but for naval fighting, you needed something sturdier. I doubt that even Liburna was sturdy,

but obviously Romans, they saw someives in it. I'd like to ask a bit more about the structure of various Illyrian societies at this time, whether it's Diocese or Liberni, because it was really interesting what you mentioned earlier about the contacts with the Greek world and Greek pottery, archaeologically visible in elite graves, but also less elite Illyrian graves, which has striking parallels, let's say, with the Etruscans and elite Etruscan graves where they have some really fine Greek pottery. With these elites, these elite tombs, these elite burials, do we have any idea how these various Illyrian groups were structured? Do we think there was a king at the top or a chieftain or a queen? What do we know about their structure? It's worthy to mention that the center of power

in earlier Iron Ages were deep inland. So we have the highlands, which are somewhere southeast of Sarajevo. They are called the Glasinatz Plateau. And this was a very important center of power, especially from 7th century BC onwards. And these guys in England, they had the first exchange with Greeks. And it was pretty intense. And there is a number of these elite graves excavated. And it was quite an archaeological sensation when they started to be excavated when Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and occupied Herzegovina in 1878. So they started archaeological tradition, which didn't exist before. It was just a little bit of antiquarianism, especially by the Franciscan monks. But they started to organize

archaeology, established museum. And as I said, these excavations in Glasinets were quite a sensation at that time because they enlightened a lot about early Iron Ages in Europe. So we know these people living on Glasinets Plateau, they had these big mounds where they were being buried. They liked Greek stuff. They obviously put a lot of efforts to present themselves as warriors. obviously put a lot of efforts to present themselves as warriors. And obviously, they have a strong influence on the neighboring areas.

But the thing is that they never established a significant political formation. Greek sources give us ethnonym Autariati, which might have been connected with this area. But they, somewhere around 300 BC, disappeared. So, this social complexity starts to crumble even before that. But about these more complex social structures like kingdom, we have a mention of kingdom, obviously, in Southern Adriatic, but we talk about 4th to 2nd century BC. And even the king, it doesn't necessarily mean the king that had the hereditary line. There's probably just the king was the chief of the strongest group. So we have a switch from a group that's known as RDA, which lived in the Bay of Boka Kotorska,

to the group that lived around the Lake Oshkoder, which is between Montenegro and Albania. So I don't think that was kingdom as we might imagine it. The Romans also mentioned, again, I'm running a little bit north towards history, which were even by ancient standards, Illyrians. They had probably a different language and they've been more akin to Veneti in northern Italy. different language and they've been more akin to Veneti in northern Italy. But we also have a mention of kingdom there, which again can be just a chief of this confederation. So it's very likely

that somewhere around from 5th century onwards, they started to organize themselves into these confederations and the complexification of social structures logically starts there. But we don't have kingdoms, we don't have cities. We have a particular feature that's not original in this area. We have it all over Europe, we have it in Britain, but it was apparently very important and that's a hillfort. And we have lots of hillforts from Bronze Age and especially somewhere from 6th century BC. So some of these hill forts, they've been the focal point of these proturban settlements. But some of these hill forts were used as the refuges in the case of danger or a kind of the defensive structures. Some of them might be even used as religious or trading structures.

structures, some of them might be even used as religious or trading structures. It's very interesting that when you move a little bit inland that there is a geological feature that's called polya. Polya is alluvial depression which is surrounded by limestone hills and mountains. And people in pre-modern period lived on the edges of these polyas. Polya means field but we talk about larger geological structures because the center was flooded, especially in the spring. But on these edges of these poljes, especially around the town of Tomislavgrad in southwestern Bosnia, we have a number of these hill forts which are visually connected, which tells you that they played an important role in spatial representation

of community. They are very simple structures and mostly made of stone. And as I said, some of them have pottery inside. Some of them don't have anything. So it could be just a way that community shows, yes, we can put some effort in the structure. So they're very, very interesting and very peculiar for this Iron Age population. Right, got you. So as we go further on into the Iron Age, as these groups, as you say, they go away from the highlands almost, or you see more

of them nearer the Adriatic coast, and there's more contact with the Greek world, do we almost see these hill forts being replaced by these settlements that we highlighted earlier, this proto-urbanism almost? No, they still function, and there are big settlement structures. As I said, some of these hill forts, let's say in Liburnian area we're starting to develop into these proto-urban features. But we have others which were also inhabited. I mean, it's safer if you live up the hill. And probably there is a big settlement called the Dalbion, also close to Tomislavgrad in

the area of this confederation that we know as Delmati. There is also a big settlement complex above modern Sarajevo in the area known as Sok Bunar Zlatiste, which functions still in the Roman period. So the thing is that it's safer to be up the hill. But the problem is that we know generally very little about settlement archaeology. If something is within these hill forts, okay, if it's made in stone, okay, but probably they've been building a lot in perishable structures, especially in lands like timber, and that's much more difficult to discover and much more difficult to find.

But arrival of the Greeks, and the Greeks come to Adriatic very late. They come there in beginning of 4th century BC, which is very late for the Greeks. And they established some settlements on the islands. So we have settlement on the island of Hvar, which is also in Croatia, and island of Vis, Isa and Pharos. And when these Greeks come after a generation, they started to interact with local populations. So we have local mixed marriages, we have the influences of the local customs on burial rites, even in these Greek settlements, and other way around. So we have the obviously Greek influence on the indigenous population.

So there is this kind of cultural interaction, which was fastened with this Greek colonization of Central Adriatic. Although, to be honest, there's also before that the only colonies that existed before this period are in modern-day Albania. So we have these two colonies which having some indirect influence, but as they are based in southern Albania, that's on very, very edge of this world of these indigenous communities. But then in fourth century we have the central Adriatic colonization that I was talking about that played even more significant influence on this cultural interchange. And there are obviously some

conflicts, not everything was peaceful, but generally things started to change really fast. So this center of power moves obviously towards the coast. But when the Romans are coming, we can see that there are some really strong confederations inland. So Romans have a lot of problems with Iapodes and Iapodes lived in what's today central Croatia. They have even more problems with the Scythiatis who live in central Bosnia in this Batonian War between AD 6-9. And moving even northern, there are those Breukin in modern Slavonia, there are Segestani around modern Sisak in Croatia, who all show as very well-organized groups, which give a significant resistance to the Romans in late 1st century BC and early

1st century AD. Before I go a bit more on to the Greeks and the Romans and how they describe almost the Illyrians, almost as the ultimate others, the ultimate barbarians, or how true that is, I'd like to rewind a bit to what you were talking about hill forts. And as you corrected me in saying how actually hillforts they're used down to the Roman times. But when someone mentions the words hillforts, you can't help but think of Celts or Gauls or the Hauschtag culture or the Latin culture. Now, I've got to ask the Illyrians with their identity, what distinguishes these groups of people in the present-day Balkans?

Do we think that there is an influence from this Gallic or this Laten, this Hallstatt culture that was further north in the Iron Age? Oh, there's obvious influence of Hallstatt in early Iron Age. It's undeniable. And we can see Glasinac culture that I mentioned before as the easternmost exposure of the eastern Hallstatt. There are also some very important graves. We don't know anything about settlements. There are great big, big mounds discovered near Slavonska Pozega in Croatia, the so-called capital. So they obviously had good connections and influences from these Hallstatt centers. Like we have it in Hungary, for example, which also belongs to this east of Hallstatt.

But things obviously in the north start to change with the arrival of Latin. Latin is again the art style, but it is associated with people that outside sources used to call Celts or Gauls. that outside sources used to call Celts or Gauls. So there are some indications that some groups are moving in what's today Slavonia and parts of Vojvodina. The ancient name of the city of Belgrade is Singidunum, which is a Celtic name. And we have the alliance known as the Skordeski, which controlled the area around Belgrade and even further south, probably in some periods that they've been controlling a good part of what's today Serbia.

And we have obvious influence of the Latin culture, the cremation burials, and they are bringing first pottery made on wheel, which is so-called, ironically, Celtic or Latin pottery. But again, we cannot talk about big migration wave. We can talk about smaller groups, and these influences are slowly diminishing as we move towards the coast. Although it is possible to find some Latin artifacts even on the coast, but they might be connected either with changing

styles or fashion of elites or even with mercenaries, because we know of these Celtic mercenaries fighting in Hellenistic armies. So both can be true, but we have influences and we have some migrations north of River Sava, but going south of River Sava, they are diminishing. You mentioned there in passing Daniel artifacts and these Celts being used as mercenaries in the Hellenistic period. And let's talk a bit about horsemen, because we've talked about ships of the Illyrians, but if we kind of keep on this Celts, this Gallic link, because in some Illyrian art, correct me if I'm wrong, but we do see regularly horsemen being

depicted, which seems to be another kind of link with that Celtic, that Gallic world, that Latin culture. Could we say it's a warrior society at this time? Can we imagine bands of Deorsi or Liberni, when we get to the Hellenistic period, to the last few centuries BC, going either east or west to serve in armies of successor kings or something similar to that? Obviously, there were some people that were called Illyrians that were fighting as mercenaries in Hellenistic and Greek armies. Whatever that means, we don't really know. Some of them, yes, there was obviously some kind of warrior ethos, but burying someone with weapons doesn't mean that he was a warrior.

So sometimes these weapons could be used as a marker of elite status. So there's a very interesting grave on Glasinac, that's a so-called Iliac mound. And there's lots of female gendered artifacts. So things like earrings, things like jewelry and so on, found together with a helmet. So the interpretation of my colleague is very logical. That was a female grave and this helmet, so-called Illyrian type of helmets, because this is like Corinthian helmet, which is mutated to be adjusted to local tastes. So we call it Illyrian type of helmet. So that was a lady buried with helmet because this helmet represented the power.

As I said, warrior culture, we need to take it with a grain of salt. For example, we know that Japodes, who lived in central Croatia and small part of what's today Slovenia and most western parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, there we can see very strong emphasis on the warriors. So there are warriors there, there are horsemen, but in their graves we can't find weapons. Why? Probably weapons were too valuable to be put in graves. Very similar thing

with the Lyburni. Lyburni obviously had some kind of warrior ethos, but they don't put the weapons in their graves because it's too valuable. They don't want to waste a fine sword to put it in the grave. It's better to use it. And while we have in some other groups very important presence of the weapons, especially defensive weapons like these helmets that I mentioned, so-called Illyrian helmets, but they're also especially in earlier Iron Age and mid Iron Age, these greaves that are especially popular. Again, defensive weapons showing us elite status. So how much they've been really warriors, we don't know.

But we see lots of these weapons in graves. So obviously this kind of idea, this image of warrior was important. I'm really glad you mentioned women there too, because my mind instantly, naturally would go to the story, fascinating story of alexander the great's elder half-sister canane who's seen as half illyrian and the sources describe her as being very warlike how she was raised from a young age in the illyrian tradition to be very capable at war and it almost seems potentially therefore the literature that survives from the greek world maybe also from the roman world portrays women as warriors that they were taught to hunt and to fight from an early age could the archaeology therefore support this no we don't

have any evidence for that but doesn't excludes it completely but the thing is and don't have any evidence for that, but it doesn't exclude it completely. But the thing is, and don't forget that Greeks and Romans, they loved a good story about barbarians. So barbarians were the mirror, completely opposite of them. So if our women don't fight, barbarian women fight. And that's very exotic and very barbarian. There's a great story by a Roman writer, Varro, who compares women in Liburnia giving birth and continuing with their work. That was always used as evidence for stamina, for toughness. But actually, what he wants to say is our women, they're giving birth in beds, thinking mostly probably about elite women. And these are barbarians. They are better in some ways.

They have all the virtues that we lost. So they're women. They just give a birth and continue with agricultural works. No, not really. I mean, it's just a story about barbarians, obviously trying to portray the non-Romans and non-Greeks as a kind of mirror that reflects everything that they are not. There are also some writings about the women during the siege of some Yapodian settlements, throwing off the children and throwing themselves from the walls. Could be

true. We don't really know. It looks very barbarian, but could be true. They didn't want to get enslaved. But as I said, we don't have exact evidence that we have for the Illyrian surviving, although we have stuff written in the Greek script in regards to coinage and so on from Illyria, is almost completely from Greco-Roman sources. And they almost make a point during antiquity to portray the Illyrians as barbarian, as being very different to themselves and who they viewed viewing themselves as more civilized i mean there's very little that we could really see from these sources and take it as face failure there's interesting mention about thracians who live in modern day bulgaria and so-called illyrians tattooing themselves as a habit which might have some sense as a way of marking the identity or having particular traditions that's possible. Most of these

people are just characters in a story, especially if they are barbarians, but most of these are definitely applicable for this Iron Age population. Well, it's good to kind of end on that and to highlight the issues we have with the surviving literature, but how archaeology is still revealing more about these people who lived in this area of the modern day Balkans. Daniel, this has been great. I'm sorry we haven't really been able to talk about stuff such as ritual or religion or even delve more into the trade contacts of the Illyrians. I guess last but certainly not least, is there any other key aspect of the Illyrians that you'd like to highlight that you find really interesting

that you think really deserves mention before we completely end the episode? Oh, it's difficult to talk about Illyrians or all these Iron Age population in such a short time. We have three hours, maybe we could at least scratch some topics. But obviously they populated large area and we can see this Batonian war that Romans are

even starting to get scared in beginning that things are going really sour for them. And there is important impact of that population that will go through this process of becoming Roman. So we have some emperors coming from this area. We have a Valentinian Valens coming from Kibale, which is the Vinkovci in Croatia. We have Diocletian himself. We have quite a few of them. And because they started to build up some kind of warrior ethos and lots of these youth from these communities started to serve in the Roman army, was it a part of tradition that they continued? Probably.

And probably it was a Roman way to pacify the area. But they come to prominence, especially in 3rd century AD, when quite a lot of the emperors are coming from these Illyrian legions and they are originating in this area. Of course, they might call themselves Illyrians, so they have this kind of image of the warriors. But we also shouldn't forget that some important early Christian figures come from the area, like Saint Jerome, who was born at the border between Dalmatia and Pannonia, in the city of Stredon that we can't locate.

And we don't know whether he was coming from the Italian migrants or indigenous ones, but he was known as Dalmatian. So obviously, this area contributed a lot to antiquity, not just these ships that we mentioned. But we still have quite a lot of these things that are underground, that are not visible or so, you know, have a good PR like obviously Greeks, Romans or Celts had in the past. Well, more of that archaeology will no doubt come to light in the near future. And I love ending on that fact how certain late Roman emperors were Illyrian, which is very, very cool.

And, you know, Beto's revolt from very early on as well. Glad you mentioned that. Well, Daniel, this has been great. We're going to wrap up now, but it just goes for me to say, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Oh, thank you so much for inviting me and hope this won't be my last podcast with you. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Daniel Gino talking all things the illyrians i hope you enjoyed the episode i love doing these episodes where we shine more of a light on these more

mysterious peoples of the ancient world so i really do hope you enjoyed today's episode now if you have been enjoying the ancients recently let's say you're listening on spotify then be sure to click the follow button. It really helps us as we continue to grow the audience to get bigger and better. Likewise, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to click the subscribe button on both occasions, whether you're subscribing or following, to make sure that you don't miss out when the new episode is released. We release new episodes every week, twice every week, and I can't wait until the next episode is released this Sunday. Hint, it's on a Greek goddess, but I can't say any more. Now, if you have enjoyed this episode, well, why not also leave us a comment? Let us know your thoughts about it. It really helps.

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