Great Illyrian revolt - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Great Illyrian Revolt, (Bellum Batonianum or Pannonian Revolt ) was a major conflict between an alliance of indigenous communities from Illyricum

Illyricum (Roman province)

The Roman province of Illyricum or Illyris Romana or Illyris Barbara or Illyria Barbara replaced most of the region of Illyria. It stretched from the Drilon river in modern north Albania to Istria in the west and to the Sava river in the north. Salona functioned as its capital...

and Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

forces that lasted for four years beginning in AD 6 and ending in AD 9.

The war

In AD 6, several regiments of Daesitiates, natives of area that now comprises central Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

, led by Bato the Daesitiate (Bato I

Bato I

Also known as Bato the Daesitiate. Bato was an Illyrian warlord who led the Daesitiates in the Great Illyrian revolt against the Roman Empire from 6-9 CE.-Background:He was probably born between 35 and 30 BCE in what is today Upper Bosnia...

), were gathered in one place to prepare to join Augustus's stepson and senior military commander Tiberius

Tiberius

Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...

in a war against the Germans

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

. Instead, the Daesitiates mutinied and defeated a Roman force sent against them. The Daesitiates were soon joined by the Breuci led by Bato of the Breuci (Bato II

Bato II

Bato II was an Illyrian warlord who led the Breuci in the Great Illyrian revolt against the Roman Empire. Bato II joined his rebel forces with those led by Bato I. After facing defeat, he surrendered to Tiberius in 8 CE on the bank of the Bosnian river...

), another community inhabiting the region between the rivers Sava and Drava

Drava

Drava or Drave is a river in southern Central Europe, a tributary of the Danube. It sources in Toblach/Dobbiaco, Italy, and flows east through East Tirol and Carinthia in Austria, into Slovenia , and then southeast, passing through Croatia and forming most of the border between Croatia and...

in modern Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

. They gave battle to a second Roman force from Moesia

Moesia

Moesia was an ancient region and later Roman province situated in the Balkans, along the south bank of the Danube River. It included territories of modern-day Southern Serbia , Northern Republic of Macedonia, Northern Bulgaria, Romanian Dobrudja, Southern Moldova, and Budjak .-History:In ancient...

led by Caecina Severus

Aulus Caecina Severus (suffect consul 1 BC)

Aulus Caecina Severus was a Roman politician and general who was suffect consul in 1 BC.-Biography:Descended from a distinguished Volaterran family, Severus made his name as a military man and was awarded the post of suffect consul in 1 BC....

(the governor of Moesia). Despite their defeat, they inflicted heavy casualties at the Battle of Sirmium

Sirmium

Sirmium was a city in ancient Roman Pannonia. Firstly mentioned in the 4th century BC and originally inhabited by the Illyrians and Celts, it was conquered by the Romans in the 1st century BC and subsequently became the capital of the Roman province of Lower Pannonia. In 294 AD, Sirmium was...

. The rebels were now joined by a large number of other communities. At risk was the strategic province of Illyricum

Illyricum (Roman province)

, recently expanded to include the territory of the Pannonii, an indigenous communities inhabiting the region between the rivers Drava

Drava

and Sava, who were subjugated by Rome in 12-9 BC. Illyricum was on Italy's eastern flank, exposing the Roman heartland to the fear of a rebel invasion.

Augustus ordered Tiberius to break off operations in Germany and move his main army to Illyricum. Tiberius sent Marcus Valerius Messalla Messallinus

Marcus Valerius Messalla Messallinus

Marcus Valerius Messalla Messallinus was the son of the Roman famous orator Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, whom he resembled in character, and wife Calpurnia.He was a senator and consul in 3 BC and AD 3...

(the governor of Dalmatia

Dalmatia

Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....

and Pannonia

Pannonia

Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....

) ahead with troops. The panic broke out in Rome and Augustus raised a second task force under Tiberius's nephew Germanicus

Germanicus

Germanicus Julius Caesar , commonly known as Germanicus, was a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and a prominent general of the early Roman Empire. He was born in Rome, Italia, and was named either Nero Claudius Drusus after his father or Tiberius Claudius Nero after his uncle...

. He resorted to the compulsory purchase and emancipation of thousands of slaves in order to amass enough troops. This happened for the first time since the aftermath of the Battle of Cannae

Battle of Cannae

The Battle of Cannae was a major battle of the Second Punic War, which took place on August 2, 216 BC near the town of Cannae in Apulia in southeast Italy. The army of Carthage under Hannibal decisively defeated a numerically superior army of the Roman Republic under command of the consuls Lucius...

two centuries earlier. At one moment, in winter AD 6/7, 10 legions were deployed and an equivalent number of auxilia (70 cohors, 10 ala

Ala

Ala may refer to:* Ala , a female demon in the Serbian and Bulgarian mythology* Ala , an Alusi in Odinani* Ala , a Republican-period, largely infantry, formation of 5,400 men...

and more than 10,000 veterans) In addition, they were assisted by a large number of Thracian

Thracians

The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...

troops deployed by their King Rhoemetalces

Rhoemetalces

- Thracian kings :* Rhoemetalces I, ruled from 12 BC to 12 AD* Rhoemetalces II, ruled from 19 AD to 26 AD* Rhoemetalces III, ruled from 26 AD to 46 AD- Other :* Remetalk Point on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, named for Rhoemetalces III...

, a Roman amicus (ally) a grand total of some 100,000 men.

They faced further reverses on the battlefield and a bitter guerrilla war in the Bosnian

Bosnia (region)

Bosnia is a eponomous region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lies mainly in the Dinaric Alps, ranging to the southern borders of the Pannonian plain, with the rivers Sava and Drina marking its northern and eastern borders. The other eponomous region, the southern, other half of the country is...

mountains, but bitter fighting also occurred in southern Pannonia around Mons Almus (modern Fruška Gora

Fruška Gora

Fruška Gora is a mountain in north Syrmia. Most part of the territory is located within Vojvodina, Serbia, but a smaller part on its western side overlaps the territory of Croatia...

) near Sirmium

Sirmium

. It took them three years of hard fighting to quell the revolt, which was described by the Roman historian Suetonius

Suetonius

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....

as the most difficult conflict faced by Rome since the Punic Wars

Punic Wars

The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage from 264 B.C.E. to 146 B.C.E. At the time, they were probably the largest wars that had ever taken place...

two centuries earlier. Tiberius finally quelled the revolt in AD 9. This was just in time: that same year Arminius

Arminius

Arminius , also known as Armin or Hermann was a chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci who defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest...

destroyed

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest took place in 9 CE, when an alliance of Germanic tribes led by Arminius of the Cherusci ambushed and decisively destroyed three Roman legions, along with their auxiliaries, led by Publius Quinctilius Varus.Despite numerous successful campaigns and raids by the...

Varus

Publius Quinctilius Varus

Publius Quinctilius Varus was a Roman politician and general under Emperor Augustus, mainly remembered for having lost three Roman legions and his own life when attacked by Germanic leader Arminius in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.-Life:His paternal grandfather was senator Sextus Quinctilius...

's three legions in Germany. The Roman high command did not doubt that Arminius would have formed a grand alliance with the Illyrians.

The fighting of the Illyrian Revolt had lasting effects on Roman soldiers. Unhappy with their payment of swampy and mountainous Pannonian lands for such harsh military service, and with abuses relating to their pay and conditions, Roman soldiers staged a mutiny in AD 14, after Augustus' death, demanding recompense. Tiberius

Tiberius

, now the ruling Emperor, dispatched his son, Drusus

Drusus

Drusus was a cognomen in Ancient Rome originating with the Livii. Under the Republic, it was the intellectual property and diagnostic of the Livii Drusi. Under the empire and owing to the influence of an empress, Livia Drusilla, the name was used for a branch of the Claudii into which she had...

, to pacify the mutineers.

Roman punishment

The Romans aside from committing atrocities during the war split up Illyrian tribes into different groups than the ones they had previously composed.The administrative civitates of Osseriates

Osseriates

Osseriates or Oseriates was the name of a civitas in Roman Pannonia. It also was the name of an Illyrian tribe of Pannonians. The Osseriates along with the Celtic Varciani and the Colapiani were created from the Breuci.- See also :...

Colapiani and Varciani were probably created from the Breuci. Other members of tribes were probably sold as slaves or deported in different locations, such as the Azali.

The war

Roman punishment

Further reading