Illyrian Wars

THE Greeks call those people Illyrians who occupy the region beyond Macedonia and Thrace from Chaonia and Thesprotia to the river Ister (Danube). This is the length of the country. Its breadth is from Macedonia and the mountains of Thrace to Pannonia and the Adriatic and the foot-hills of the Alps. Its breadth is five days’ journey and its length thirty — so the Greek writers say. The Romans measured the country and found its length to be upward of 6000 stades and its width about 1200.

They say that the country received its name from Illyrius, the son of Polyphemus; for the Cyclops Polyphemus and his wife, Galatea, had three sons, Celtus, Illyrius, and Galas, all of whom migrated from Sicily; and the nations called Celts, Illyrians, and Galatians took their origin from them. Among the many myths prevailing among many peoples this seems to me the most plausible. Illyrius had six sons, Encheleus, Autarieus, Dardanus, Maedus, Taulas, and Perrhaebus, also daughters, Partho, Daortho, Dassaro, and others, from whom sprang the Taulantii, the Perrhaebi, the Enchelees, the Autarienses, the Dardani, the Partheni, the Dassaretii, and the Darsii. Autarieus had a son Pannonius, or Paeon, and the latter had sons, Scordiscus and Triballus, from whom nations bearing similar names were derived. But I will leave these matters to the archaeologists.