Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history, Vol. 2 (of 3)Niebuhr, Barthold Georg
History
Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Niebuhr, Barthold Georg
Rome -- History
In the first Illyrian war, the Romans owed their speedy success to
a Greek, Demetrius of Pharus. As governor of Corcyra, having in all
probability been bribed, he had surrendered the island to them; and
by their influence he had been appointed guardian of the king who was
a minor. His was a character in keeping with that age of infamy; he
was a traitor to all parties. He now conspired against the Romans, and
during the Gallic war he excited the Illyrians to rebellion, which
shows that these peoples paid tribute to Rome. Besides this, with a
fleet of fifty _Lembi_, he dared to commit piracy in the Archipelago
against the defenceless Cyclades. The Romans sent over a consular army
under L. Æmilius Paulus; the hopes of the rebels were quickly blighted,
and their capital Dimalus was taken (a name which proves, that the
modern Albanian language is like the ancient Illyrian, for _dimal_
in Albanian means a double mountain). The seat of Demetrius was his
native island Pharus, which the Romans took by a stratagem: he himself
made his escape to Macedon, where the last Philip had just begun his
reign, and he became his evil genius. Thus the second Illyrian war
was very soon ended. The Romans on the whole at that time enlarged
their dominion. We have nothing to inform us when the Venetians
became dependent: in the great Gallic war we find them as allies. The
Istrians, however, were subjected even before the war of Hannibal,
and the Venetians must then have been already conquered; so that the
acquisition of the supremacy over them probably dates from this period.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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