Pirates – Teuta

Background
After the death of her husband Agron (250–231 BC), the former king of the Ardiaei, she inherited his kingdom and acted as regent for her young stepson Pinnes. The exact extent of the kingdom of Agron and Teuta remains uncertain. From what we know, it stretched on the Adriatic coast-land from central Albania up to the Neretva river, and they must have controlled most of the Illyrian inland. According to Polybius, Teuta soon addressed the neighbouring states malevolently, ordering her commanders to treat all of them as enemies and supporting the piratical raids of her subjects, which eventually brought Roman forces to cross the Adriatic for the first time, since those activities increasingly interfered with their trade route in the Adriatic and the Ionian Sea.

Early reign (231–230 BC)
In 231 BC, Teuta’s armies attacked the regions of Elis and Messenia in the Peloponnese. On their way home, they captured the Greek city of Phoenice, at that time the most prosperous place of Epirus and a centre for growing commerce with the Italian Peninsula. The city was soon liberated and a truce was accepted against the payment of a fee and freeborn prisoners. The seizure of an urban centre, as opposed to looting in the countryside, represented an escalation in the threat posed by Illyrians to Greeks and Romans alike. During their occupation of Phoenice, some Illyrian pirates looted Italian merchant ships in such a high number that the Roman Senate, after ignoring earlier complaints, was compelled to dispatch ambassadors to the city of Scodra in order to solicit reparations and demand an end to all pirate expeditions. The vivid account of the event, given by the Greek historian Polybius and overtly hostile to Teuta, was probably influenced by an earlier Roman tradition originally intended to justify the invasion of Illyria.

On their arrival, the Roman ambassadors found Queen Teuta celebrating the end of an internal Illyrian rebellion as her armies were about to lay siege to the Greek island city of Issa. She promised that no royal force would hurt them, but that piracy was a traditional Illyrian custom she was unable to put an end to. Teuta also implied that “it was contrary to the custom of the Illyrian kings to hinder their subjects from winning booty from the sea”. One of the envoys reportedly lost his temper and replied that Rome would make it her business to “improve relations between sovereign and subject in lllyria”, since “an admirable custom, which is to punish publicly the doers of private wrongs and publicly come to the help of the wronged.”

The ambassador expressed himself to the queen so disrespectfully that her attendants were ordered to seize their ship as it embarked back for Rome, and the insolent envoy was murdered on his homeward voyage, allegedly on Teuta’s order. In Polybius’ account, the Roman ambassadors are named Gaius and Lucius Coruncanius. Cassius Dio’s account suggests that they were more than two ambassadors, and that some them were murdered while others were made prisoners. In Appian’s version, the two ambassadors, one Roman Coruncanius and one Issaian Kleemporos, were captured and murdered by some Illyrian lemboi before they landed on Illyrian land while Agron was still alive, implying that the interview between Teuta and the ambassadors may not have occurred. In any case, news of the murder caused the Romans to prepare for war: legions were enlisted and the fleet assembled.

War with Rome (229–228 BC)

In 229 BC, Rome declared war on Illyria and, for the first time, the Roman armies crossed the Adriatic Sea to set foot in the western Balkans. An army consisting of approximately 20,000 troops, 200 cavalry units and an entire Roman fleet of 200 ships, led by Gnaeus Fulvius Centumalus and Lucius Postumius Albinus, was sent to conquer Illyria.

The Roman attack seems to have caught up Teuta by surprise, since she had ordered a large naval expedition involving most of her ships against the Greek colony of Corcyra in the winter of 229. When the 200 Roman ships showed up at Corcyra, Teuta’s governor Demetrius betrayed her and surrendered the city to the Romans, before turning into their advisor for the remaining time of the war. At the end of the conflict in 228 BC, the Romans awarded him the position of governor of Pharos and the adjacent coasts. In the meantime, the remainder of the Roman army landed further north at Apollonia. The combined army and navy proceeded northward together. After subduing one town after another, they eventually besieged the capital, Scodra. Teuta herself had retreated with a few followers to the fortified and strategically well-placed city of Rhizon, the principal base of the Illyrian fleet.

According to Polybius, she made a treaty in the early spring of 228 BC by which she consented to pay an annual tribute, to reign over a restricted and narrow region north of Lissus (modern Lezhë), and not to sail beyond Lissus with more than two unarmed ships. He also reports that they required her to acknowledge the final authority of Rome. According to Cassius Dio, she abdicated later in 227 BC.

Appian mentions that, after the defeat, Teuta sent an embassy to Rome to deliver captives and to apologize for the events that had occurred during her spouse Agron’s reign, but not under hers.