ILLYRII
A large group of related Indo-European tribes, who occupied in classical times the western side of the Balkan range from the head of the Adriatic Sea to the hinterland of the gulf of Valona and extended northwards as far as the eastern Alps and the Danube and eastwards into some districts beyond the Balkan range.
The name was properly that of a small people between Scodra and the Mati river, and was applied by Greeks and later by Romans to the other tribes with which they had regular contact.
Thus Illyris meant to the Greeks the southern part of the area, that neighboring
Macedonia, Epirus, and the Greek cities on the Adriatic coast and islands, and Illyricum meant to the Romans the whole area from the eastern Alps to the gulf of Valona.The earliest signs of Indo-European penetration into Illyris have been found at Pazhok in central Albania, where chieftains of a 'Kurgan' culture were buried in mortuary chambers in large tumuli in the latter part of the third millennium, and there is ample evidence of seafaring and traffic in the southern Adriatic Sea in the second millennium, when piratical groups made settlements in Corcyra and in Leucas.
The southwards expansion of the Illyrian peoples into what is now central Albania occurred probably in the 10th cent. BC. Later, people of a similar culture reached Vergina in the Haliacmon valley.
Greek colonies were planted on the Albanian coast at Epidamnus (later called Dyrrhachium) in the late 7th cent., at Apollonia in the early 6th, and on the Dalmatian islands Corcyra Nigra (now Korcula), Issa (Vis), and Pharos (Hvar).
Enlivened by Greek trade and ideas the Illyrian tribes, which were always warlike on land and sea, exerted continual pressure on Macedonia and Epirus and raided far into the Mediterranean Sea.
Individual tribes became very powerful - in particular the Liburni,
Dardani, Ardiaei, and Autariatae - but they enslaved their neighbours and never created an effective combination of tribal states against a common enemy.When Macedonia became strong under
Philip II and Epirus under Pyrrhus, they occupied the southern parts of Illyris. When the power of Macedonian and Epirus declined, the Illyrians pressed southwards by land and sea, and in particular the Ardiaean kingdom, based on the southern Dalmatian coast, expanded southwards to Scodra and Lissus under Pleuratus I (c.260 bC) and under his son Argon.On the death of his widow Teuta was acting as regent for Pinnes when the first clash with Rome occurred.
N.G.L.Hammond, J.J.Wilkes,
"Oxford Classical Dictionary," 3rd ed. (1996), p.748