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Dardani

This article is about the ancient tribe in the Balkans. For the Trojan allies, see Dardanoi. For other uses, see Dardania.

Dardani
By the 3rd century the location of the Dardani had resolved itself into the Kingdom of Dardania, which is shown in yellow. The solid lines give modern borders: Republic of Kosovo in the center, Serbia across the north, Macedonia across the south, Albania to the SW, and Montenegro to the NW.
Languages
Palaeo-Balkan language group

The Dardani (/ˈdɑːrdənaɪ/; Ancient Greek: Δαρδάνιοι, Δάρδανοι; Latin: Dardani) or Dardanians were a Paleo-Balkan people, who lived in a region that was named Dardania after their settlement there.[1][2] They were among the oldest Balkan peoples, and their society was very complex.[3] The Dardani were the most stable and conservative ethnic element among the peoples of the central Balkans, retaining an enduring presence in the region for several centuries.[4][5]

Ancient tradition considered the Dardani as an Illyrian people.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Strabo, in particular – also mentioning Galabri and Thunatae as Dardanian tribes – describes the Dardani as one of the three strongest Illyrian peoples, the other two being the Ardiaei and Autariatae.[13][14] As Dardanians had followed their own peculiar geographical, social and political development in Dardania, some ancient sources also distinguish them from those Illyrians dwelling in the central and southern coast of the eastern Adriatic Sea and its hinterland, who had constituted their own socio-political formation, referred to as 'Illyrian kingdom' by ancient authors.[12][8][15] The Dardani were also related to their Thracian neighbors.[16][17][18] In Roman times, there appear Thracian names in the eastern strip of Dardania, and several Thracian and Dacian placenames also appear there, such as Dardapara and Quemedava,[19] but Illyrian names dominated the rest.[20] Nevertheless, ancient authors have not identified Dardanians with Thracians, and Strabo explicitly makes a clear distinction between them.[21][22]

The Kingdom of Dardania was attested since the 4th century BC in ancient sources reporting the wars the Dardanians waged against their south-eastern neighbor – Macedon – until the 2nd century BC.[16] The historian Justin, a main source about the history of the Macedonian kings, refers to an 'lllyrian war' between 346 and the end of 343 BC, fought by 'Dardani and other neighbouring peoples' against Philip II of Macedon, who won the conflict.[23][24] After the Celtic invasion of the Balkans weakened the state of the Macedonians and Paeonians, the political and military role of the Dardanians began to grow in the region. They expanded their state to the area of Paeonia which definitively disappeared from history, and to some territories of the southern Illyrians. The Dardanians strongly pressured the Macedonians, using every opportunity to attack them. However the Macedonians quickly recovered and consolidated their state, and the Dardanians lost their important political role. The strengthening of the Illyrian (Ardiaean–Labeatan) state on their western borders also contributed to the restriction of Dardanian warlike actions towards their neighbors.[25]

Dardanians fought against Roman proconsuls, and were finally defeated probably by Marcus Antonius in 39 BC or by Marcus Licinius Crassus in 29/8 BC.[16] They were included in the Roman province of Moesia. After the Roman emperor Domitian divided the province of Moesia into Moesia Superior and Moesia Inferior in 86 AD, the Dardani were located in southern Moesia Superior.[26][16] A Roman colony was established at Scupi in Dardanian territory under the Flavian dynasty. In the 2nd century AD Dardanians were still notorious as brigands (latrones dardaniae). During the late Imperial period their territory was the homeland of many Roman emperors, notably Constantine the Great and Justinian I.[16]

  1. ^ "Δαρδάνιοι, Δάρδανοι, Δαρδανίωνες" Dardanioi, Georg Autenrieth, "A Homeric Dictionary", at Perseus
  2. ^ Latin Dictionary
  3. ^ Šašel Kos 2010, p. 626.
  4. ^ Wilkes 1992, p. 144.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Papazoglu131 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Strabo's geography - Illyria - 'The Bessi live in huts and lead a wretched life; and their country borders on Mount Rhodope, on the country of the Paeonians, and on that of two Illyrian peoples — the Autariatae, and the Dardanians'
  7. ^ Strabo: The Geography - Illyria - 'The Ardiaei were called by the men of later times "Vardiaei." Because they pestered the sea through their piratical bands, the Romans pushed them back from it into the interior and forced them to till the soil. But the country is rough and poor and not suited to a farming population, and therefore the tribe has been utterly ruined and in fact has almost been obliterated. And this is what befell the rest of the peoples in that part of the world; for those who were most powerful in earlier times were utterly humbled or were obliterated, as, for example, among the Galatae the Boii and the Scordistae, and among the Illyrians the Autariatae, Ardiaei, and Dardanii, and among the Thracians the Triballi; 316that is, they were reduced in warfare by one another at first and then later by the Macedonians and the Romans'
  8. ^ a b Papazoglu 1978, p. 218: "This statement is not without importance for our problem, for it too confirms that in mid-fifth century the lands north of Macedonia were considered to be Illyrian. There is, however, another statement in Herodotus, which N. Vulić insists on as clear evidence that in Herodotus' time the territory of the Dardanians was reckoned as Illyrian . It is a passage from the well - known section on the tributaries of the Danube , in which Herodotus says that the river Angrus flows " from the land of the Illyrians " 267 As the Angrus could be either the Southern Morava or the Ibar , and both rivers in their upper courses flowed through Dardania , Vulić's conclusion looks very reasonable . From all we have said above , the evidence of the ancient writers as to the ethnic origin of the Dardanians seems pretty unanimous and its interpretation offers no special difficulties The tradition according to which the Dardanians , like their neighbours the Autariatae and the Ardiaei , were Illyrians , is preserved in Strabo and Appian . It must be an old tradition , from the times when the three tribes were neighbours . In historians before Strabo ( Polybius , Livy ) and in historians who copied from earlier sources ( Justin , Pompeius Trogus ) , there is nothing to contradict that tradition . The mention of the Darda- nians alongside the Illyrians only shows that the name Illyrian , in addition to its wider ethnic sense , very early acquired a narrower political one . According to Herodotus indeed , for whom the name Illyrian could only have its general meaning , the lands north of Macedonia , round the sources of the Southern Morava and Ibar , were inhabited by Illyrians . This fact shows that ancient tradition considered the Dardanians to be Illyrians ."
  9. ^ Zahariade 2009, p. 81; p. 92: "Dardania was an Illyrian land by tradition. Dardanians were considered Illyrians by Strabo and Appian and so a number of modern scholars, while others believe that at a later date the Dardanians were “Thracisized”... Most of the place-names especially in eastern Dardania turn out to be Thracian. The Thracian element in majority presumably following an expansion westwards seems to have intermingled with the Illyrian one. The ethnic frontier between Thracians and Dardanians was traced on the Morava (Margus) River until the Danube to the north splitting in two the Dardanian lands, with the eastern part significantly “thracisized”."
  10. ^ Kosovo: A Short History p. 363 'As Papazoglu notes, most ancient sources classify Dardanians as Illyrians. Her reasons for rejecting this identification in a later essay, ‘Les Royaumes’, are obscure. There were Thracian names in the eastern strip of Dardania, but Illyrian names dominated the rest; Katicic has shown that these belong with two other Illyrian “‘onomastic provinces’ (see his summary in Ancient Languages, pp. 179-81, and the evidence in Papazoglu, ‘Dardanska onomastika’).'
  11. ^ Wilkes 2012, p. 414: "Dardani, an Illyrian people (their name may derive from the same root as dardhë, the Albanian for 'pear') but also linked with Thracians and with Asia Minor, inhabited the upper Vardar valley and the Kosovo region in the southern Balkans."
  12. ^ a b Vujčić 2021, p. 505: "Regardless of this episode, some sources clearly distinguish the Dardani from the rest of Illyrians, and Dardanian land from Illyria (Polyb. 2.6.4, 28.8.3; Liv. 43.20.1), and some take for granted that they are but one of the Illyrian tribes (Strab. 7.5.6, 12; App. Ill. 1.2). This is not the place to analyze this topic in detail, but, while the Dardani are obviously ethnically and linguistically a part of the Illyrian world, they seem to be separated from other Illyrian peoples by their geography and peculiar socio-political development."
  13. ^ Strabo's geography - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0239
  14. ^ Hammond 1966, pp. 239–241.
  15. ^ Šašel Kos 2005, p. 122.
  16. ^ a b c d e Wilkes 2012, p. 414.
  17. ^ Šašel Kos 2010, p. 625.
  18. ^ Shukriu 1996, p. 20.
  19. ^ Vladimir Georgiev (Gheorghiev), Raporturile dintre limbile dacă, tracă şi frigiană, "Studii Clasice" Journal, II, 1960, 39-58.
  20. ^ Kosovo: A Short History p. 363 'As Papazoglu notes, most ancient sources classify Dardanians as Illyrians. Her reasons for rejecting this identification in a later essay, ‘Les Royaumes’, are obscure. There were Thracian names in the eastern strip of Dardania, but Illyrian names dominated the rest; Katicic has shown that these belong with two other Illyrian “‘onomastic provinces’ (see his summary in Ancient Languages, pp. 179-81, and the evidence in Papazoglu, ‘Dardanska onomastika’).'
  21. ^ Shukriu 1996, p. 41.
  22. ^ Strabo: The Geography - Illyria - 'The Ardiaei were called by the men of later times "Vardiaei." Because they pestered the sea through their piratical bands, the Romans pushed them back from it into the interior and forced them to till the soil. But the country is rough and poor and not suited to a farming population, and therefore the tribe has been utterly ruined and in fact has almost been obliterated. And this is what befell the rest of the peoples in that part of the world; for those who were most powerful in earlier times were utterly humbled or were obliterated, as, for example, among the Galatae the Boii and the Scordistae, and among the Illyrians the Autariatae, Ardiaei, and Dardanii, and among the Thracians the Triballi; 316that is, they were reduced in warfare by one another at first and then later by the Macedonians and the Romans'
  23. ^ Wilkes 1996, pp. 120–121.
  24. ^ Vujčić 2021, p. 504.
  25. ^ Stipčević 1989, pp. 38–39.
  26. ^ Petrović 2019, pp. 23–24.

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