The Kingdoms in Illyria Circa 400–167 B.C.
The positions and the extent of these kingdoms have been disputed in the past, especially by Droysen, Zippel, Meyer, and Beloch, and they are the subject now of an interesting and well-documented paper by F. Papazoglou, entitled ‘Les origines et la destinée de l'état Illyrien: Illyrii proprie dicti’. His conclusions are that there was a specific political ‘Organization’ called ʾΙλλυριοί that almost all the known kings of Illyria—he gives fifteen of them between 400 and 167 B.C.—were rulers of this organization; and that this organization was not the one and only tribal organization known by this specific name, the ‘Illyrii proprie dicti’ of Pliny, HN iii. 144 and P. Mela ii. 55. In the course of the paper he does not mention any use of the term ʾΙλλυριοί before 423 B.C.; he shows no knowledge of the topography of the areas and little concern with topography; and he makes some statements which are erroneous, at least in part, e.g. that when Glaucias took the title ‘king of the Illyrians’ the Taulantii disappeared for ever from history—yet he quotes from Livy the terms given to the Taulantii by Rome in 168 B.C. Moreover, his conclusions do not seem to me to be probable.