Section 4

9 AD - 600 AD

THE ROMAN CONQUEST

 

ROMAN LEGIONAIRES FROM NORTHERN ITALY

SETTLE IN THE WESTERN BALKANS

&

BRING THE LATIN LANGUAGE

 

The Roman contribution to the population of the western Balkans should not be ignored. Gibbon says that most Roman legionnaires stayed in the provinces in which they served and estimates of the Balkan population in the Roman period are set at 1 000 000. If this is indeed the case, we are talking about a very large infusion of Italians into Illyrian lands in the first few centuries of the new millennium.

           

The legions that conquered the Illyrians...consisted of 5000 infantrymen... each recruit serving for a fixed term of 25 years with an assured reward upon completion of service ... 7 were based in the Illyrian provinces, 3 in Pannonia & 2 each in Dalmatia and Moesia (and) were accompanied by auxiliary cavalry & infantry, originally ethnic units from various provinces of the empire...           

 

            John Wilkes

            The Illyrians

            Chapter: Prehistoric Illyrians

            Page: 211        

            Blackwell Publishers

            1992

 

That adds up to 35 000 Italian men serving 25 years terms. If we add a figure of 1000 auxiliary cavalry & infantry: that adds up to 40 000 Italian men settling in the Balkans every 25 years. This adds up to an infusion of 160 000 Italian men every century for 5 centuries - at least until 500 AD. This adds up to 800 000 Italian males.

 

Of this 800 000 in the course of 500 years, a total of:

 

- 342 000 Italian men settled Pannonia

- 230 000 Italian men settled Dalmatia

- 230 000 Italian men setlled Moesia

 

This large infusion of Italian Romans also helps explain why the Illyrian language lost out to Latin & Greek in the south and faded away into disuse.

 

We must also remember that the conquering of Illyria by the Romans entailed mass extermination of many Illyrians in North & Central Albania as well as non-Illyrian Epirus. Wilkes quotes Strabo writing in the year 20 BC:     

 

Roman treatment of Illyrians south of the Drin had reached a brutal climax following the victory over Macedonia in 168 BC. In attacks by the Roman army on Macedonian allies in northern Epirus and Illyris, 70 communities were destroyed, 150 000 of the population enslaved and the countryside devastated. A century & a half later, Strabo records:

 

"...at the present time desolation prevails in most parts, while in the areas still inhabited they survive only in the villages and       among the ruins".          

 

            John Wilkes

            The Illyrians

            Chapter: Prehistoric Illyrians

            Page: 208        

            Blackwell Publishers

            1992

 

Albania & Epirus were both virtually emptied of people at the start of the Roman Era. Greeks had colonies on the Dalmatian islands and the Greek contribution to the ethnogenesis of the Serbs and Serb-derived pseudo-ethnicities is negligible.

 

Because this large infusion of Italic non-Balkaners has not altered the Dinaric sub-racial character of the western Balkans (which remains largely Dinaric to this day), it is safe to conclude that most of these Italians were northerners and Dinarics themselves and thus most likely descend from the Mesolithic Bell-Beaker proto-Dinarics, also.