Liburnians

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The Liburnians (or Liburni, Greek: Λιβυρνοί)[1] were an "Illyrian" people inhabiting the district called Liburnia, a coastal region of the northeastern Adriatic between the river Arsia (now Raša) in Istria and the river Titius (now the Krka) in what is now Croatia. Liburnia became the northern part of Roman Illyricum.[2] They, together with the Siculians, had originally occupied the opposite coast of Picenum in a city called Truentum.[3] Strabo reports[4] that Corcyra (modern Korčula) had been peopled by them in the distant past until they were expelled by the legendary Archias. Another ancient source[5] credits their former presence in Issa and neighbouring islands.

The Liburnians had been considerably extended to the north, for Noricum had been previously inhabited by Liburnian tribes; for the Vindelicians were Liburnians.[6] Strabo[7] makes a distinction between them and the Breuni and Genauni, whom he calls Illyrians. The words of Virgil[8] seem distinctly to term the Veneti Liburnians, for the "innermost realm of the Liburnians" must have been the goal at which Antenor is said to have arrived.

Reconstruction of a Liburnian ship, as of ca. 31 BC
Reconstruction of a Liburnian ship, as of ca. 31 BC

By the middle of the first century BC they were partly losing territory to their Illyrian neighbors on the southeast, the Delmatae and probably the Ardiaei. Over the centuries it seems that the Liburnians, having once controlled the Adriatic down to Corfu, were being steadily pushed westwards. Due to these pressures, to conserve and stabilise their area the Liburnians adhered to Romans by 35 BC, and then their land was incorporated into Dalmatia province.

Driven out from the countries between Pannonia and the Veneti by the Gallic invasion, they were compressed within the district from the Titius (mod. Krka) to the Arsia (mod. Raša), which came to be called Liburnia. A wild and piratical race[9], they used privateering vessels (lembi or naves Liburnicae, "Liburnian ships"[10]) with one very large lateen sail, which, adopted by the Romans in their struggle with Carthage[11] and in the Second Macedonian War[12], gradually supplanted the high-bulwarked galleys which had formerly been in use.[13]

Liburnia was afterwards incorporated with the province of Dalmatia, and Iadera (mod. Zadar), its capital, was made a Roman colony. In AD 634 Heraclius invited the Chrovates or Chrobati (ancestors of the Croats), who lived on the north side of the Carpathians, in what is now southern Poland (or Galicia), to occupy the province as vassals of the Empire.[14] This connection with the Byzantine court, and their occupation of countries which had embraced Christianity in the Apostolic age (Titus was in Dalmatia in the time of St. Paul[15]), naturally led to the conversion of these Slavonian strangers as early as the seventh century.[16]

Contents

[edit] Settlements and territories

The principal settlements of the Liburnians lay in the south of their territory, in the coastal plain around Iadera (Zadar), between the rivers Tedanius (Zrmanja) and Titius (Krka). A major megalithic town had been Curycta in Krk island. Other settlements were found along the coast northwards towards eastern Istria, an area which was more firmly part of Liburnia after the fifth century BC. Liburnian possessions from that time included the islands of the Kvarner bay, i.e. Curyctae (Krk), Arba (Rab), the Apsyrtides (Cres and Lošinj) and Gissa (Pag).

Strabo[17] extends the coast-line of Liburnia as far as 1500 stadia; their chief cities were Iadera (mod. Zadar) and the "conventus" or congress of Scardona (mod. Skradin), at which the inhabitants of fourteen towns assembled[18]. Besides these, Pliny[18] enumerates the following:- Alvona (mod. Labin), Flanona (mod. Plomin), Tarsatica (mod. Trsat, near Rijeka), Senia (mod. Senj), Lopsica (mod. Sveti Juraj), Ortopula (mod. Jablanac?), Vegium (mod. Karlobag), Argyruntum (mod. Starigrad-Paklenica), Corinium (mod. Karin), Aenona (mod. Nin) and Civitas Pasini.

Strabo enumerates the following as the Liburnian Islands[19]:- The Libyrnides (Arbo, Pago, Isola Longa, Coronata &c., which border the coasts of ancient Liburnia, now Murlaka), Absyrtides[20] (mod. Cres & Lošinj, cf. Cherso & Ossero), Cyrictica[21](mod. Krk, cf. Veglia), Issa (mod. Vis& Biševo, cf. Lissa), Tragurium (mod. Trogir, cf. Traù), the Black Corcyra (mod. Korčula) and Pharos[22] (mod. Hvar, It. 'Lesina').

The Periplus of Scylacis Caryandensis (§21) enumerates the Liburnian coastal cities of Lias, Idassa, Attienites, Dyÿrta, Aloupsoi, Olsoi, Pedetai, and Hemionoi of which Scylacis notes "These people are ruled by women, who are the wives of freeborn men, but they cohabit with their own slaves and with the men of the neighboring regions."[23]

[edit] Seafarers

The Liburnians were renowned seafarers, notorious for their raids in the Adriatic Sea, which they conducted in their swift galleys. The Romans knew them principally as a people addicted to piracy. The major harbour of Liburnian navy since 5th century BC was Corynthia at eastern cape of Krk island, including 7 unearthed docks, marine arsenal, and stony fortifications; this early harbour persisted in ancient and medieval function to 16th century.

Liburnians constructed different ship types; their galaia was an early prototype of transport galleys, lembus was a fishing ship continued by the actual Croatian levut, and a drakoforos with dragonheads was the desant ship reminding of Nordic drakkars.

[edit] Liburna

Another Liburnian warship, known as a libyrnidas to the Greeks and a liburna to the Romans, was propelled by oars; it was a smaller version of a trireme, but with two baks of oars (a bireme), faster, lighter, and more agile. The liburnian design was adopted by the Romans and became a key part of Ancient Rome's navy. It was 109 ft (33 m) long and 16 ft (5 m) wide with a 3 ft (0.91 m) draft. Two rows of oarsmen pulled 18 oars per side. The ship could make up to 14 knots under sail and more than 7 under oars.[24] Such a vessel, used as a merchantman, might take on a passenger, as Lycinus relates in the second-century dialogue, Erotes, traditionally attributed to Lucian of Samosata: "I had a speedy vessel readied, the kind of bireme used above all by the Liburnians of the Ionian Gulf."

[edit] Language

Main article: Liburnian language

The Liburnian language is reckoned as an Indo-European language, in the Centum group. It appears to have been on the same Indo-European branch as the Venetic language.

No writings in Liburnian are known however. The grouping of Liburnian with Venetic is based on the Liburnian onomastics. Yoshamya (2005) suggests that the Liburnians were not Illyrians linguistically, connecting the Liburnian language to the Venetic language.[25][26][27].

[edit] Religion

Anzotica, the Liburnian goddess of love, counterpart of Venus and Aphrodite, and also Ica, their water goddess of fountains, both appear in traditional Greco-Roman guise in Roman-era Liburnian sculpture.

[edit] See also

[edit] Sources

  • naves Liburnicae
  • HELVII u Jaderu i Liburniji, [“Helvii in Iader and Liburnia”], Radovi - zavoda za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Zadru, 37, Zadar, 1955, 9-37.
  • Liburnski cipus iz Verone (CIL 5, 2200, 8852; CIL 3, 2190), [“Liburnian cipus from Verona”], Diadora, 10, Zadar, 1988, 73-99.
  • "Prilog klasifikaciji liburnskih nadgrobnih spomenika, tzv. liburnskih cipusa - sjeverna grupa nalaza," [“Contribution to classification of Liburnian gravestones, so called cipuses - northern group of findings”], Izdanja HAD-a, 13, Arheoloska istrazivanja na otocima Krku, Rabu i u Hrvatskom primorju, Zagreb, 1989, 51-59.
  • [ ], "Aserijatska skupina liburnskih nadgrobnih spomenika, tzv. liburnskih cipusa," [“Asseriate group of Liburnian gravestones, so called cipuses”], Diadora, 12:209-299, Zadar, 1990; Diadora 13, Zadar, 1991, 169-211.
  • Ivo Fadić, Archaeological museum in Zadar
  • Barac, L. et al. '"Y-chromosomal heritage of Croatian population and its island isolates." European Journal of Human Genetetics 11 (2003): 535-542.
  • Batovic, Sime. Sepultures de la peuplade illyrienne des Liburnes. Bonn 1962.
  • Batovic, Sime. '"Die Eisenzeit auf dem Gebiet des illyrischen Stammes der Liburnen." Archaeologia Jugoslavica '6 (1965.), 55 p.,
  • Tolk, H.V. et al. "MtDNA haplogroups in the populations of Croatian Adriatic Islands." Coll. Anthropologica 24: 267-279, 2000.
  • Wilkes, John. The Illyrians. Blackwell Books, 1992.
  • Yoshamya, Mitjel & Yoshamya, Zyelimer. Gan-Veyan: Neo-Liburnic glossary, grammar, culture, genom. Old-Croatian Archidioms, Monograph I, p. 1 - 1.224, Scientific Society for Ethnogenesis studies, Zagreb 2005.
  • Brusic, Zdenko. Hellenistic and Roman Relief Pottery in Liburnia ISBN 184171030X. [British Archaeological Reports http://www.archaeopress.com/searchBar.asp?QuickSearch=184171030X] (December 8, 1999), 254 pages, 122 plates of drawings and photographs.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Scyl. 21; Strabo vi. p. 407, vii. p. 484; Appian, Ill. 12; Stephanus Byzantinus; Scholia ad Nicander 607 ; Pomponius Mela, ii. § 49-50 ; Pliny's Natural History iii. 23; Florus ii. 5.
  2. ^ Λιβυρνίς χώρα,Scyl.; Λιβουρνία, Ptolemy ii. 16. § 8, viii. 7 § 7; Plin. iii. 6, 23, 26; Peut. Tab.; Orelli Inscr. n. 664
  3. ^ Plin. iii. 18
  4. ^ Strab. vi. p. 407
  5. ^ Schol. ad Apollon. iv. 564
  6. ^ Servius' commentary on Virgil's Aeneid i. 243
  7. ^ Strabo iv. § 306
  8. ^ Servius' commentary on Virgil's Aeneid i. 243
  9. ^ Liv. x. 2
  10. ^ naves Liburnicae
  11. ^ Eutropius ii. 22
  12. ^ Livy xlii. 48
  13. ^ Caesar, Galic War iii. 5; Horace Epod. i. 1.
  14. ^ Const. Porph. de Admin. Imp. c. 31
  15. ^ Il. Ep. Tim. iv. 10
  16. ^ Cf. Schafarik, Slav. Alt. vol. ii. pp. 277-309; Neigebaur, Die Sud-Slaven, pp. 224-244.
  17. ^ Strabo vi § 484
  18. ^ a b Plin. iii. 25
  19. ^ Strab. ii. 186, vi. 484
  20. ^ Where Medea apparently killed her brother Apsyrtus, who was pursuing her.
  21. ^ Apparently the Curicta of Pliny and Ptolemy, corresponding to the island of Veglia
  22. ^ According to Strabo, the Birthplace of Pharos (formerly Paros), founded by the Parians in 384 BC (Diodorus Siculus, 15.13) and also famous for Demetrius of Pharos who, on making common cause with the Romans in 229 BC was made ruler of most of Illyria instead of Queen Tuta (Polybius, 2-10 ff). Cf. Appian, Ill.
  23. ^ Yoshamya, Mitjel and Yoshamya, Zyelimer. Gan-Veyan: Neo-Liburnic glossary, grammar, culture, genom. Old-Croatian Archidioms, Monograph I, p. 1 - 1.224, Scientific Society for Ethnogenesis studies, Zagreb 2005; Shipley, Graham. The Periplous of Pseudo-Scylax: An Interim Translation. 2002.
  24. ^ Gabriel, Richard A.. "Masters of the Mediterranean". Military History (December 2007). 
  25. ^ Yoshamya, Mitjel & Yoshamya, Zyelimer. Gan-Veyan: Neo-Liburnic glossary, grammar, culture, genom. Old-Croatian Archidioms, Monograph I, p. 1 - 1.224, Scientific Society for Ethnogenesis studies, Zagreb 2005.
  26. ^ Wilkes, J. J. The Illyrians, 1992,ISBN 0631198075,page 183,"... We may begin with the Venetic peoples, Veneti, Carni, Histri and Liburni, whose language set them apart from the rest of the Illyrians. ..."
  27. ^ Wilkes, J. J. The Illyrians, 1992,ISBN 0631198075,page 81,"... " In Roman Pannonia the Latobici and Varciani who dwelt east of the Venetic Catari in the upper Sava valley were Celtic but the Colapiani of the Colapis (Kulpa) valley were Illyrians ( ..."

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