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Yugoslavia PRE-SLAV HISTORY
YU010101.
Palace of Roman Emperor Diocletian, Dubrovnik
Courtesy Sam and Sarah Stulberg
Ancient peoples inhabited the lands that now make up
Yugoslavia for millennia before Rome conquered the region in the
first century A.D. Archeological findings reveal that during the
Paleolithic period (ca. 200,000-8,000 B.C.) man's ancestors
hunted and foraged in the mountains, valleys, and interior plains
of today's Yugoslavia. In the Mesolithic period (8,000-6,000
B.C.), man expanded the use of tools and weapons and settled
throughout the country. Farming came to the area at the dawn of
the Neolithic Period (6,000-2,800 B.C.) and spread throughout the
region by 4,000 B.C. Yugoslavia's Neolithic inhabitants planted
cereal grains, raised livestock, fished, hunted, wove simple
textiles, built houses of wood or mud, and made coarse pottery
and implements.
Man began working with pure copper in the region in the third
millennium B.C. During the Bronze Age (2,800-700 B.C.), the
population grew, settlements multiplied, and craftsmen began
casting ornaments, tools, and weapons. After about 1450 B.C.,
smiths began working with locally mined gold and silver, horses
and chariots became more common, and trade routes stretched to
northern Europe and the Aegean. During the Iron Age (beginning
700 B.C.), trade flourished between the developing city-states of
Italy and Greece and the region's first identifiable peoples:
Illyrian-speaking tribes north of Lake Ohrid and west of the
Vadar River (in present-day Macedonia), Thracian speakers in the
area of modern Serbia, and the Veneti, who probably spoke an
Italic tongue, in Istria and the Julian Alps (in present-day
Slovenia and northwest Croatia).
Greeks set up trading posts along the eastern Adriatic coast
after 600 B.C. and founded colonies there in the fourth century
B.C. Greek influence proved ephemeral, however, and the native
tribes remained herdsmen and warriors. Bardylis, a tribal chief
of Illyria (present-day northwest Yugoslavia), assumed control of
much of Macedonia in 360 B.C.: Philip II and his son, Alexander
the Great, later united Macedonia and campaigned as far north as
present-day Serbia. In the fourth century B.C., invading Celts
forced the Illyrians southward from the northern Adriatic coast,
and over several centuries a mixed Celtic-Illyrian culture arose
in much of modern Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia, producing wheelturned pottery, jewelry, and iron tools.
In the third century B.C., Rome conquered the west Adriatic
coast and began exerting influence on the opposite shore. Greek
allegations that the Illyrians were disrupting commerce and
plundering coastal towns helped precipitate a Roman punitive
strike in 229 B.C., and in subsequent campaigns Rome forced
Illyrian rulers to pay tribute. Roman armies often crossed
Illyria during the Roman-Macedonian wars, and in 168 B.C. Rome
conquered the Illyrians and destroyed the Macedonia of Philip and
Alexander. For many years the Dinaric Alps sheltered resistance
forces, but Roman dominance increased. In 35 B.C., the emperor
Octavian conquered the coastal region and seized inland Celtic
and Illyrian strongholds; in A.D. 9, Tiberius consolidated Roman
control of the western Balkan peninsula; and by A.D. 14, Rome had
subjugated the Celts in what is now Serbia. The Romans brought
order to the region, and their inventive genius produced lasting
monuments. But Rome's most significant legacy to the region was
the separation of the empire's Byzantine and Roman spheres (the
Eastern and Western Roman Empires, respectively), which created a
cultural chasm that would divide East from West, Eastern Orthodox
from Roman Catholic, and Serb from Croat and Slovene.
Over the next 500 years, Latin culture permeated the region.
The Romans divided their western Balkan territories into separate
provinces. New roads linked fortresses, mines, and trading towns.
The Romans introduced viticulture in Dalmatia, instituted
slavery, and dug new mines. Agriculture thrived in the Danube
Basin, and towns throughout the country blossomed into urban
areas with forums, temples, water systems, coliseums, and public
baths. In addition to gods of the Greco-Roman pantheon, Roman
legionnaires brought the mystic cult of Mithras from Persia. The
Roman army also recruited natives of the conquered regions, and
five sons of Illyrian peasants rose through the ranks to become
emperor. The Illyrian, Celtic, and Thracian languages all
eventually died out, but the centuries of Roman domination failed
to create cultural uniformity.
Internal strife and an economic crisis rocked the empire in
the third century A.D., and two ethnic Illyrian emperors, born in
areas now in Yugoslavia, took decisive steps to prolong the
empire's life. Emperor Diocletian, born in Dalmatia, established
strong central control and a bureaucracy, abolished the last
Roman republican institutions, and persecuted Christians in an
attempt to make them identify more with the state than the
church. Emperor Constantine, born near Nis, reunited the empire
after years of turmoil, established dynastic succession, founded
a new capital at Byzantium in A.D. 330, and legalized
Christianity.
In 395 the sons of Emperor Theodosius split the empire into
eastern and western halves. The division, which became a
permanent feature of the European cultural landscape, separated
Greek Constantinople (as Byzantium was renamed in A.D. 330) from
Latin Rome and eventually the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic
churches. It likewise separated the lands in what is now
Yugoslavia, exercising a critical influence on the Serbs and
Croats. Economic and administrative breakdown soon softened the
empire's defenses, especially in the western half, and barbarian
tribes began to attack. In the fourth century, the Goths sacked
Roman fortresses along the Danube River, and in A.D. 448 the Huns
ravaged Sirmium (now Sremska Mitrovica northwest of present-day
Belgrade), Singidunum (now Belgrade), and Emona (now Ljubljana).
The Ostrogoths had conquered Dalmatia and other provinces by 493.
Emperor Justinian drove the invaders out in the sixth century,
but the defenses of the empire proved inadequate to maintain this
gain.
Slavic tribesmen poured across the empire's borders during
the fifth and sixth centuries. The Slavs, characteristically
sedentary farming and livestock-raising tribes, spoke an IndoEuropean language and organized themselves into clans ruled by a
council of family chiefs. All land and significant wealth was
held in common. In the sixth century, the Slavs allied with the
more powerful Avars to plunder the Danube Basin. Together, they
erased almost all trace of Christian life in Dalmatia and the
northwestern parts of present-day Yugoslavia. In A.D. 626 these
tribes surrounded Constantinople itself. The Avar incursions
proved key to the subsequent development of Yugoslavia because
they immediately preceded, and may have precipitated, the arrival
of the Serbs and Croats.
Data as of December 1990
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