O elementima političkog organiziranja ilirskih zajednica
On Elements of the Political Organizing Athropof the Illyrian Communities.

Summary/Abstract: The Illyrians belong to the group of ancient peoples, who already in the course of the 1st millennium of the new era in the political development achieved the level of the state organization. It concerns, first of all, the tribes that were in the Southern parts of the Illyrian world. They lived close to the Greek world, where from the pre-historic time the cultural and political influences reached them. The Illyrians being very close neighbours of the Greek developed culture took over the progressive cultural heritage, influenced by them, they abandoned the tribal organization rather early and established the form of the social life, which differed little from that of the Greeks. As early as the old Greek myths mentioned the Enhelian royal authorities. The Peonians were mentioned by Homer as Troyan allies, while the later Greek writers spoke in details of the kingdom of Dardanians, Taulantians and Ardieyans. Based on these data it is possible to say that the Illyrian political organizing, which brought to the establishment of the royal state, namely the state organization, started early in the 1st millenium of the old era, while the other three tribes in the second half of the 1st millenium. The Greek writers and the epigraph documents show that the mentioned communities had all the characteristics that enabled them to abandon rather early the tribal organization, to establish the monarchy. First of all, they had the good economic base and military power. Some Greek communities, to mention Athens, sometimes, due to the money, won the alliance of certain Illyrian kingdoms in the mutual clashes or the war against the Macedonians. As a matter of fact, the Illyrians suffered a great deal from the neighbouring Macedonians. Their histories, in the course of centuries, often meet. The contacts had also the far reaching consequences for the Illyrian cultural and political development. From the mentioned kingdoms the best known to us is that of the Ardieyans, because it used to be the erliest state, a contemporary of the Roman penetration to the Balkan peninsula, it was described by Roman writers in details. Those Illyrian communities that were remoted from the Greek world, that had less or no Greek influece, in their cultural and political development were considerably lagging behind. This the reason that the arrival of the Romans found them in the phasis of tribal organization. Only some of them were on the verge to have a state organization, which was interrupted by the Roman expansion. It may be concluded that the most developed political organizing with the Illyrians was that under the direct cultural and political influence of the Greeks. Those were the tribes on the South of the Illyrian world (the present day Macedonia, Albania, Monte Negro and South Herzegovina).

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