provoked
them into undertaking a war by which they would have freed the
Macedonians from their hereditary foe (about 515).

Illyrian Piracy
Expedition against Scodra

Even the evil of piracy, which was naturally in such a state of
matters the only trade that flourished on the Adriatic coast, and
from which the commerce of Italy suffered greatly, was submitted to by
the Romans with an undue measure of patience, --a patience intimately
connected with their radical aversion to maritime war and their
wretched marine. But at length it became too flagrant. Favoured by
Macedonia, which no longer found occasion to continue its old function
of protecting Hellenic commerce from the corsairs of the Adriatic for
the benefit of its foes, the rulers of Scodra had induced the Illyrian
tribes--nearly corresponding to the Dalmatians, Montenegrins, and
northern Albanians of the present day--to unite for joint piratical
expeditions on a great scale.

With whole squadrons of their swift-sailing biremes, the veil-known
"Liburnian" cutters, the Illyrians waged war by sea and along the
coasts against all and sundry. The Greek settlements in these
regions, the island-towns of Issa (Lissa) and Pharos (Lesina), the
important ports of Epidamnus (Durazzo) and Apollonia (to the north of
Avlona on the Aous) of course suffered especially, and were repeatedly
beleaguered by the barbarians. Farther to the south, moreover, the
corsairs established themselves in Phoenice, the most flourishing town
of Epirus; partly voluntarily, partly by constraint, the Epirots and
Acarnanians entered into an unnatural symmachy with the foreign
freebooters; the coast was insecure even as far as Elis and Messene.
In vain the Aetolians and Achaeans collected what ships they had, with
a view to check the evil: in a battle on the open sea they were beaten
by the pirates and their Greek allies; the corsair fleet was able at
length to take possession even of the rich and important island of
Corcyra (Corfu). The complaints of Italian mariners, the appeals for
aid of their old allies the Apolloniates, and the urgent entreaties
of the besieged Issaeans at length compelled the Roman senate to
send at least ambassadors to Scodra. The brothers Gaius and Lucius
Coruncanius went thither to demand that king Agron should put an end
to the disorder. The king answered that according to the national law
of the Illyrians piracy was a lawful trade, and that the government
had no