25. Teuta’s War With Rome
Rome’s beef with Queen Teuta began when some of her pirates seized and plundered Roman vessels. When the merchants complained to the Roman Senate, it initially tried to handle the problem with diplomacy. Two envoys were accordingly sent to Teuta’s court to complain. She responded that piracy was legal among the Illyrians, and that her government had no right to interfere with its citizens’ private enterprises. When the Roman diplomats retorted that Rome would then have no choice but to make her change Illyrian laws, Teuta stopped feeling diplomatic. She ordered one of the Roman envoys killed, and the other imprisoned.
The outraged Romans declared war in 229 BC. A fleet of 200 warships was sent to harry the Illyrians at sea, while an army of 20,000 men and cavalry crossed the Adriatic to harry Teuta’s kingdom by land. The pirate queen conducted a fierce resistance that gave the Romans no end of trouble. However, Teuta’s kingdom was no match for the might of Rome, and in 227 BC, she was forced to surrender and sign a humiliating peace treaty. She kept her throne, but as a Roman vassal forced to pay an annual tribute, and left to rule over a shrunken realm, stripped of much of its territory.