Monunius I

Monunius (Ancient Greek: Μονούνιος; ruled c. 290 – c. 270 BC) was an Illyrian king of Dardania. As a figure, Monunius has left more archaeological traces than historical records. Monunius was a strong opponent of Macedonia but offered aid of 10,000 soldiers to Ptolemy Keraunos during the Gallic Invasions, which was refused. The Dardanian State while headed by Monunius ranked among the strongest in the Balkans at that time. The invasions of the Gauls through the Balkans did not affect the Dardanians as much as the Macedonians.

Monunius
Reignc. 290 – c. 270 BC
PredecessorBardylis II
SuccessorMytilus
DiedRoyal Tombs of Selcë e Poshtme
IllyrianΜονούνιος

In 281 BC Monunius entered into an alliance with Pyrrhus. Their joint interests against a strong Macedonia had induced Pyrrhus to accept Monunius as his ally. He is the first Illyrian to have struck his own silver coins probably after he gained control over the Taulantii State and the Greek colonies on the coast.[1] The king was buried in the Royal Tombs of Selca e Poshtme in the city of Pelion. A helmet with an inscription in Greek[2] letters found in modern Ohrid and silver coins bearing both the king's and Macedonian symbols indicates Monunius' aspirations towards Macedonia, perhaps in the time of confusion following the Gallic invasions.[3]

Many Dardanian rulers of this era were named Monunius and there seems to be some confusion[4] as to whom certain actions and events pertain. It is not known whether the same king struck coins in Durrës and offered military aid to the Macedonians. The hypothesis is doubtful because silver coins minted by Monunius bear only the symbols of Durrës and Appolonia, and they have been never found away from the coastal lowlands. The name of the Dardanian king who offered Macedonia help against the Celts is not known but some historians have connected him with the Monunius who struck coins in Durrës.

Gallic Invasions

During the 4th Century BC, a Gallic population had settled in Pannonia, in the territory that is now Hungary. Many Illyrians tribes had been subdued. About 280 BC, according to Diodorus and Pausanias, they moved in three directions: toward Macedonia and Illyria, toward Greece, and toward Thrace.[5] The main army consisted of 150,000 foot soldiers (equipped with great shields) and 10,000 horsemen. They were followed by 2,000 wagons transporting food and equipment. All the states of the Balkans looked at this Gallic movement with great apprehension, but Ptolemy, the king of Macedonia, took the news of the approach of the Gauls in his stride. In 279 BC Monunius offered the young king military aid against the Gauls. Ptolemy rejected the Dardanian proposal, despite the Dardanian delegates saying that they could offer 20,000 warriors to assist him.[6] In what the writer Justin considered to be an insulting manner, he said that the work was for the Macedonians to do and that they, who had subjugated all the east, had no need for the Dardanians to protect their borders. Monunius had been allied with Thrace and had waged a war against Ptolemy for the Macedonian throne a short time before the invasion of the Gauls. When Monunius was told of Ptolemy's rejection of his offer, Pausanias states that he replied that the soon glorious Macedonian kingdom would fall because of the immaturity of a youth.[7]

The battle that took place only a few days later resulted in the Macedonian army being routed and the king himself wounded and taken prisoner by the Gauls. The Gauls then made their way south towards the Delphi. Chichorus, the commander of the Gauls, decided to take them back to their own country along the same route, where more battles awaited them. According to Diodorus, they were wiped out by Monunius' forces in the Dardanian State, through which they had to pass.[8] Another variant of the return of the Gauls through the Dardanian State is that the Medii and the Dardanians made peace with the Gauls in return for a part of the gold stolen from the temples.[9]

Minting of coins
Main article: Illyrian coinage
Coins of Dyrrhachion mint
Silver stater of Monounios, 10.56 gr, Dyrrhachion mint. Cow and suckling calf.Rev. Double stellate pattern, inscription: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΟΝΟΥΝΙΟΥ (of king Monounios).
Coins of King Monunius - 280 BC with the depiction of a cow and a calf, inscription: ΚΤΗΤΟΣ. Double stellate pattern, inscription: ΔΥΡ ΦΑ ΝΙ[Σ ΚΟ]Υ. Minted in Durrës.

In 280 BC, Monunius gained control of the Taulantii State. Even though the Illyrians had minted coins well before the 3rd century BC, Monunius is the first Illyrian king to issue his own coins in 280 BC. Monunius' mint of silver coinage brought an important financial resource under state control. The royal staters, with the legend 'Basileos Monuniou' (of King Monunius), were a copy of the coins of Durrës, the place where they were minted. The coins of Monunius differed only in having the jaw of the boar set over the cow, as a symbol of the royal Illyrian name. The mint also had the abbreviated name ΔΥΡ (for Durrës) to donate the place where they were minted, as well as showing royal sovereignty over the city. These coins have been found in great numbers in the Illyrian city of Gurëzeza, and in the interior of modern-day Albania beyond the Greek colony of Apollonia.

Royal Tombs of Selcë e Poshtme
Main article: Royal Tombs of Selca e Poshtme

Monunius' second main centre might have been the ancient city of Pelion in Dassaretia, near the present day village of Selca e Poshtme in Albania, in the old residence of the Illyrian kings. It has been claimed that the king was buried in the Royal Tombs of Selca e Poshtme. The ten burials inside the royal tombs were laden with bodies and urns accompanied by a great number of objects, belonging to a second burial period, after the royal grave was robbed in the last decades of the third century BC. Seemingly, the robbery made it impossible to tie the grave to a specific historical person. However, two reliefs decorating the sides of the grave's facade might serve to identify him. They show a shield of the Illyrian type and a helmet of the Hellenistic rulers. The former indicates a local king, while the latter is in complete conformity with a bronze helmet found in the region of Lake Ohrid during the First World War, now kept at the Antike Sammlung Museum in Berlin. On the back of the helmet, in calligraphy virtually identical to that on the coins of King Monunius, the same words are written: Basileos Monouniou. It cannot be said with certainty whether the helmet was part of the first inventory, looted or taken out of a grave in Pelion, but it is surely evidence that the Dardanian State of Monunius extended as far as the Lyncestian Lakes. From here Monunius could have intervened in the quarrel about the Macedonian throne, eventually turning into a claimant or it. This is surely the meaning of the minting of a second series of silver coins bearing his name and traditional Macedonian symbols, the head of Heracles on the face and on the reverse, Olympian Zeus, sitting on the throne. That this was a short lived dream of the Dardanian king is shown by the fact that so few coins were minted, so much so that only one specimen is preserved today.[10][11]

See also

References
  1. The Illyrians by J. J. Wilkes, 1992, ISBN 0-631-19807-5, page 129
  2. The Illyrians by J. J. Wilkes, 1992, ISBN 0-631-19807-5, page 197
  3. The Illyrians by J. J. Wilkes, 1992, ISBN 0-631-19807-5, page 146
  4. The Illyrians by J. J. Wilkes, 1992, ISBN 0-631-19807-5, page 146
  5. Diodorus (Exc., Hoeschel, page 495-497)
  6. Justin (XXIV, 4,9)
  7. Pausanias (X, 19,7)
  8. Diodorus (Exc. Hoeschel, pp. 495-497)
  9. Appian (Illyrike 5)
  10. Papazoglu, Les Origines...
  11. The Illyrians to the Albnanians - Neritan Ceka, pp. 113-114

Sources
  • The Illyrians to the Albanians by Neritan Ceka, 2005
  • The Illyrians by J. J. Wilkes, 1992, ISBN 0-631-19807-5
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