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415The people who are Illyrians and Celts: Strabo and the identities of the barbarians from IllyricumArheoloki vestnik 59, 2008, str. xxx-xxx

Izvleek

Avtor v lanku ponovno preui mnenje antinega geografaStrabona o Japodih kot meanem ljudstvu, ki je bilo v strokie obravnavano. Postavi ga v kontekst modernih znanstvenihdiskusij o naravi identitet prazgodovinskih in antinih ljudstevna mediteranskem obrobju.

Kljube besede: Japodi, Strabon, Ilirik, antina identiteta,antina etnina zavest

The people who are Illyrians and Celts:

Strabo and the identities of the barbarians from Illyricum*

Danijel DZINO

INTRODUCTION

The geographer Strabo made peculiar and intrigu-ing remarks regarding the ethnicity of the peoplesfrom ancient Illyricum, known to his contemporaries

as the Iapodes and Scordisci. He stated that bothpeoples are of mixed origins, the Iapodes: Celto-Illyrian (4.6.10; 7.5.2; 7.5.4), and the Scordisci:a Celto-Thracian-Illyrian mixture (7.5.1, cf. 7.1.1;7.3.11; 7.5.2). These statements led to numerous

Abstract

This work re-examines the perception of the ancient geog-rapher Strabo in relation to the Iapodes as a mixed people,and places this in the context of current scholarly debates onthe nature of the identity of pre-historic and proto-historicalpeoples of the Mediterranean periphery.

Keywords: Iapodes, Strabo, Illyricum, ancient identity,ancient ethnicity

and often-fruitless scholarly debates in the past thatneither shed any light on the nature of the identityof those peoples nor explained why Strabo perceivedthem as such.1

These remarks of Strabo are suddenly appearing

in the intersection of several different contemporaryfocal points of scholarship in ancient history andarchaeology. On one hand is a renewed interest in

1 The Iapodes were firstly regarded as the illyrisch-keltischesMischvolk cf. G. Alfldy, Bevlkerung und Gesell sch aft derrmischen Provinz Dalmatien (Budapest 1965) 41; K. Kurtz,Zur Ethnizitt der Japoden,Listy Fi lologick90, 1967, 259269listing older literature. Later, they are seen as the Illyrians,culturally influenced by the Celts, but not mixed with them,J. J. Wilkes, The Population of Roman Dalmatia, in: Aufstiegund Niedergang der Romische Welt 2/6 (Berlin, New York 1977)749751; R. Drechsler-Bii, Japodska grupa , in: A. Benac (ed.),

Praistorija Jugoslavenskih Zemalja 5. eljezno doba (Sarajevo

1987) 439441; B. Oluji,Povijest Japoda. Pristup (Zagreb 2007)179185 and (n. 25) below.

* I would like to thank Marjeta ael-Kos, Dragan Boi(Institute for Archaeology, Scientific Research Centre of theSlovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana) andDubravka Balen-Letuni (Archaeological Museum Zagreb) onuseful suggestions and constructive criticism that significantlyimproved the quality of this work. I am in particular grateful toMs Barbara Sidwell (Adelaide University) for her help in editing

this paper and her sharp observations, which I took freedom toincorporate in the paper without specific acknowledgments.


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the work of Strabo, who is recognized as a complexauthor existing in the multiple discursive contextsof his age, rather than just being a faceless compilerof the earlier authorities.2On the other hand is the

growing impact of the discipline of cultural studies onthe poststructuralist interpretation of the ancient past.

Amongst other things, cultural studies re-examine thesocial constructs such as identity and culture, usingthe theoretical framework developed in the examina-tion of social processes occurring in a contemporarypostcolonial, globalized world.3The understandingof culture and group identity, as complex but fixedstructures is replaced with a view that both of themare in fact perpetually evolving and heterogeneoussocial processes, yet perceived as continuous and stablestructures by those who participate in them.4Identity

is that very process by which the multiplicity, contradic-tion and instability of subjectivity is signified as havingcoherence, continuity, stability .5

The poststructuralist interpretations show close,inseparable links between discourse and power: discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforcesit, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it frag-ile and makes it possible to thwart it.6This view ofFoucault has significantly influenced methodologi-cal approaches in more recent reassessments of theancient world, convincingly showing that Graeco-Roman colonial narratives and the reality of the 19thand early 20th century European colonial discourse

dominated the earlier scholarly interpretation of theclassical world.7There is a sharp rise in the volume

2 K. Clarke, Between Geography and Histor y. Hel len isti cConstructions of the Roman World (Oxford 1999); D. Dueck,Strabo of Amasia. A Greek Man of Letters in Augustan Rome(London, New York 2000); E. Ch. L. Van der Vliet, TheRomans and Us. Strabos Geography and the Constructionof Ethnicity, Mnemosyne56/3, 2002, 257272; D. Dueck, H.Lindsay, S. Pothecary (eds.), Strabos Cultural Geography. The

Making of a Kolos sourgia (Cambridge 2005), to mention onlythe most recent.

3 H. K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London 1994);A. Loomba, S. Kaul, M. Bunz l (eds .), Postcolonial studies and

beyond(Durham 2005) etc.4A. Appadurai,Modernity at Large . Cultural Dimensions ofGlobalization(Minneapolis 1996) 12 ff.; J. X. Inda, R. Rosaldo,Introduction: a world in motion, in: J. X. Inda, R. Rosaldo(eds.), The Anthropology of Globalization. A Reader (Oxford2002) 134; R. J. C. Young,Colonial Desire. Hybridity in Theory,Culture and Race(London 1995) 2954.

5 A. Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora (London 1996) 123.6M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1. An introduction

(Harmondsworth 1981) 101.7 J. Webster, N. Cooper (eds.), Roman Imperialism. Post-

colonial perspectives (Leicester 1994); D. J. Mattingly (ed.),Dialogues in Roman imperialism. Power, discourse and discrepantexperience in the Roman Empire,Journal of Roman Archaeology,supp. 23 (Portsmouth 1997); R. Hingley, Roman off icers and

Engl ish gent lemen. The imperial orig ins of Roman archaeology(London, New York 2000) etc.

of scholarship that deals with the issue of identities inthe ancient world that have become too voluminousto be mentioned in detail here.8In addition to theseapproaches, the criticism of Kossina/Childe archae-

ology of cultures has significantly diminished theexclusive interpretation of archaeological cultures asreflections of ethnic identities. The position of thiscriticism is that the linkage of objects of materialculture and identity of the social group which usedthem is an inadequate interpretation, as ethnicity issituational and contextual social phenomena and canbe constructed only in a social context. The objectsof material culture exist in numerous contexts differ-ent from ethnicity, such as gender, social hierarchy,power-relationships, fashion, etc. and should beinterpreted inside these contexts.9

It is also important in this context to note theinfluence of Bourdieus habitus, especially its fre-quent use in the recent archaeological interpretationof ethnicity and identity-construction of peopleswho have no written history. Bourdieus habitusis a complex concept existing halfway betweensociology and philosophy. It might be roughly de-scribed as an unconscious, but durable dispositiontowards certain perceptions and social practicessuch as morality, tastes, role of sexes in the divisionof labour, cuisine, communication, customs etc.These dispositions constitute a particular socialenvironment and are shaped by social and cultural

practices and common experience of the group.10Children are inducted into a culture, are taught themeanings which constitute it, partly through inculca-

8 P. Ruby, Peuples, Fictions? Ethnicit, identit ethnique etsocits anciennes,Revue des Etudes Anciennes108/1, 2006, 2560(Greek identity); E. Dench,Romulus Asylum. Roman Identit ies

from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian (Cambridge2005); R. Hingley, Globalizing Roman Culture. Unity, diversityand empire(London, New York 2005) 1448 (Roman identity );P. S. Wells: The Barbarians Speak. How the conquered peoples

shaped Roman Europe (Princeton 1999) (European Iron Agepopulation).

9 P. Graves-Brown, S. Jones, C. Gamble (eds.), CulturalIdentity and Archaeology. The construction of European communities(London, New York 1996); S. Jones, The Archaeology of

Ethn icity. Constructing identities in the past and present(London1997); and especially S. Brather, Etni sche Inter pretationen inder frhgeschichtlicher Archologie. Geschichte, Grundlagen und

Alternat iven(Berlin, New York 2004).10P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge

1977) 72 ff.; id., The Logic of Practice (Cambridge 1990). Ithas become popular in recent archaeological interpretation:S. J. Shennan, Introduction: archaeological approaches tocultural identity, in: id. (ed.), Archaeologi cal App roache s toCultural Identity (New York 1989) 132; Jones (n. 9); J. M.Hall, Ethnic Ident ity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge 1997); M.Diepeveen-Jansen, People , Ideas and Goods. New perspectives on

Celtic barbarians in Western and Central Europe 500250 BC(Amsterdam 2001).


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417The people who are Illyrians and Celts: Strabo and the identities of the barbarians from Illyricum

tion of the appropriate habitus. We learn how to holdourselves, how to defer to others, how to be presencefor others ... 11

Habitusdoes not determine or represent personal/

group identity per se, or ethnicity, but is a very sig-nificant part of its construction. Essentially, ethnicidentity is formed through perception of differencebetween the cultural habitiin the interaction of dif-ferent groups (Us and Them), and thus it can betransformed and manipulated as a kind of social andpolitical instrument, rather than being regarded asan already predetermined, reified structure. Ethnic-ity is constructed through internal self-definitionof the group, but also through the influence of theexternal observer, especially if the external observeris in a position of political or cultural-discursive

dominance over the group.

12

So, as S. Jones argues,ethnicity is constructed on the intersection betweenhabitual dispositions (Barths cultural stuff) andparticular social conditions, especially through theinteraction between different forms of habitus andthe continuous juxtaposition of cultural differenceswith the Other.13

The new methodological approaches have alreadyresulted in a more sophisticated view of ancientsocieties. They disrupted earlier notions of isolated,discrete cultural or ethnic identities within antiquity.For example, scholarship dealing with the RomanEmpire is now much more aware of the transitional

nature and complexity of imperial identities, bothindividual and group, seeing them as an outcome ofthe globalizing processes that occurred in classicaland late antiquity. The terms Roman and Greekbegin to lose their meaning as cultural and ethnicsingularities, and gradually reveal all the cultural andethnic complexity that existed beneath them.14These

11Ch. Taylor, To Follow a Rule , in: R. Shusterman (ed.),Bourdieu. A Crit ical Reader (Cambridge 1999) 42. See G. C.Bentley, Ethnicity and practice, Comparative Studies in Societyand History29/10, 1987, 2555; and D. Swartz, Culture & Power.The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu(Chicago 1999) 95116.

12The critical focus of investigation from this point of viewbecomes the ethnic boundary that defines the group, not the cultural

stuf f it encloses, F. Barth, Introduction, in: id. (ed.), EthnicGroups and Boundaries (Bergen, 1969) 938 the quote from12; R. Jenkins, Rethinking ethnicity. Identity, categorizationand power, Ethnic and Racial Studies17/2, 1994, 197223.

13S. Jones,Discourses of ident ity in the interpretations of thepast, in: Graves-Brown et al. (n. 9) 6280; Jones (n. 9) 6870.Curta recently emphasizes politisation of cultural habitusas thebasis for construction of ethnicity in early medieval period, F.Curta, Frontier Ethnogenesis in Late Antiquity. The Danube,the Tervingi, and the Slavs, in: id. (ed.), Borde rs, Barriers and

Ethnogenesis (Turnhout 2005) 173204.14G. Woolf, Beyond Romans and natives, World Archaeology

28, 1997, 339350; J. Webster, Creolizing the Roman provinces,

American Journal of Archaeology105/2, 2001, 209225 (Europeanprovinces); S. Goldhill (ed.),Being Greek under Rome. Cultural

approaches have also enabled concerted scholarlyefforts in the deconstruction of a barbarian dis-course constructed by the dominant Graeco-Romansources. The depiction of barbarians is revealed as

a discursive stereotypical construction of the culturalOther, impacted by the power-relations and colonialinteraction between the Mediterranean and temper-ate Europe, or the East, rather than being accurateethnographic descriptions.15

The recent interpretations of ancient identities, aswell as the development of contextual and discursivesource criticism of literary sources, has opened newpossibilities for the explanation of these statementsby Strabo, and indeed, for a reassessment of thewhole methodological framework that determinedthe interpretation of group identities in pre-Roman

Illyricum.

16

This work will focus on Strabos percep-tion of the mixed identity of the Iapodes and theways their identity might have existed in the pre-Roman period, while the problem of the identity ofthe Scordisci will be dealt with elsewhere.

WHAT DID STRABO SAY?

The Iapodes are mentioned in two different partsof the Geography. The first mention in 4.6.10 is atthe end of the western European depiction, whilethe other one belongs in the description of Illyri-

cum in 7.5, and is part of the barbarian excursusthat deals with Germany, Scythia, Dacia, Illyricum,Macedonia and Thrace. Earlier scholarship assumesthat Strabos information on the Iapodes derives fromtwo different sources, dated to two different periods:Posidonius and Diodorus for book 4 and Polybiusand Artemidorus for book 7.17Even if used by Strabo,these sources are synthetised with other sources,such as Augustus Commentarii, which devoted a

Ident ity, the Second Sophistics and the Devel opment of Empirbe

(Cambridge 2003) (Greeks under Roman Empire), etc.15 Y. A. Dauge, Le Barbare. Recherches sur la conceptionromaine de la barbarie et de la civilization, Collection Latomus176 (Bruxelles 1981); P. Cartledge, The Greeks. The portrait ofSelf and Other(Oxford 1993); Wells (n. 8) 99 ff.; etc.

16 See Oluji (n. 1) 1124 and D. Dzino, DeconstructingIllyrians: Zeitgeist, changing perceptions and the identity ofpeoples from ancient Illyricum, Croatian Studies Review. Journaland Bulletin of the Croatian Studies Centre (Sydney) 56, 2007(in print).

17J. ael, Strabo, Ocra and Archaeology, in: V. Markotic(ed.), Ancient Europe and the Mediterranean. Studies Presentedin honour of Hugh Hencken (Warminster 1977) 158 (= Opera

sel ect a, Situla 30 [Ljubljana 1992] 631); R. Baladi (ed.),Strabon. GographieTome IV(Livre VII)(Paris 1989) 305306;

M. ael-Kos, The Noarus River in Strabos Geography, Tyche17, 2002, 145154.


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418 Danijel DZINO

part to his (i.e. Octavians) expedition against theIapodes in 35 BC.18

There is a slight but important difference betweenthese statements. In 4.6.1019Strabo saw the Iapodes

as a mixed () ethnos of Illyrians andCelts. However, in 7.5.2 Strabo sees the Iapodes asa Celtic and Illyrian ethnos at the same time.20 In7.5.4, however, he does explain why they should beseen in that way. The Iapodes tattoo themselves likeother Illyrians and Thracians( ), and use Celtic weapons.21This percep-tion of Iapodean Celtness in Strabo is reinforcedby the fragment of the 16th book of Dionysius ofHalicarnassus, preserved in Stephanus Byzantinus,mentioning the Iapodes as the Celts.22

Paleolinguistics proved Strabo wrong in the case

of the Iapodes, there are no only a few names fromRoman-era inscriptions that might be regarded asCeltic.23La Tne influences in archaeological recordare superficial. There was, undeniably, a certaindegree of selectively accepted La Tne influences inthe remains of Iapodean material culture, but theyare shown in scholarship as a regional reinterpreta-tion and incorporation of outside influences, exist-ing as a part of the Iapodean habitus, rather thana different ethnic element.24So the Iapodes were

18 The Commentarii: M. ael-Kos, Appian and Illyricum,Situla 43 (Ljubljana 2005) 393397 with references; Strabo

and the Commentarii: D. Dzino, Strabo 7, 5 and imaginaryIllyricum, Athenaeum 96/1, 2008 (in print); the expedition:ael-Kos, ib., 422437; Oluji (n. 1) 85102.

19 ( ) ... Thestatement in 4.6.10 breaks the narrative in an unusual way, sothe modern editors usually put it in parentheses.

20( the Alps extends as far as the land of the Iapodes whoare) Celtic and Illyrian ethnos .In this context Strabo (and Dionysius) used Aristoteliannotion of the wordethnosto depict group identities of barbariansliving in non-polis societies; J. K. Ward,Ethnosin the Politi cs.

Aristotle and Race, in: J . K. Ward, T. L. Lott (eds.)Philosopherson Race. Critical Essays(Oxford 2002) 1719; cf. Clarke (n. 2)277278.

21 Other Illyrians here most certainly mean southernIllyrians, cf. Dzino (n. 18).

22, . Iapodes: aCeltic ethnos who live near Illyria.

23R. Katii, Zur Frage der kelti schen und pannonischenNamengebieten im rmischen Dalmatien, Godinjak Centra zaBalkanoloka Ispitivanja 3/1, 1965.

24 Oluji (n. 1) 180185; cf. D. Balen-Letuni, Figuralnoukraene trapezoidne pojasne kope tipa Prozor, Vjesnik

Arheo lokog Muzeja u Zagrebu, 2829, 19951996, 2728; ead.,Japodske nekropole s ogulinskog podruja, Vjesnik Arheolokog

Muzeja u Zagrebu, 3233, 19992000, 3132.See D. Boi, Die Erforschung der Latnezeit in Slowenien

seit Jahr 1964, Arheo loki vestnik 50, 1999, 189213 for com-prehensive overview and bibliography of more recent research

dealing with the La Tne peoples who inhabited neighbourhoodof the Iapodes.

placed by earlier scholarship under the shadowylabel of Illyrian people, with some Celtic culturalinfluences, and only the most recent interpretations,hopefully, might lead researchers into developing

new interpretative frameworks.25The problem with Strabos Celto-Illyrian labelling of

the Iapodes is that it loses all meaning in the contextof recent scholarly developments in understanding howGreeks and Romans saw group identities of barbarianpeoples. The existence of both above-mentioned identi-ties Strabo used to depict the Iapodes is questioned,as constructed by outside Graeco-Roman sources inantiquity, and later used in the service of more recentnational-political contexts. Illyrians and Celts neverexisted as common indigenous identities, before beingdefined as such by Graeco-Roman discursive stere-

otypes of barbarians. The construction of Illyriansis related to the Roman geo-political term Illyricum.The Romans borrowed the term earlier applied by theGreeks on their western non-Greek neighbours theycalled , and extended it gradually to the spacestretching out all the way between the Adriatic andDanube.26Changing perceptions of what Illyricumwas reflected wider changes in Roman cognitive ge-ography and Roman geo-political discourse of the lateRepublic/early Principate, which resulted in the similarand contemporary examples of the Roman colonialconstructions of new political regions in temperateEurope, such as Gaul, Germany or Britain.27

The indigenous population of Illyricum never sharedthe same identity before the Roman conquest. In timeinhabitants of Roman Illyricum became Illyrians(Dalmatians, Pannonians), in the same ways as the

25E.g. B. Raunig, Umjetnost i religija prethistorijskih Japoda,Djela. Akademija nauka i umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine.Centar za balkanoloka ispitivanja 82/8 (Sarajevo 2004) 1314(regional mixture with Celts in the north); I. Bojanovski,

Bosna i Hercegovina u antiko doba ,Djela. Akademija nauka iumjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine. Centar za balkanoloka ispi-tivanja 66/6 (Sarajevo 1988) 306308 (acceptance of Celticcivilisation/maintenance of traditional culture); and similar

view of Drechler-B ii (n. 1) 439441. Recently, Oluji (n.1), esp. 184185 and D. Balen-Letuni, The Iapodes, in: ead.(ed.), Ratn ici na razmeu istoka i zapada. Starij e eljezno dobau kontinentalnoj Hrvatskoj / Warriors at the Crosssroads of Eastand West(Zagreb 2004) 211257, esp. 244245 (see also workscited above [n. 24]) opened doors for new interpretation thatgoes beyond the simplistic notion of ethnic mixture and assessesthe Iapodes as a separate cultural and ethnic complex.

26Summarised in ael-Kos (n. 18) 219244.27 Gaul: A. M. Riggsby, Caesar in Gaul and Rome. War

in words (Austin 2006); C. B. Krebs, Imaginary geography inCaesars Bellum Galli cum, American Journal of Philology 127,2006, 111136. Germany: E. OGorman, No place like Rome.Identity and difference in the Germaniaof Tacitus,Ramus. Critical

studies in Greek and Roman Literature 22/2, 1993, 135154; or

Britain: P. C. N. Stewart, Inventing Britain. The Roman creationand adaptation of an image, Britannia 26, 1995, 110.


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population of imperial Gaul, Britain or Roman Germanybecame Gauls, Britons and Germans, constructingthese identities inside Roman imperial ideology in theprocess of becoming Roman, rather then reflecting

the pre-existing ethnographic situation.28Illyriannessmight have been a sense of wider regional identity inthe later Empire,29but in Strabos times of the earlyPrincipate, Illyrianness was nothing but a colonialcultural stereotype imposed from external Graeco-Roman observers as ethnic term on heterogeneousindigenous population of this region.

The Celtic debate is known even better, and pointsout that the terms Celts/Gauls were constructedby Graeco-Roman literary discourse and applied tothe heterogeneous Iron Age population of temperateEurope, who shared certain cultural and linguistic

similarities, art styles and customs, but not a senseof common identity.30

STRABO AND HYBRIDITY:

DIFFERENT APPROACHES

This example of Iapodean mixed ethnicity shouldbe observed in the context of Strabos wider ethno-graphic methodology. His ethnographic tools fordetermining the ethnicity of different peoples were

very general and rooted into the outsider Hellenistictradition and a stereotypical perception of their cultural

habitus, including ways of life, customs, language,physical appearance and the political organizationof certain communities. These pre-conceptions wereincorporated in Strabos use of Augustan imperialideology that presented Rome as the ultimate civiliz-ing power.31Strabo lacks methodological uniformityand changes his ethnographic approach relative to

28Cf. literature given in (n. 27) above, and also A. A. Lund,Zur Germanenbild der Rmer. Eine Einfhrung in die antike Eth -nographie(Heidelberg 1990); G. Woolf,Becoming Roman. TheOrigins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge 1998).

29 G. Alfldy, Die illyrischen provinzen Roms. Von derVier fal t zu der Ein hei t, in: G. Urso (ed .), Dal lAdriat ico alDanubio . LIll irico nell et graeca e romana (I convegni dellafondazione NiccolCanussio 3), Pisa 2004, 207220.

30M. Chapman, The Celts. The construction of a myth (NewYork 1992); S. James, Atlan tic Celts . Ancient People or ModernInvention?(London 1999); Diepeveen-Jansen (n. 10); J. Collis,TheCelts.Origins, myths & inventions(Stroud 2003).

31E. Ch. L. Van der Vliet, Lethnographie des Strabon.Idologie au tradition, in: F. Prontera (ed.), Strabone. Contributiallo studio della personalite dellopera1 (Perugia 1984) 2986;see also P. Thollard, Barbarie et civ iliza tion chz Strabon. Etudecritique des livres III et IV de la Geographie (Paris 1987) 526;G. Salmeri, Regioni, popoli e lingue epicorie dAsia Minore,and C. Marcaccini, Strabone e letnograf ia Ellenistica, in: A. M.

Biraschi, G. Salmeri (eds.), Strabone e lAsia Minore (Perugia2000) 170171 and 591619; Dueck (n. 2) 7579.

the perceived level of civilization of the people inquestion more civilized are distinguished by politi-cal factors, less civilized through phenotypical andcultural differences and similarities.32

When discussing mixed peoples in Illyricum, it isvery interesting to remind oneself that Strabo stronglyopposed Ephorus notice of mixed peoples of Greeksand non-Greeks, a crossbreed between the Greeksand barbarians in Asia Minor.33He makes the onlyexception in the case of the barbarophone Carians,allowing them to exist in his work as a separate ethnicand linguistic category, tertium quid, speaking Greekunlike the barbarians, mispronouncing it, unlike theGreeks.34Strabos Roman contemporaries, Livy andOvid, did not look upon linguistic hybridity kindlyeither, when hybridity involved a Greek component.35

Strabo is obviously less sensitive to ethnic mixingwhen it comes to mixed identities amongst thebarbarians in Illyricum, having no objections to theirmixing and matching, as seen through his depictionof the Iapodes and Scordisci.

Two different stereotypical perceptions are mergedin Strabos depiction of the Iapodes the tattooingthat belongs to the stereotype of Illyrian and Thra-cian cultural habitus, and the weapons, which aremade in the fashion of the inhabitants of Iron agewestern and central Europe, perceived by the Greeksand Romans as Celts. We can see Strabos Iapodesand Scordisci inhabiting the ethnological middle

ground, constructed as a categoryper se, positionedin-between different ethnic and cultural stereotypesthat he used as his ethnographic tools. The fact thatthey are tattooed like Illyrians and Thracians andthat they use weapons made in the Celtic style inno way means that the Iapodes are either Illyriansor Celts, or a product of their ethnic mixing. Itseems rather that they selectively incorporated stere-otypes, which Strabo and his contemporaries mightcall Illyrian or Celtic and actively created newmeanings for cultural/material products associatedwith other cultural contexts. The Roman sources, and

32Van der Vliet (n. 31) 3842; E. Almagor, Who is a barbarian?The barbarians in the ethnological and cultural taxonomiesof Strabo, in: Dueck et al. (n. 2) 54. For Strabos barbarityand civilization in general see Thollard (n. 31), for Strabosbarbarity and civilization in Illyricum, D. Dzino, Welcome tothe Mediterranean semi-periphery: The place of Illyricum inbook 7 of Strabo, iva Antika56, 2006, 113128.

33Strabo, 14.5.25.34Strabo, 14.2.28; Almagor (n. 32) 4446; cf. Salmeri (n.

31) 171180.35Livy 38.17.9 hi iam degenerates sunt, mixti, et Gallograeci

uere, quod appellantur(oddly Strabo knows for these Gallogreeks the Galatians in Asia Minor but does not comment on their

mixed nature in 12.5.1); Ovid, Tristia3.14.4649; 5.2.6768;5.7.5152 (the Getae).


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Strabo in many ways belonged to these,36were moreconcerned and accordingly much better informedabout strategic and tactical information than aboutthe ethnography of the barbarians.37

As argued above, Roman perception of Illyrian-ness was a construction that projected Mediter-ranean stereotypes of the shared cultural habitusofthe peoples living between the Adriatic and Danube.The practice of tattooing placed the Iapodes intothe category of Illyrians and Thracians.38Strabos

view of the Iapodes as the Celts in 7.5.2 also fitswell into recent scholarly interpretations that theGreeks and Romans constructed the Celts as apseudo-ethnic category through their perception of ashared cultural habitusamongst the communities oftemperate Europe. Strabo shows that his understanding

of Celtness was based upon the same stereotypicalcognitive perception, reinforced with the elementsof their material culture. The existence of late LaTne and La Tne-like artefacts in Iapodean society,or the social values in their society such as warriorethos, was therefore perceived as evidence for theirpartial belonging to this Celtness.39It is especially

visible in the fragment of Dionysius of Halicarnassuswho indeed regards them as Celts. His source isobviously older than the Roman-constructed notionof Illyricum, and he mentions an Illyria that corre-sponds with the Greek perception of Illyris, whichroughly corresponds to the Hellenistic Ardiaean/

Illyrian kingdom. Under these circumstances, it isno wonder that the Iapodes are for Dionysius theCelts, living close to Hellenistic Illyris, especially in

36K. Clarke, In Search of the Author of Strabos Geography,Journal of Roman Studies87, 1997, 92110 on Strabos personalidentity-negotiation between Greek and Roman.

37S. P. Mattern,Rome and the Enemy. Imperial Strategy inthe Principate (Berkeley 1999) 6680.

38 Nothing is known of tattooing amongst the Illyrians

apart from this note. It was without doubt part of the regionalcultural habitus in an earlier and later period, M. Petri, Ontattooing and cicatrization in a prehistoric population of a partof the Balkans, Godinjak. Centar za balkanoloka ispitivanja4/2,1966, 151171. For written sources on Thracian tattooing seeC. P. Jones, Stigma:Tattooing and Branding in Graeco-Roman

Antiquity,Journal of Roman Studies 77, 1987, 145146.39Weapons of any kind are very rarely found in the Iapodean

graves, and start to appear only after the late 4th century BC.However, strong emphasis on martial values in their visual artand burial customs strongly suggest the existence of La Tne-influenced martial ideology amongst the Iapodes, cf. Oluji (n.1) 182184; D. Balen-Letuni, Novi prikaz japodskog ratnikaiz okoline Graaca, in: M. Blei, M. renar, B. Hsnel,

A. Hellmuth, E. Kaiser, C. Metzner-Nebel sick (eds .) Scripta

Praehistoric a in Honorem Biba Teran, Situla 44 (Ljubljana2007) 384.

the context of book 16, lost except for excerpts thatdeal with the events of the 4th century BC.40

BEYOND IAPODENESS

The identity of the Iapodes was in reality muchmore complex than Strabos notion of ethnic mix-ture. According to archaeological interpretations,the Iapodes shared similarities with their neighboursthe Liburni, Histri and Veneti, participating withthem in the construction of a wider regional culturalhabitus.41 At the same time they also maintainedstrong cultural links with the group which the Ro-mans knew as the Colapiani.42 Below this sharedregional cultural habitus, the Iapodes possessed

certain unique cultural elements that were rightlyrecognized and defined as Iapodean archaeologicalculture by modern scholars. However, archaeologyalso noted recognizable regional differences insideIapodean archaeological culture, thus fragmentingthe singular Iapodeness of their material cultureinto a plurality of regional sub-cultural Iapodenessesthat surrounded the Iapodean cultural core in theLika and Ogulin-Plaani valley.43There are commonIapodean elements in the material culture and thescholarship has recognized specific art forms and anincreased emphasis on conservatism, militarizationand egalitarianism in their burial rites.44

Below this regionally fragmented Iapodeness,the population in question formed different politicalidentities before the Roman conquest, described bythe sources under Roman terms: the Transalpineand Cisalpine Iapodes who were dominated by thecommunities of the Metuli and Arupini respectively.45Recently, Oluji disputed the existence of a politi-

40Dionysius dating can be considered as quite convincing,cf. C. E. Shultze, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Romanchronology, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philo logical Society41, 1995, 192214.

41B. Oluji, Ethnie, culture, identit. Problemes de lorigine

des Iapodes et des Liburniens (ge du Bronze, ge du Fer), in:P. Cabanes (ed.),LIlly rie mrid ionale et l Epire dans lAntiquit3,Actes du IIIe colloque international de Chantilly 1619 octobre1996 (Paris 1999) 5760.

42 Most significant works on the Colapiani: D. Boi,Ljudje ob Krki in Kolpi v latenski dobi (Zur lat nezeitlichenBevlkerung an Krka und Kolpa), Arheoloki Vestnik52, 2001,181198; cf. also L. ukovi, The Colapiani , in: Balen-Letuni(n. 25) 173209.

43On regional differences see: Oluji (n. 1) 107117 and163 ff. Also D. Balen-Letuni (n. 24, 19992000), 3132 onthe example of the fibulae.

44Oluji (n. 1) 160175; Balen-Letuni (n. 24, 19992000)(burial rites); Raunig (n. 26) art forms.

45Appian, Ill yr ike 10, 16, 18, 21:

. See S. ae,Priloziprouavanju politikog ureenja naroda sjeverozapadnog Ilirika,


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cal division inside the Iapodes, representing it as aproduct of the Roman perspective a constructionof Roman sources. His argument is based on Strabosunified view of the Iapodes, as well as the point

that only sources based in the context of Octavianscampaigns in 35 BC (Dio and Appian) knew of thisinternal division.46Although a well -argued view, I amnot fully convinced by this opinion, as the culturalsimilarity does not necessarily reveal either ethnicor political unity of certain space. Ethnicity is usu-ally formed out of a few cultural elements that areused to mark the identity, rather than through thewholeness of the culture.47 Appian, drawing upon

Augustus Commentarii, states that the TransalpineIapodes, not the Iapodes as a whole, were first con-quered by Augustus, which reveals that his source,

Augustus himself , del iberately labelled them as aseparate political unit.48

Taking Strabo as an authority on barbarian eth-nography is also a risky matter. Firstly, his work isa part of Roman imperial discourse, which reflectsthe relationship between knowledge and power, anddraws upon and reproduces the relationship of domi-nance within society.49 In this case the dominanceof the Mediterranean colonizer over the barbariancolonized. Colonial hybridity in more recent historyis a product of the uneasiness and ambiguous standof the colonizer towards the biological and intel-lectual hybridity of the colonized.50Roman civilizing

discourse encounters contradictions reflected in themore recent Western colonial discourse: One of themost striking contradictions about colonialism is thatit needs both to civilise its others and to fix them intoperpetual otherness .51Strabo civilizes the Iapodesthrough his projection of their political singularity,by terming their settlements poleis (7.5.4), but healso fixes them into the perpetual otherness byconstructing the notion of their poverty (7.5.4), andpresenting them in the hybrid, in-between cultural space

Radovi Filozofskog Fakulteta u Zadru 18/8, 1979, 55 ff.; ael-

Kos (n. 18) 422437.46Oluji (n. 1) 87, 121122.47 S. Lucy, Ethnic and Cultural Identities, in: M. Daz-

Andreu, S. Lucy (eds), The Archaeology of Identity. Approachesto Gender, Age, Status, Ethnicity, and Religion (London, New

York 2005) 86109. Cert ainly, these sym bols are act ive lymanipulated by human agency, as material culture is an activeelement in the negotiation of ethnicity; I. Hodder, Readingthe Past. Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology(Cambridge 1986) 9.

48Appian, Illyr ike21.49J. C. Barrett, Fields of discourse. Reconstituting a social

archaeology, Critique of Anthropo1ogy 7/3, 1988, 516.50 Young (n. 4); Bhabha (n. 3) 207209; A. Loomba,

Colonialism/Postcolonialism [2nd edition] (London, New York

2004) 103105; 145153.51Loomba (n. 50) 145.

between the stereotypes of Illyrians and Celts.52This cultural translation makes defining the Iapodesto his audience more straightforward, similar to theRoman perception of kings of the Gauls. They saw

these group organisations and placed their own valueterms on their group structure.

There is no consistency in Strabos ethnography,as argued earlier, neither in terminology nor in ap-proach, so his mention of the Iapodes as a singularidentity does not necessarily show their politicalsingularity. It only reveals a singularity that mightbe the projection of a cultural or ethnic stereotypearising from his outsider perspective. Finally, thearchaeology of the pre-Roman settlements, especiallytheir fortifications, suggests that communities of theIapodes were politically disunited, lacking a central

authority that would dominate their space.

53

Thesources knew of more specific identities in (what theycalled) the Iapodean civitates, such as the Metulum,

Arupium, Terponus, Avendo, and Monetium, andit is obvious that their identity was constructed onthis level as well.54

Tattooing of the Iapodes shows another meansof expressing their identity in a more specific way.The marking of the human body, whether as tattoo-ing or branding in the ancient world, is classif ied asreligious or decorative, but branding was also usedas a punishment.55However, Jones, in his influentialstudy of tattooing in the ancient world underplays

the significance of tattooing as an expression of theidentity of those who are tattooed. Tattoos became amark of identity that distinguished the social groupthat practiced tattooing from others who did not tat-too themselves, or used different designs. Regardlessof the initial context of tattoos, which were perhapsreligious, magical, medicinal or decorative, tattoo-ing became a mark of identity when it was visiblydisplayed on human bodies in parts of late Iron AgeEurope.56Tattooing was not always the mark of agroup identity, but also a mark of social distinction

52As he does in his literary constr uction of Illyricum in 7.5,Dzino (n. 18). Cf. Bhabha (n. 3) 6684 for the principles of, whatBhabha calls cultural fixity and process of ambivalence thatis central to the role of stereotypes in the colonial discourse.

53Oluji (n. 1) 144159 for the settlements. ae (n. 44)74 suggests their lack of political unity during the Romanconquest, while Oluji, 9596 suggests political unity under theleadership of Metulum, or leaves this question open in 159.

54 Appian, Il ly rike 16, 1820; Strabo, 7.5.4; Tibullus,Panegiricus Messalae4.1.110. There were also the communitiesof Ortoplini and Parentini mentioned on CILIII 15053.

55C. P. Jones (n. 38) 144146 distinguishes barbarian tattooingas either religious (Egypt) or decorative (elsewhere).

56The evidence from the pre-Roman coinage in Gaul suggeststhat it was usual to mark cheeks and necks in northwest Gaul,

C. Thomas, The interpretation of the Pictish symbols, TheArchaeological Journal120, 1963, 92, Fig. 15.


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422 Danijel DZINO

inside the group, the privilege of the elite, or a partof masculine identity-construction.57 In a recentcomparable study of tattooing in pre-Roman andearly Roman Britain, it is well-argued that tattooing

there was visibly displayed and short-lived, takingplace only during the period of Roman conquest asa part of changing communal and private identities,resistance and acculturation.58 Unfortunately, dueto the lack of evidence, we do not know what wasthe real purpose of tattooing amongst the Iapodes,whether it signified social distinction, or it was a signof individual, communal or group/political identity.In all certainty it transgressed all three levels ofidentity-construction.

When and whether the Iapodes ever becameIapodes, cannot be determined beyond speculation.

The construction of their identity existed in differentcontexts: cultural, political, communal and individual,but was also impacted by the outsider view that sawthem as Iapodes. The sources referring to the Iapodesbefore the Roman conquest59never specify whetherthey refer to theIapodes or aIapodes to the uni-fied ethnically and politically compact Iapodes, tothe individual communities they commonly saw asIapodes, to changing political alliances in and aroundIapodean space, or to a different people of the samename from Transpadana.60Especially questionableis if the Iapodes actually ever shared the sense ofIapodeness belonging to the same community

before the Roman occupation, and how strong it was,or whether their identity was constructed throughthe socio-political contexts of different communitiesinhabiting parts of Iapodean space. If it indeed everexisted, Iapodeness must be put in the context ofthe formation of more complex political structuresin this area that occurred no earlier than the 4thcentury, and especially the conf licts with the Romansin the 2nd and 1st century BC. It is impossible toconsider the formation of group identities/ethnicitiesin antiquity outside of the socio-political context.Ethnicity is a social construction that reflects the

power relationships inside society and its social and

57E.g. Thracian elite, Herodotus,Histories5.6.2. Tattooingmight also be an element in the construction of masculineidentity, G. Carr, Woad, Tattooing and Identity in Later Iron

Age and Early Roman Brit ain, Oxford Journal of Archaeology24/3, 2005, 285.

58Carr (n. 57) esp. 283286.59Livy, 10.2.4; 43.1; 43.5;Periochae59; Frontinus, Stratagemata

2.5.28; Appian, Illyr ike11;Insc . It.13/1, 82, 559.60V. Vedaldi Iasbez,La Venetia or ienta le e lHistria. Le fon ti

letterarie greche e latine fino alla caduta dellImpero RomanodOccidente (Rome 1994) 267 arguing that there were theIapodes in Transpadana and they were referred to by Cicero,

ProBalbo 32; Vergil, Georgics 3.474477; Servius ap. Vergil,Georgics 3.475.

political mobilization, regardless of the period inwhich it was constructed.61 The question whetherIapodeness was just a unifying identity imposed onthis people by their conquerors after the formation of

an administrative civitas Iapodumcannot be excludedas a possibility, but falls outside of the scope of thispaper and requires separate discussion.62

CONCLUSION

Therefore, the statements of Strabo on the mixedidentity of the barbarians from Illyricum show severalimportant things. Strabo allows the possibility thathybrid, in-between identities can exist amongst thebarbarians, unlike his disapproval of the possibility

of hybridity constructed between the Greeks andnon-Greeks. Secondly, Strabos ethnography wasbased on cultural stereotypes, so when confrontedwith regional recasting and restructuring of existingcolonial stereotypes in Illyricum, he employs hybridterminology in his description in order to def ine it.63Finally, these statements show that the way in whichthe Iapodes expressed their identity has nothing todo with either Illyrians or Celts. It was a uniqueway of recasting La Tne cultural habituswith spe-cific ways in which their own personal and groupidentities were expressed and constructed, and alsorecognized by outsiders as the Iapodes. I do not

think that there was a single narrative of Iapodeanidentity. The group ancient sources and modernscholars conveniently call Iapodes constructed theirsense of identity through their regional belongings,shared cultural habitus, the communication of thathabitus to the surrounding habiti(perception of oth-ers), and politicization of regional identities. Theconflic ts with the Romans might also ignite sense ofcommon identity, but, paradoxically, it might also bethe Roman-created Iapodean civitasthat accomplishedthe construction of the Iapodeness as a sense ofcommon identity.

After this discussion on Iapodean identit ies it issimply not possible to avoid the question of its wider

61 Jones (n. 13); recently F. Curta, Some remarks onethnicity in medieval archaeology,Early Medieval Europe15/2,2007, 177 ff.

62Pliny,Naturalis Histor ia3.143; CILV 3346. There are alsonative praeposit i et principes Iapodum known from dedicationsfrom Golubi-Privilica locality; CIL III 14324, 14326, 14328;see Bojanovski (n. 26) 313314. This still does not necessarilyreflect Iapodeness as their own identity but might well benew, imperial-constructed identity of civitas Iapodum.

63 Hybridity thus makes difference into sameness, andsameness into difference, but in a way that makes the same no

longer the same, the different no longer simply different.Young(n. 4) 26.


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context, asking whether future research of identitiesin Illyricum must remain focused on ethnicity, as ithas been in earlier scholarship. It is apparent thatindividuals and communities who lived in ancient

Illyricum formed their identities on the intersectionbetween sameness and difference with other commu-nities and across a number of different social spacesand contexts that they inhabited and par ticipated in.The search for cognitive singularities of their ethnicity,their ethnic and cultural layers and ethnic boundaries,reflect rather our own need as scholars to insert someorder into the chaotic world of intersected identitiesof pre-industrial societies. However, it does not helpus to explain how they formed their identities, whythey did it and what were the ways in which theyexpressed and constructed these identities.

In order to do so scholars must rely on archaeologyand written sources. Archaeology provides hard factsand aids significantly in the understanding of the ha-bitusof these peoples, and its historical development.However, as shown earlier, material evidence alone,outside of the social and political context in which itexisted, is frequently of no assistance in establishingor mapping the ethnicity of these peoples. A particulartype of fibulae per se does not show ethnicity of thepersons which carried it. It shows customs, habitsand fashion of its carriers, from a particular periodin which the f ibula was dated. Yet, if the same fibulawas carried by soldiers of a particular army, it could

be perceived and imagined as an ethnic boundary,dividing Us and Them, by both its carriers andthose in opposition to them. Thus, contextual mappingof artefacts appears to be the best possible way forscholars who approach the construction of imaginedcommunities of pre-Roman Illyricum to attempt tounderstand the construction of these communitiesfrom archaeological perspective.

Written sources mainly reflect the stereotypicalviews of ancient Greek and Roman ethnographers whodeveloped a discursive colonial projection of ethnicsingularities in their periphery such as Celts, Illyr-

ians, and Germans, from their own Mediterranean-centred perspective. However, these singularities inall certainty did not exist in isolation from Roman

imperial discourse. The same ethnographers alsodescribed ethnic singularities within Illyricum suchas the Pannonii, Delmatae, Liburni, or Iapodes,which also existed in the frequently interlocked

ideological contexts of the Roman Empire and ear-lier Greek colonialism,64 their joint Mediterraneanperception of the cultural Other.

Instead of ethnicity, the research should focus onthe ways and contexts in which the peoples of Illyri-cum in pre-Roman and Roman times constructed andexpressed their identities. These contexts are numer-ous: political,65funerary,66or even going all the waydown to the personal level, such as the negotiationof individual identities of Dalmatian sailors from theMisene fleet.67It becomes more and more urgent tobreak up and finally abandon the grand narrative of

ethnicity in Illyricum, to paraphrase Lyotard, and focuson its smaller pieces, using archaeological research,socio-anthropological conceptual methodologies andcontextual and genre literary criticism of writtensources. Only then the scholarship might be able toapproach indigenous group identities in Illyricumwith the more complex interpretative frameworks,being more aware of interlocked networks and paral-lel narratives of their identity-construction in whichthey in fact existed.

64 The term in earliest instance reflect theGreek cognitive common name for the indigenous populationof the eastern Adriatic, regardless of their real identities, S.ae, Corcira e la tradizione Greca dellespanzione dei LiburninellAdriatico orientale, in: N. Cambi, S. ae, B. Kirigin(eds.), Greek Influence along the East Adriatic Coast(Split 2002)83100.

65D. Dzino, Delmati, vino i formiranje etnikog identiteta upredrimskom Iliriku, Vjesnik za arheologiju i povijest dalmatinsku99, 2006, 7180.

66Oluji (n. 1) 160175.67C. Ravonius Celer qui et Bato Scenobarbi natione Delmata ,

(CILX 3618, cf. CILX 3666 [=ILS466]; CILX 3468 [= ILS2715]; AE 1912, 84); D. Rendi-Mioevi, Iliri i Antiki svijet.

Iliroloke studi je (Split 1989) 661662, 759; A. Domi-Kuni,

Classis praetoria Misenatium s posebnim obzirom na mornarepodrijetlom iz Dalmacije i Panonije, Vjesnik Arheolokog muzejau Zagrebu, 2829, 19951996, 5354.


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424 Danijel DZINO

Avtor v lanku anal izira Strabonovo oznako Japodov kotmeanice Keltov in Ilirov, kar mu je izhodie za preuevanjeidentitet oz. skupinskih identitet predrimskega Ilirika. Strabo-novo pojmovanje meane identitete je postavljeno v kontekstsodobne post-kolonialne kritike grkih in rimskih besedil, vkaterih so barbarska ljudstva opredeljena na osnovi literarnoobarvanih etnografskih opisov. Strabon, kakor tudi drugi antinipisci njegove dobe, je dojemal in slikal barbarska ljudstvaskozi tedaj aktualne kulturne stereotipe in tako ustvaril njihoveidentitete v skladu s temi stereotipi; tovrstne anrske opise paso priakovali tudi njegovi poslualci.

V prispevku avtor razpravlja tudi o razl inih kontekstih, vkaterih je japodska identiteta lahko obstajala v predrimskemobdobju, in ponovno kritino ovrednoti v strokovni literaturiuveljavljeno pojmovanje japodskosti kot samostojne identi-tete. Avtor se zavzema za to, da bi v prihodnosti morale bitizgodovinske in arheoloke raziskave Japodov in tudi drugihljudstev antinega Ilirika osredotoene na razline kontekste,

v katerih so s i t a lj udstva g radi la svojo identiteto. Na ta nainbi lahko ustrezneje interpretirali prepletene mree identitet, vkaterih so sobivala.

Prevod: Marjeta ae l Kos

Iliri, ki so Kelti: Strabon in identitete barbarov iz Ilirika

Povzetek

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Dzino AV Iapodes