A district of the Balkan Peninsula, which has varied in extent
at different periods. To the Greek geographers Illyria ( he
Illyris or to Illyrikon ) connoted the eastern shore of the
Adriatic Sea and the adjoining mountainous territory stretching
into the interior, all of which was the abode of Illyrian
tribes. One section of the Illyrian people had migrated to
Italy, first to central Italy, where there are traces of them in
Picenum and Umbria; later, towards the middle of the eighth
century B.C., the Japyges crossed to Apulia and Calabria, and,
at the beginning of the seventh century B.C., the Veneti to
northern Italy and what is now Carinthia. Even the Illyrians who
remained behind never achieved national unity. The kingdom of
Bardylis and his son Kleitos, who settled in Macedonia, rose to
some importance in the fourth century B.C., until they were
subdued by King Philip in 357 B.C. and Alexander the Great in
335 B.C. About 250 B.C. the tribes known as the Ardriaii and
Antariates, under the princes Pleurato