Bardylis the Illyrian

Founder-king of the Dardanian Illyrian dynasty that dominated the southwestern Balkans through the second quarter of the fourth century — the upper Macedonian frontier provinces of Lyncestis, Orestis, and Pelagonia were nominally Argead but de facto Illyrian-controlled from the 380s. Frontinus *Stratagems* 2.3.2 makes him ninety years old at his last battle, which is rhetorical exaggeration but the principle of an unusually long career holds. Killed Alexander II's regent Ptolemy in 365 and Perdiccas III in person in summer 359 — the second royal death his reign cost the Argead house in seven years. In the spring of 358 Philip II returned with ten thousand foot and six hundred horse and met Bardylis on the upland plain of the Erigon in Pelagonia. Diodorus 16.4 has the engagement: ten thousand Illyrian foot and five hundred horse drawn up in a hollow square, Philip strengthens his right wing and refuses his left, the Companion cavalry breaks the Illyrian flank, and 'more than seven thousand Illyrians were slain in this battle' (16.4.7). Bardylis sued for peace and ceded the upper Macedonian provinces. The Erigon was the field on which the new Macedonian phalanx-and-Companion combination first showed its doctrine in combination.

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