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Short description

The Histri swordsmen are a mobile sword infantry unit, terrifying in both amphibious pirate attacks or land skirmishes.

Description

All the while he breaks and brandishes the showering shafts.

Sweat possesses his entire body, and he strains greatly, nor is there a chance to catch a breath.

With winged steel the Istrians harry him as they hurl their spears.

–Ennius, Annales 15.3 (retrieved from Macrobius, Saturnalia, 6)

The Histri Swordsmen are medium infantry, equipped with Giubiasco and Negau helmets, long swords, thureos shields, and javelins. They are best used in skirmishes or swift attacks, but are vulnerable when facing heavy infantry.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Histri were most likely related to the Veneti and Liburni people, and lived in the modern day Istria peninsula to which they gave their name. The first historical mentions of the Histri are from Periplus of Pseudo-Skylax from the 4th century BC, where they are mentioned as situated between the Veneti and the Liburni. However, the earliest historical context we find them in is from Livy (10.2.4), where he mentions ‘Cleonymus the Lacedaemonian … dreading the harbourless coasts of Italy on his left and on his right the Illyrians, Liburnians, and Histrians, — savage tribes and notorious most of them for their piracies — kept straight on until he reached the coasts of the Veneti’, describing events in the end of the 4th century BC. This passage shows us that they were a distinct people from the Illyrians, as Livy probably used a contemporary source, while in his own times the Romans and Greeks would have used the Illyrian ethnonym for all of them.

Having settled the western coast and the hinterland of the peninsula, the Histri were connected to the sea, building their hilltop settlements (from which we name the Castellieri culture) in commanding locations, overseeing important maritime trade routes between Italy and Greece. The main centre of the culture was at Nesactium near modern Pula, with others like Piquentum, Parentium, and Tergeste also being centres of power.

The fact that the Dalmatian coast was much safer than the Italian coast for maritime travel explains why piracy was rampant in these parts of the Adriatic. Indeed, as the Romans fought in the Celtic war in Cisalpina, Diodorus mentions (25.14.1) that Hiero of Syracuse supplied grain to them – most likely via this route. It is thus not unlikely that pirate attacks coordinated during this time with Demetrius of Pharos along the whole Adriatic route were the primary cause of the Second Illyrian war in 221 BC (Appian, Illyr. 8).

What we know from the social structure of the Histri is reconstructed from Livy and Appian, but also derived from archaeological data from Roman era Istria and Dalmatia. When Livy mentions ‘principes Histrorum et regulus Aepulo’ (41.1.11), this corelates to the Roman era principes and praepositi of the local Illyrian fratriae/gentes and tribal equivalents of those found in epigraphic sources in Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro (Stipčević, Iliri (1974), pp. 127-131). In Aepulo’s case, he was chosen by the council of the principes of the gentes like the Menocaleni, Rundictes, Subocrini, Catali, Fecuses etc., which were autonomous clans that together comprised the Histri tribe.

As Livy writes (41.1.1), Aepulo ‘was said to have armed a people which had been kept in peace by his father and thus to have won great favour with the youth, who were desirous of plundering’. We can only imagine the Histri clans coming together and supplying men equipped in a similar manner as their Veneti and Liburnian brethren, as unfortunately archaeological findings of weapons and armour in Istria are rare throughout the bronze and iron ages (Mihovilić, Istra kroz željezno doba, p. 512, in: Arheološki vestnik 72, 2021). The only exception is the excavation of the tomb in Nesactium, where fragments of the Negau and Sanzeno type helmets were found (Monografije i katalozi 6, Nezakcij: nalaz grobnice, 1981; Godine, Arheološki muzej Istre, 1996; Gustin, Zu den Alpinen Negauer Helmen, 2019).

The fall of Nesactium and the Histri came in 177 BC, when as Livy describes (41.1.11) the Roman consul Gaius Claudius took over the command of the siege and diverted the nearby river to cut off their water supply, which the Histri considered to be a miracle, after which they were seized by panic. In order that they should not be taken alive, they started killing their women and children, throwing them over the walls in front of their horrified enemies. King Epul, too, like so many of his fearless warriors once the enemy was already inside the walls, died by his own hand, run through by his own sword. At the end of it all, most of the population of Nesactium, Mutila and Faveria (the three main Histri settlements) was killed, 5632 were enslaved, the persons the Romans deemed responsible for the war were beheaded, while all of the booty was given to the soldiers. At the end of this Second Histrian War, all Istria was pacified and incorporated into the Republic.

Swift attacks, like the one on the Roman encampment (Livy, 41.1.2-5, cf. Oros. 4.13.16 for possibly sizeable losses on the Roman side), or the naval attack on Greece along with other Illyrians in 189 BC (Florus, Epitome, 1.10), are what the Histri specialized in. You should utilize this strength in fighting your enemies!