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Damastion

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Damastion was an ancient city located somewhere in the west-central Balkans, known for its silver coins dating back to the 4th century BC. It is attested only in Strabo who says that the city had silver-mines and locates it in Illyria.[1][2][3] The ancient author reports that the city was under the authority of the Illyrian tribes of Dyestes and Enchelei-Sesarethii,[4] and that Aegina colonized it.[3] At 356–358 B.C. the mines came under the control of Macedon.[5]

The exact site of Damastion is not yet identified with certainty. Various sites in Albania and North Macedonia have been considered as the location of this ancient town.

Location

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Silver coin of Damastion, 4th century BC. Obv.:Apollo head, laureate. Rev.:sacrificial tripod, letters ΔΑΜΑΣΤΙΝΩΝ (of the Damastians) - ΚΗΦΙ.

Damastion was an important mint since the 4th century and was located near silver mines. Most silver coins bearing the inscription ΔΑMAΣTION were found just northeast of Janjevo, near Novo Brdo. Since Strabo connects the Dyesti and Enchelei, but not the Dardani, with Damastion, Damastion appears to have been located within southern Illyrian territory.[1]

Most attempts to locate Damastion are based on the study of the coins and their distribution. One researcher, Friedrich Imhoof-Blumer, endeavoured to find modern derivatives of the name and assumed that Damesi, a village in southern Albania, might have been Damastion.[6] There are a number of other scholars who believe its location might have been somewhere near present-day Resen, north or northeast of Lake Ohrid in modern-day North Macedonia.[7][8][9]

History

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The Illyrian state controlled the mines of Damastion at least from the 5th century BC.[10] The silver mines of Damastion increased the interest of the Greeks in Illyrian territory.[11] In the 431 BC Greeks from Aegina had colonised the city.[3]

The silver mines of Damastion were close to Dassaretia, a region centered around Lake Lychnidus (present-day Lake Ohrid).[12] Damastion began to mint coinage from the end of the 5th century BC. Although the site of the mines of Damastion remains still unlocated, the rise of the earliest remarkable Illyrian coinage in the lakeland coincided with the earliest known important consolidation of Illyrian military power in the same region.[13] In 4th century BC the city, and its inhabitants Damastini, were subject most likely to the Illyrian king Bardylis.[13][14][15][16] The circulation of the coins of Damastion included Dardania (today's Kosovo and its surrounding areas) up to the west, to the southern Adriatic coast.[17]

The city and its silver mines were most likely captured by Philip II of Macedon after he defeated Illyrian king Bardyllis.[18][19] At the time of Alexander the Great's Balkan campaign, in particular in Illyria, the autonomous minting of Damastion ceased, meanwhile Macedonian coins of Alexander and his father Philip II appear in the region, suggesting that the kings of Macedon have set up a unified monetary system by capturing all the metal resources available in the region.[20]

The coinage of Damastion lasted until about 280 BC, or until the Celtic invasion of the Balkans, when the region was destabilized.[13]

See also

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Bibliography

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  • Buqinca, Arianit (2021). Recherche sur les Dardaniens : VIe- Ier siècles av. J.- C. (Thesis) (in French). Université de Lyon. OCLC 1254025622.
  • Castiglioni, Maria Paola (2010). Cadmos-serpent en Illyrie: itinéraire d'un héros civilisateur. Edizioni Plus. ISBN 9788884927422.
  • Greenwalt, William S. (2011). "Macedonia, Illyria and Epirus". In Roisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian (eds.). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 279–305. ISBN 978-1-4443-5163-7.
  • Lippert, Andreas; Matzinger, Joachim (2021). Die Illyrer: Geschichte, Archäologie und Sprache. Kohlhammer Verlag. ISBN 9783170377103.
  • Šašel Kos, Marjeta (1993). "Cadmus and Harmonia in Illyria". Arheološki Vestnik. 44: 113–136.
  • Shpuza, Saimir (2022). La Romanisation de l'Illyrie méridionale et de la Chaônie. Collection de l'École française de Rome. Publications de l'École française de Rome. ISBN 9782728310982.
  • Viktorija Sokolovska, Pajonskoto Pleme Agrijani i vrskite so Damastion, Maced. acta Archaeologica 11, Skopje 1990, 9-34. (with summary in French).
  • Viktorija Sokolovska, The localization of Damastion revisited, MACEDONIAN NUMISMATIC JOURNAL 5, Skopje 2011, 7-13.
  • Viktorija Sokolovska, USTE EDNAS ZA UBIKACIJATA NA DAMASTION, KOMENTARI Za nekoi prasanja od Antickoto minato na Makedonija, Skopje 2005, 69-81.
  • Viktorija Sokolovska, The Coinage of Agrianes, MACEDONIAN NUMISMATIC JOURNAL, No. 2, Skopje 1996, 13-22.
  • Zimi, Eleni (2006). "Illyrians". In Wilson, Nigel (ed.). Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece. Routledge. pp. 376–377. ISBN 9781136787997.

References

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  1. ^ a b Lippert & Matzinger 2021, p. 75.
  2. ^ Wilkes, J.J. The Illyrians, 1992, ISBN 0-631-19807-5, Page 223,"... Among the southern Illyrians the deposits which provided Damastion (Strabo 7.7, 8), somewhere in the Ohrid region, with a silver coinage may be the same ones that attracted Corinthian ..."
  3. ^ a b c In An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis by Mogens Herman, ISBN 0-19-814099-1, 2004, "As a long-distance trading community, Aigina was not an active coloniser, but colonised Kydonia (no. 968) in 519, Adria (no. 75) c.C61, and Damastion in Illyria after 431 (Strabo 8.6.16)."
  4. ^ Shpuza 2022, pp. 109–110
  5. ^ Treister, Michail Yu (1996). The Role of Metals in Ancient Greek History. BRILL. p. 285. ISBN 978-90-04-10473-0.
  6. ^ May J.M.F. The coinage of Damastion and the lesser coinages of the Illyro-Paeonian region. Oxford University Press, London, 1939
  7. ^ Barrington atlas of the Greek and Roman world: map-by-map directory, Tome 1,by Richard J. A. Talbert,page 758,near Resen?
  8. ^ The Illyrians by John Wilkes,page 128,"north or northeast of ohrid"
  9. ^ The Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace: Orpheus Unmasked (Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology) by Z. H. Archibald, 1998, ISBN 0-19-815047-4, page 107,"of Paion- ian Damastion"
  10. ^ Šašel Kos 1993, p. 129: "It is known that the mines were under the control of the Illyrian state at least from the 5th century onwards."
  11. ^ Zimi 2006, p. 377.
  12. ^ Castiglioni 2010, pp. 93–94.
  13. ^ a b c Greenwalt 2011, p. 284.
  14. ^ The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 6: The Fourth Century BC by D.M.Lewis, ISBN 0-521-23348-8, 1994, p.429 "Bardylis combined military and economic developments. His subjects, the Damastini, began to issue a fine silver coinage c. 395, which adopted a version of the standard and some emblems of"
  15. ^ The Cambridge Ancient History Vol.6: The Fourth Century BC by D.M.Lewis, ISBN 0-521-23348-8, 1994, p.422: "... Silver was mined in antiquity by the Damastini to the east and the north east of Lake Ochrid.
  16. ^ Wilkes, J.J. The Illyrians, 1992, ISBN 0-631-19807-5, p.128, "Nothing is so far known of the extraction of silver, and the location of Damastion, with its remarkable silver coinage, remains a mystery"...."
  17. ^ The Illyrians - p.176 by J.J. Wilkes ISBN 0-631-19807-5
  18. ^ Buqinca 2021, p. 30.
  19. ^ The Role of Metals in Ancient Greek History, p.285 by Michail Yu Treister, ISBN 90-04-09917-4
  20. ^ Buqinca 2021, p. 34.
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