Bellum Batonianum

Bellum Batonianum (Illyrian revolt)
Map of the uprising
Date AD 6–9 Location Roman province of Illyricum Result Roman victory All Illyrian rebels surrendered by 9 AD Territorial changes Status quo ante bellum
Belligerents
Illyrian Tribes Daesitiates Breuci Dalmatae Andizetes Pannonians Pirustae Liburnians Iapydes	Roman Empire Odrysians
Commanders and leaders
Bato the Daesitiate Bato the Breucian † Pinnes	Caesar Augustus Tiberius Valerius Messallinus Aulus Caecina Severus Germanicus Marcus Plautius Silvanus Marcus Aemilius Lepidus Rhoemetalces I
Strength
Total: 209,000[1] 200,000 infantry 9,000 cavalry	Total: 100,000[2] 10–15 legions 70 auxiliary cohorts 15 alae Thracian allied cavalry Veterans, freedmen and volunteers from Italy Classis Pannonica[3]
Casualties and losses
over half of the army either killed or captured	Heavy[4]

The Bellum Batonianum (Latin for 'War of the Batos') was a military conflict fought in the Roman province of Illyricum in the 1st century AD, in which an alliance of native peoples of the two regions of Illyricum, Dalmatia and Pannonia, revolted against the Romans. The rebellion began among native peoples who had been recruited as auxiliary troops for the Roman army. They were led by Bato the Daesitiate, a chieftain of the Daesitiatae in the central part of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, and were later joined by the Breuci, a tribe in Pannonia led by Bato the Breucian. Many other tribes in Illyria also joined the revolt.

The Romans referred to the conflict as Bellum Batonianum ("Batonian War") after these two leaders with the same name; Velleius Paterculus called it the Pannonian and Dalmatian War because it involved both regions of Illyricum, and in English it has also been called the Great Illyrian Revolt, Pannonian–Dalmatian uprising, and Bato uprising.

The four-year war lasted from AD 6 to AD 9 and witnessed a large deployment of Roman forces in the province, with whole armies operating across the western Balkans and fighting on more than one front.^[5] In AD 8, the Breuci of the Sava valley surrendered, but it took a winter blockade and another season of fighting before the surrender in Dalmatia in AD 9. The Roman historian Suetonius described the uprising as the most difficult conflict faced by Rome since the Punic Wars two centuries earlier.^[6]