With Queen Teuta newly on the throne, it comes as no surprise, but rather an unfortunate reality, that she does not have enough experience to defeat Rome. She disgraces what it means to be a monarch with her actions during our diplomatic visit from Rome to Issa. These lands she was in the midst of attempting to conquer, yet she acted as if she ruled over it all.
Lucius Coruncanius, Roman envoy
I welcomed the Roman emissaries graciously, with open arms, and what do I get in return? Accusations of femininity and being too emotional to handle a kingdom (always a bad thing), and being prideful and greedy (I take these characteristics as a compliment). I have led the Illyrian empire to power and am fighting the poverty that has plagued us for generations. I have strengthened my raiders and achieved so much in a short time; even though they are technically not part of my government, they are loyal to me. Agron started this reformation by way of piracy before my time, and I will not be the one to end it. These Romans can say what they please and order me to control the privateers, but telling me they know what is better for my people than I do is where the line is drawn. They call me a—
Queen Teuta of Illyria
—shortsighted and vain excuse of a queen if I ever saw one—
Gaius Coruncanius, Roman envoy
—and so, of course, there was nothing else to do but have their disrespect dealt with.
Queen Teuta of Illyria
It is with the heaviest heart that I regret to inform you of the murder of my brother, envoy Lucius Coruncanius, on our return from meeting with Queen Teuta of Illyria. I have reason to believe that the queen had him killed and refuses to heed our calls for withdrawal from the land of Italia. I recommend to the Senate that this be taken as a declaration of war.
From the private correspondence of Gaius
Coruncanius to the Roman Senate.
She had been overly confident. Despite all Her Majesty’s previous conquests and bountiful leadership experience following the death of King Agron years ago, Rome is too great and powerful for us to defeat. Now, we all watch as the Romans claim our empire, one town at a time.
Demetrius of Pharos, advisor of Queen Teuta
We rescued city after city along the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Soldiers have stayed behind in some of these towns to protect them from further threats of piracy by the Illyrian Empire. I am leading the army North to Rhizon where the Raider Queen fled from our attacks. Fulvius follows, directing the navy. The campaign has been long, but the Illyrians do not provide major resistance. They hardly stand a chance against us.
From the field journal of Aulus Postumius,
commander of the Roman Army in Illyria.
The army came to Corcyra, where Her Majesty had left me in command, as the first stop on their journey. They overtook the city like the sea overtaking a rowboat in a storm, leaving the Illyrian forces scrambling for safety. As their leader, in the face of such might, there was no alternative way out. We could not hold them back. Besides, this would be my personal key to salvation, even if Teuta would slaughter me when she saw me next.
Demetrius of Pharos, advisor of Queen Teuta
Word reached us after that first attack that Demetrius had succumbed to the Roman influence. Her Majesty was driven mad with fury; to be betrayed by her closest advisor, by my fellow colleague, was a hard blow that still aches. Demetrius’ sharp mindfulness shines through the darkness of Roman attacks. The impending loss of the war feels concrete the closer they march towards Rhizon, where we are currently stationed. There is nowhere else to go.
Scerdilaidas, advisor of Queen Teuta
Though the entire city had held its breath for days as we awaited the arrival of the Roman army and navy, we were shocked by their arrival. Their power was evident in the lines of their marching, and in the number of warships they sailed. I watched them sail into the bay from the watchtowers of the fortress. Now, as Roman leaders meet with Her Majesty and discuss the terms of her surrender, I pray that whatever end we have will be swift. I know it’s not up to me, but I would rather die fighting than let Rome tear down everything Her Majesty has worked for.
From the journal of Bardylis, a private guard of
Queen Teuta.
The queen perched haughtily on her throne in the Rhizon fortress, as if she expected us to bow to her. She sobered up quickly when we said that either she and her people would be massacred, or they would live and she would accept the terms of her surrender.
Postumius, op. cit.
I spent my final moments as queen as I always have: proud, unyielding, and mindful of my empire. We negotiated that they would be saved, as long as I handed over most of my land and a large sum of money, but at least we would all live. The Romans turned leadership of the Illyrian territories to that snake Demetrius, who could not even be bothered to show his face where he knew I would hurt him. In the end, I am content to remain in my fortress, where, if permitted, I will live out the rest of my days regretting my surrender and begging my people’s forgiveness for failing them. I can only hope that one day, Illyria will rise again.
Queen Teuta of Illyria
Reflection
Historical fiction, as a genre of literature, is so vast that at first, I felt as if I were drowning in my struggle to pick a person or event that would truly highlight the intricate nature of writing about history. As a reader of historical fiction all of my life, I understand the hours of research that has to go into creating a work of literature that combines historical accuracy, from the clothing to food to people of that era, so I wanted to select a topic I felt familiar with for this monumental task. Thus I turned back to my roots and chose my subject to be Queen Teuta of Illyria, the empire that used to rule over modern-day Albania, where my ancestors are from. I have heard about this fearsome pirate queen who ruled an empire and stood up to Rome at a time when doing so as a woman was looked down upon, so I am taking this opportunity to learn more about her story and expand on what I learn.
Queen Teuta lived from around 260 to after 228 BCE (Greenwalt 318) and took control of the Illyrian Empire after her husband, King Agron, died. She continued her tradition of raiding using ships around the Adriatic Sea, and eventually, after many conquests and expansions, she made enemies of the Roman Empire by attacking Italy. This would be the start of her downfall, as Rome retaliated and eventually forced Teuta to surrender in 228 BCE. These are the bare bones of the various descriptions of Teuta that were located from scholarly sources. However, throughout the research process, there were many discrepancies between narrations about how and why the queen acted the way she did, and her characteristics towards the end of her story. I use these similarities and differences in my writing process to help me keep in mind that there is a strong chance that I might not even be accurate in any of my fiction. In an article about understanding historical fiction, there was a line that stood out to me. White writes, “The real would consist of everything that can be truthfully said about its actuality plus everything that can be truthfully said about what it could possibly be” (White 147). Here, “real” refers to historical events that definitely happened but in which there are gray spaces to fill with undetermined details, a concept that relates to the tale of Queen Teuta I want to convey, and one that I took full advantage of.
To exemplify, one of the stark differences between sources was when different historians believed Teuta took over Illyria and organized conquests. One article states that she took over in 231 BCE since Agron’s son was too young to rule, and that following these she organized successful raids for the next few years (Greenwalt 318). However, Bajrić’s paper about the Greek historian Polybius and other historic writers like Dio Cassius’ portrayal of Teuta claims that “At the request of Issa, Rome sent a mission to Agron in order to point out he was doing injustice to the Issaeans. He died, however, and Teuta received the ambassadors” (Bajrić 39), which highlights the historical grayness of this time period, in terms of dates and events. Additionally, multiple authors narrate the Queen’s manner when interacting with the Roman envoys differently. Polybius and Dio Cassius, both historians who lived around the same time as Teuta, claim that she “listened arrogantly” to the Romans (Bajrić 39) and was weak and audacious because of her femininity (Bajrić 40). Another paper holds that “The Roman envoys and queen exchanged vitriolic words” (Belfiglio 4), which aligns with Bajrić’s claims of her malicious and critical nature, as they write that Teuta accepted “Coruncanius’s openness with anger and caprice as a woman” (Bajrić 41). However, Greenwalt’s biography writes that “Teuta displayed a cautious diplomacy” in her dealings with the Romans and that the pair of emissaries were the arrogant ones in this interaction (319). These parts of my research are foundational to why I wrote the historical fiction work from different angles.
I took inspiration from Saunders’ style of writing and use of characters in Lincoln in the Bardo, which used a variety of narrators to describe events that were happening. He makes up some of his “historical” sources and the spirits in the Bardo (except for Willie) are presumably made up as well. Because of the ancient nature of Queen Teuta’s story, I took this liberty as well. The only character that I made up completely is Bardylis, a private guard of Queen Teuta, but his account adds to the story since it allows the audience to learn about how the common people of the Illyrian Empire were affected by the war. While the rest of the characters were real people, their accounts, journals, and letters are not, a fact that ultimately led to the decision to format my historical fiction in a manner similar to Saunders’ in Lincoln in the Bardo. This allows my writing to switch between narrators and have conflicting accounts of what happened, but in a way that enhances the story for the audience, not confuses them.
This narration style was key in creating Saunders’ theme of unreliable narrators and not trusting what the audience reads implicitly. Because so many of the important parts of Teuta’s story had noticeable differences that would impact any fiction I decided to write, I consciously made the decision to try something similar. Rather than work against the different interpretations, I decided to use all of them to my advantage and write from the viewpoints of all the major characters: Teuta, her advisors, the Roman envoys, and the leaders of the Roman army. I tried to emphasize these parts in my story; for example, when Teuta and the envoys interact, the descriptions from Bajrić’s and Belfiglio’s articles are similar in that they portray the queen negatively. In contrast, Greenwalt’s presents her as more respectful. Even within Bajrić’s article, she claims that “Dio Cassius’s report coincides with Polybius’s in terms of the Illyrian queen’s manner” (Bajrić 40), which refers to the queen as arrogant and prideful.
This prompts the writing above to be conflicting as well, as I write that Teuta claims she “welcomed the Roman emissaries graciously” (1), but the ambassador Lucius Coruncanius says, “She disgraces what it means to be a monarch with her actions” (1), and his brother Gaius insults her later in the story. I also made sure to include any pieces of the articles that matched and to keep my writing as accurate as possible, which is why Demetrius, Teuta’s advisor, is a traitor in my story as both Greenwalt’s and Bajrić’s articles (which conflicted in many places) have this same detail. Overall, the writing style helped the story write itself because of the original aim for both cohesiveness in some areas and unreliable narration in others.
It is this whole process of researching and finding multiple sources with differing details that allows me to come to an overall conclusion about writing historical fiction. Because the subject matter is so far back in history, the uncertainty of whether my writing is accurate remained at the forefront of my mind throughout the process. So much of it is unclear or not documented. The aforementioned article about writing historical pieces says, “When dealing with earlier periods, of course, one is helped by the fact that the sources are limited, have been lost, or never existed.” (White 150), which encapsulates my situation perfectly, as sources about Queen Teuta are limited. A footnote in one of the articles states that “Polybius is the most comprehensive source for the reconstruction of events from Illyrian history in the last two decades of the 3rd century B.C. Compared to other ancient authors, he was the closest to the time of the events he described” (Bajrić 31), which added to my worry about writing.
Despite this, I soon realized that having less affects the writing process by giving the author so much freedom, even if it makes it hard to stay true to the time. Overall, writing historical fiction taught me a lot about essential things to consider when it comes to research and how to include historically accurate information. This essay helped me grow as a writer and generated many new ideas for my own historical writing in the future.
Bibliography
Bajrić, Amela. “Illyrian Queen Teuta and the Illyrians in Polybius’s Passage on the Roman Mission in Illyria.” Vjesnik Arheološkog Muzeja u Zagrebu, vol. 46, no. 1, 2014, pp. 29-56. Accessed 16 Oct. 2023.
Belfiglio, Valentine J. “The Modern Political Women: Lessons from Ancient Greece and Rome: Recens Politica Mulieribus.” The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Civic and Political Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, 2013, pp. 1-10. ProQuest, https://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/modern-political-women-lessons-ancient-greece/docview/2713663272/se-2, doi:https://doi.org/10.18848/2327-0071/CGP/v07i01/53136. Accessed 16 Oct. 2023.
Greenwalt, William S. “Teuta (c. 260–after 228 BCE).” Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia, edited by Anne Commire, vol. 15, Yorkin Publications, 2002, pp. 318-320. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2591309147/GVRL?u=psucic&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=859389a7. Accessed 18 Oct. 2023.
Saunders, George. Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel. United States, Random House Publishing Group, 2017.
White, Hayden. “Introduction: Historical Fiction, Fictional History, and Historical Reality.” Rethinking History, vol. 9, no. 2/3, June 2005, pp. 147–57. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1080/13642520500149061. Accessed 24 Oct. 2023.