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 , PannonianβDalmatian 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. The Roman historian Suetonius described the uprising as the most difficult conflict faced by Rome since the Punic Wars two centuries earlier.
Illyricum had seen some fighting during the Great Roman Civil War between Julius Caesar and the forces of the Senate led by Pompey several decades earlier. The Romans who lived in some of the coastal towns supported Caesar, while the native peoples largely supported Pompey. The Dalmatians later asked Caesar for a pardon.
Caesar demanded a tribute and hostages as compensation, which was standard practice, and sent Publius Vatinius with three legions to enforce this. After Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, the Dalmatians ignored these demands and routed five of Vatinius' cohorts. With the disruptions caused by further Roman civil wars in the years following, Dalmatian piracy in the Adriatic Sea became a problem again.
