The Amantini ( grc, Ἄμαντες; la, Amantinii) was the name of a
Pannonian Illyrian tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...
.
[Dalmatia Tome 2 of History of the provinces of the Roman Empire by J. J. Wilkes, 1969, page 534]
The Amantini lived between the rivers
Drava and
Sava
The Sava (; , ; sr-cyr, Сава, hu, Száva) is a river in Central and Southeast Europe, a right-bank and the longest tributary of the Danube. It flows through Slovenia, Croatia and along its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and finally t ...
close to
Sirmium
Sirmium was a city in the Roman province of Pannonia, located on the Sava river, on the site of modern Sremska Mitrovica in the Vojvodina autonomous provice of Serbia. First mentioned in the 4th century BC and originally inhabited by Illyrian ...
. They remained outside the Roman sphere of influence before the Pannonian War (12-9 BCE) in which they fought against the Romans in alliance with other Illyrian peoples of Dalmatia and Pannonia. After the war and the
Bellum Batonianum
The ( 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 R ...
(6-9 CE) many of the youths of the leading Amantini families were taken hostages and many young males were sold as slaves in Italy. An inscription found in
Bassianae
Bassianae or Bassiana ( Serbian: ''Basijana'' or Басијана) was an important ancient Roman town in Pannonia (today Syrmia region in Vojvodina province, Serbia). It was located near present-day Donji Petrovci, a village in the Ruma municip ...
which mentions the death of the ten-year old boy Scemaes is the only inscription which directly refers to the Amantini. Scemaes, son of Liccaus from the Undia family of the Amantini has been taken hostage by the Romans most probably during the Pannonian War. Young Scemaes drowned in a river near
Emona
Emona (early gkm, Ἤμονα) or Aemona (short for ) was a Roman castrum, located in the area where the navigable Ljubljanica river came closest to Castle Hill, by accident. His father Liccaus and his kinsmen Loriqus and Licaios dedicated an inscription and a cenotaph to his memory.
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{{Tribes of Serbia, state=collapsed
Illyrian tribes
Illyrian Serbia
Ancient tribes in Serbia