Greeks set up trading posts along the…

Greeks set up trading posts along the eastern Adriatic coast after 600 BCE and found colonies there in the fourth century BCE.

Greek influence proves ephemeral, however, and the native tribes remain herdsmen and warriors.

Bardylis, a tribal chief of Illyria (present-day northwest Yugoslavia), assumes control of much of Macedonia in 360 BCE.

Philip II and his son, Alexander the Great, later unite Macedonia and campaign as far north as present-day Serbia.

Invading Celts force the Illyrians southward from the northern Adriatic coast in the fourth century BCE, and over several centuries a mixed Celtic-Illyrian culture arises in much of modern Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia, producing wheel-turned pottery, jewelry, and iron tools.