METEON
(Medun) Crna Gora, Yugoslavia.
In a mountainous region ca. 15 km NE of Titograd. The
site is mentioned twice in ancient sources. Polybios
(29.2.3) identifies it as the city of the Labeates where
the envoy of the Macedonian king Perseus met with the
Illyrian king Gentius to conclude an alliance in 168 B.C.
Livy repeats this (44.23) and later (44.32) adds that in
the same year, after the praetor L. Anicius Callus captured Scodra, the capital of King Gentius, the king's brother, wife and children were apprehended here. Meteon was probably a dependency of nearby Scodra. After
the defeat of Gentius, the Labeates were forced to pay
tribute to Rome; with the Roman pacification of Dalmatia, the site lost its importance and its people were absorbed into the population of Roman Scodra.
The city is on a ridge, protected on the S by the steep
side of the ridge and on the N by a cyclopean wall (ca.
3d c. B.C.) with projecting towers. Parts of the wall still
stand and are typical of Greek-influenced megalithic
construction in Illyria during the Hellenistic period. Imported Greek pottery has been found on the site, but there have been no large-scale excavations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Praschniker & A. Schober,
Archäologische Forschungen in Albanien und Montenegro (
Schriften der Balkankommission. Antiquarische Abteilung 7; 1919)
PI. I. Zdravković, “Grad Medun kraj Titograd,”
Zbornik zaštite spomenika kulture 3 (1952) 127-32
PI; J. J. Wilkes,
Dalmatia (1969)
MP.
M. R. WERNER
