Meteon
METEON a town of the Labeates to which Gentius removed his wife and family. (Liv. 44.32; Medion, Geogr. Rav.) It may perhaps be represented by the village of Meterees in the Riéka district of Monte-Negro, to the N. of Lake Scutari. (Wilkinson, Dalmatia, vol. 1. p. 552.)
[E.B.J]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.
BIBLIOGRAPHYC. 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) 127-32PI; J. J. Wilkes, Dalmatia (1969) MP.
M. R. WERNER