Delmatae and the Daorsi were at one time subjects, but the former defected soon after the accession of Gentius. Illyrian strength lay in the navy and ships and it was their interference with Adriatic shipping which once more aroused Roman interest in the area. In 180 BC a Roman praetor responsible for coastal protection arrived in Brudisium with some ships of Gentius said to have been caught in the act of piracy. An embassy to Illyria failed to locate the king; but the praetor discovered that Romans were held for ransom at Korčula. No outcome of the affair is reported and it may well be that the Senate accepted a claim by Gentius' envoys that the charges were false. Ten years later, when Rome was gripped with war-fever against Perseus of Macedon, Issa accused Gentius of plotting war with the king and now the Illyrian envoys were denied a hearing before the Senate. Instead the Romans seized 54 Illyrian lembi at anchor in the harbour of Epidamnos. On the eve of war a Roman senator was sent to Illyria to remind Gentius of his formal friendship with the Roman Republic. Alliance with the Dardani and Macedon In 169 BC Gentius arranged the murder of his brother Plator killed because his plan to marry Etuta, daughter of the Dardanian king Monunius II, would have made him too powerful. Gentius then married Plator's fiancée for himself, securing the alliance of the powerful Dardani. Perseus of Macedon having recaptured several Roman outposts in Roman occupied Illyria controlled the route leading west to the Ardiaean state. At this point Perseus sent his first embassy to Gentius, consisting of the Illyrian exile Pleuratus and the Macedonian Adaeus and Beroea. They found Gentius at Lissos and informed him of Perseus' successes against the Romans and Dardani and the recent victory over the Penestae. The Illyrians replied that he lacked not the will to fight the Romans but the money. No promises were made on this point either by this embassy or another sent from Stuberra shortly afterwards. Perseus continued his efforts to involve Gentius in the war, preferably it was said, at no cost to his treasury. The Illyrian exile Plearatus raised 1,000 infantry and 200 cavalry from the Penestae. The Roman invasion of Macedonia in 168 BC forced the king to promise a subsidy to Gentius, whose ships might be employed to attack the Romans.