Historical overview

Salona, the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia, emerged on the shore of one of the loveliest bays in the Eastern Adriatic, next to the delta of the river Salon (today the Jadro). This favourable geographic position at the very centre of the Adriatic coast with sound transport links to the hinterland via the Klis Pass facilitated the city’s rapid and unfettered growth.

According to Strabo, Salona was originally the coastal stronghold and port of the Illyrian Delmataeans (epίneion...tvn Dalmatέwn), who, according to recent archaeological finds, had their fort (oppidum) on the slopes of Kozjak. It developed in the immediate vicinity of Tragurium and Epetium, cities established in the 3^rd century BC by the Issaean Greeks.

During the Roman campaigns against the Illyrians for supremacy in the Eastern Adriatic seaboard, Roman Proconsul Lucius Caecilius Metellus wintered in Salona in 119 BC with his army. He was later given the name Delmaticus in honour of his victories over the Illyrians. These events were described by the historian Appian of Alexandria in his work Roman History. At that time, many Italians lived in the city in addition to the native Illyrians and Greek settlers.

During the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, which was waged in the mid-1^st century BC and shook the Roman state to its foundations, Salona was granted the status of Roman colony because it fought on the side of the eventual winner, Caesar. It was formally named COLONIA MARTIA IVLIA SALONA and became the centre of Illyricum, later the province of Dalmatia, and also the seat of one of the province’s three judicial districts. After the final Illyrian revolt (the Bato uprising, 6-9 AD) was quelled, a period of peace and prosperity (the Pax Romana) began for Salona.

The old city centre was trapezoidal, surrounded by ramparts and fortified with towers. The eastern rampart wall with a monumental city gate is all that is preserved from that oldest section of the Roman city. There were two main communication routes in that old section. The first, also called the via principalis, ran from east to west (decumanus) and connected the eastern and western city gates. The other route (cardo) ran from north to south, abutting the main urban centre, the forum with the Capitolium, in the south-eastern section of the city. From the beginning of the 1^st century onward, the city began to gradually expand east and west outside the walls.

At around 170 AD, the city’s suburbs were also fortified due to the threat of invasion by the Germanic Quadi and Marcomanni tribes. As an urban complex, Salona acquired an oblong shape, as already seen in the 1^st century by the Roman poet Lucan, who called it “longae Salonae” in his epic Pharsalia.

A particularly significant period in the city’s development was the reign of Emperor Diocletian (284-305), who built a magnificent palace not far from Salona, where he retired after his abdication in 305. Salona received the honorary title of Valeria after the emperor’s gentilicium. At that time Salona was a crowded city, which, together with the surrounding area, probably had around 60,000 inhabitants and a vigorously pulsating cosmopolitan spirit. Its favourable location attracted many settlers, who brought new customs and beliefs. The official Roman religion in Salona coexisted side by side with various oriental beliefs, such as the cults of Isis and Cybele, and the worship of Mithras, the Anatolian sun deity, whose sanctuaries were found in several places inside and outside the city, was particularly widespread. There was also a Jewish religious community in the city.

By the mid-3^rd century, a Christian community began to grow in Salona, which is associated with the activity of the first Salonitan bishop, Venantius, who came from Rome with the task of organizing the church in Salona and spreading the Christian faith in the provincial interior of Dalmatia. His mission was cut short by his martyrdom in the last years of Emperor Valerian’s reign. His successor was Bishop Domnius, a Syrian from Antioch, who headed the Christian community during the reign of Diocletian. This great reformer, who wanted to restore peace and stability to the Empire, was remembered as the last Roman emperor who relentlessly persecuted Christians. Thus, many Christians were executed in the Salonitan amphitheatre in 304, among them Bishop Domnius, the most respected member of the Christian community.

In 313 AD, Diocletian’s successor Constantine issued the so-called Edict of Milan, which allowed Christians to practice their religion freely, while at the end of the 4^th century Emperor Theodosius the Great declared Christianity the only permitted religion. These decisions had far-reaching consequences not only for the spread of Christianity, but also for the urban development of every city in the Empire, including Salona. The city’s centre moved from the forum to its eastern section, where the Episcopal Centre was built at the beginning of the 5^th century with double basilicas, a baptistery and the bishop’s palace. During the 5^th and 6^th centuries, numerous other church buildings were built inside and outside the city walls, thus changing the urban appearance of the city. For the needs of the growing religious community, spacious, triple-nave longitudinal buildings with prominent apses were built, including a triple-nave basilica with a baptistery in the city’s eastern section. Between them the shape of the church in Gradina stands out, a building with a central floor plan dedicated to the Mother of God. The importance of Salona as the hub of Christianity is confirmed by the fact that at the beginning of the 5^th century the Salonitan bishop became the metropolitan of Dalmatia, and two major synods of all Dalmatian bishops were held in Salona in 530 and 533.

After the division of the Empire in 395, the province of Dalmatia belonged to the western half. Frequent incursions by barbarians caused a further weakening of the central government, which was also reflected in the political situation in the province of Dalmatia. In Salona, the distinguished patrician Marcellinus declared himself king of an independent Dalmatia in 461. He was succeeded by his nephew Julius Nepos, who ruled as the last Roman emperor after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. He was killed in Diocletian’s Palace in 480 AD. Thereafter Dalmatia came under the rule of Odoacer, king of Italy, and as of 493 it recognized Ostrogothic rule.

In 535 AD, at the beginning of the twenty-year Gothic War between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic kingdom, Salona was conquered by the Byzantine general Mundus. The city became an important military stronghold for Byzantium in further actions against the Ostrogoths. The period of Eastern Roman rule in Salona, and especially the Justinian era, was the last glorious period in the city’s history. The construction activity in Salona during the 6^th century bore the strong stamp of the Justinian style and was not solely limited to the area and buildings inside the city walls, but also included those located outside the walls, with emphasis on the remodelled basilica within the Early Christian cemeterial complexes.

In the mid-7^th century, after the penetration of the Avars and Slavs, life in Salona began to dwindle and it ceased to exist as an ancient urban agglomeration. The population fled from the city and found salvation on the islands and the nearby Diocletian’s Palace, which became the core of medieval Split. The cult of the Salonitan martyrs did not disappear, but rather moved to Split together with their corporeal remains. This city became the successor of Salona from the ecclesiastical standpoint.

According to historical sources, after Salona’s fall Pope John IV sent Abbot Martin to Dalmatia and Istria to bolster the faith and redeem Christians who had become slaves, and to collect the remains of Christian martyrs and transfer them to Rome. So the relics of the Salonitan martyrs were laid to rest in the Chapel of St. Venantius, which the pope had built inside the Basilica of St. John Lateran.

Croats settled along the eastern ramparts of the former Roman metropolis of Salona and built one of the most important centres of the medieval Croatian state there.