Historical overview

Issa was an island town and the most important Greek colony in Croatia. Its foundation is associated with the colonizing efforts of Dionysius the Elder in the first half of the 4^th century BC. It was situated in the very heart of the Adriatic Sea, on the island of Vis.

The town was built on Gradina Hill by the island’s deep bay, which was formerly called St. George’s Harbour. Inside its walls, the terraced city descended to the sea, and it was sub-divided by numerous north-south streets (stenopoi) and a smaller number of east-west streets (plateiai), which created a uniform urban layout of residential neighbourhoods.

The city was girded by ramparts made of large stone blocks, which gave it a slightly trapezoidal shape. As an island town and port, Issa had a sturdy waterfront quay also made of immense stone blocks that can still be seen under the sea in the southern part of the town and at places around Prirovo Peninsula.

The necropolises were located outside the city, close to the eastern and western ramparts. They are dominated by graves made of large stone slabs that were vertically laid into the ground so that they form a stone chambers.

During the civil war in Rome in the mid-1^st century BC, Issa sided with Pompey against Caesar. The conflict partially spilled over into the Adriatic, where after the battle at the island of Šćedro, Pompey’s fleet was defeated and Issa lost its independence in 47 BC. Nevertheless, Issa continued to prosper even after the advent of Roman rule, which was best reflected in the extent of its development. Thus, public baths were built over a rather large area in the southern part of the city near the seashore. So far, the following sections of the baths have been defined: the caldarium, tepidarium, frigidarium, prefurnium, apoditerium and a storage room.

Drusus, the son of Emperor Tiberius, resided in Issa at around 20 AD, and he had a training ground built there. We know this thanks to an inscription found in Issa (on display in the stone monument collection of the Archaeological Museum in Split), and his stay in Illyricum, “in order to inure him to war, and gain him the affections of the army,” was confirmed by Tacitus.

Issa once more appears in the sources with reference to the events surrounding the attempted rebellion against Emperor Claudius. In 42 AD, the consul of the Roman province of Dalmatia, Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus, with the help of several senators, staged a revolt that was quickly crushed. He then fled to Issa, where, according to Tacitus, he was slain by the soldier Volaginius.

Besides the aforementioned buildings, Issa also had a portico on the side of the town facing the sea. This is confirmed by an inscription mentioning that it had been restored by Quintus Numerius Rufus, who was the in plebeian tribune in Rome in 56 BC.

The Issaean theatre was probably built in the 1^st century on Prirovo Peninsula. It had a southward orientation, although its remains are not fully visible today because in the Conventual Franciscans built a monastery over it in the 16^th century.

The history of Issa during Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages is a great unknown, because there are not many written sources nor material remains, which is a consequence of insufficient research. It was mentioned in the work Ethnica by Stephanus of Byzantium in the 6^th century, while in the 10^th century it was mentioned by both John the Deacon and Constantine Porphyrogenitus.

Collection Overview

The Issa Branch Collection is located in Vis, in the Our Lady’s Battery (Gospina Batarija) Fortress, built for the needs of the Austrian authorities at the beginning of the 19^th century. The collection contains over 4,000 items, accounting for a wealth of prehistoric, Hellenistic and underwater archaeological materials. It was created as a result of archaeological excavations in the territory of ancient Issa, and on the rest of the island of Vis, as well as the nearby islands of Biševo, Svetac and Palagruža and in the waters surrounding them. Materials and entire collections were also purchased, while some of the items were donated.

When the Issaean materials were part of the Classical Antiquity Section of the Archaeological Museum in Split, it was under the supervision of Mladen Nikolanci, and then Branko Kirigin after 1984, when the Greco-Hellenistic Collection was established. Issa has been classified as a museum site in the Charter of the Archaeological Museum in Split since 1988. The word collection was added to its name in the Charter of 1996. Boris Čargo became the first curator of the independent Issa Branch Collection and Site.

In 2005, the Croatian History Museum in Zagreb handed over various documents testifying to recent and contemporary Croatian history, weapons and objects from the contemporary history of Vis to the Issa Branch Collection. The ceremony was attended by officials from the Croatian Ministry of Culture and staff members of the Croatian History Museum and the Archaeological Museum in Split. These items were formally transferred to the Archaeological Museum in Split, for the purpose of exhibiting them in a suitable facility, thus enriching the museum display in the Our Lady’s Battery Fortress.

Sites

Aerial view of Gradina Hill, with schematic overlay showing the position of Issa’s walls and the locations of individual sites. The city was built in the 4^th century BC with terraces descending to the sea in a southward orientation. The gentle hillslope made it easy to lay out and build the city in line with orthogonal planning principles. The Prirovo Peninsula is a narrow extension of the mainland where Gradina meets the sea, forming a natural breakwater to the east and thus enclosing the westernmost part of Vis Bay. By pressing the city on the coast, The city’s original builders made the best use of this ideal location on the seashore as a harbour that sheltered vessels from all winds.

 

Aerial view of a street in the south-eastern part of Issa extending in a north-south direction (stenopos). It is made of large stone slabs that form sidewalks resting against the street’s eastern and western sections, with a storm gully between them.

 

A view of the inner face of Issa’s eastern rampart. The walls of Issa were constructed in the 4^th century BC. Their width was roughly 2.4 m, and the city acquired a rectangular shape when they were extended. They were built in the core-and-veneer technique, which means that their inner and outer faces were made of larger properly dressed stone blocks with infill consisting of irregular small stones between them.

 

A view of Hellenistic graves in Issa’s south-western necropolis. This necropolis, also known by its local toponym Martvilo, is located next to the south-western rampart between two hills, Gradina and Bandirica, where there is a fairly wide hollow. The predominant grave type in this necropolis consists of large stone slabs set vertically into the ground, thus forming the pit. They were covered with a lid that consisted of a single or two or even three parts. The bottom of the grave was not lined, rather the deceased was laid directly on the ground or sometimes on a bed of pebbles from the seashore.

 

Hellenistic tomb in Issa’s south-eastern necropolis. The most common form of grave is a stone chamber covered by stone slabs.

 

The appearance of the Roman baths before their demolition in 1945. The Issaean thermal complex was erected in the southern part of the city, near the sea, and covered a fairly large area. Some walls were preserved at a height of about 3 m until the end of World War II, when they were demolished by the British army.

The original baths were built in the 1^st century BC, but they were considerably expanded in the latter half of that century. The appearance of the complex is mostly known today.

 

View of the eastern part of the bath complex. The frigidarium (‘cold room’) with pools, entrance hall, apoditerium (dressing room) and the remains of the tepidarium (‘warm room’) are in the eastern part.

 

Reconstruction of the Roman baths by Boris Čargo.

 

 

Detail of the floor mosaic at the entrance to the bath complex.

 

View of part of the outer wall of the Roman theatre. Issa’s theatre was built on Prirovo Peninsula in the 1^st or 2^nd century AD. The theatre’s remains are not fully visible today because in the 16^th century the Conventual Franciscans built a monastery over it. This, however, testifies to the fact that the remains of the theatre were well preserved and could statically bear the monastery’s walls. Of the Issaean theatre, All that can today be seen of the Issaean theatre is a part of the auditorium’s external semicircular wall with a preserved frieze. In the basement of the monastery, A section of its vaulted corridor has been preserved in the monastery’s basement; this structure bore the upper rows of stone seats in the auditorium. The theatre’s remaining architectural components are below ground. Like all Roman-era theatres, the Issaean one had three main parts: the auditorium (cavea), orchestra and stage (scaenae frons).