Iulia Concordia
A city of the tenth Augustan region, the Venetia et Histria, on the Via Annia constructed in 131 B.C. by the praetor T. Annius Rufus. At first it was a vicus administered by four magistri, but it grew quickly because of its favorable position between Altino and Aquileia. The name of the city is linked to the memory of Julius Caesar and of Octavian and celebrates the entente in 42 B.C. between the triumviri. The colonia of Concordia, assigned to the tribus Claudia, enjoyed full political rights.
Following the social war in 89 B.C., Italy S of the Po obtained the formerly Roman city. Concordia owed its development to the importance of the roads passing through it. Besides the Annia, it was connected through Opitergium (Oderzo) with the Postumia (148 B.C.), and with the regina viarum of N Italy, which ran from Genova on the Tyrrhenian Sea to Aquileia on the Adriatic. In A.D. 167 the Quadi, the Marcomanni, and other tribes invaded the Venetia region, besieging the bulwark of Aquileia and advancing across the Concordia zone to the territory of Opitergium. Marcus Aurelius drove back the barbarians beyond the Alpine passes. In 180 the hoards were driven to Vindobona (Vienna). Concordia, like Aquileia, was finally destroyed by the Huns of Attila.
On the left bank of the Lemene is a military necropolis from the late 4th c. and early 5th c. During the late Roman period Concordia had a considerable garrison of militia made up of Germanic stirpi (Heruli, Batavi, and Mattiaci); and the Gallic stirpe (Brachiati). The inscriptions from the sarcophagi are in the museum, but nothing else from the necropolis survives.
In 1950 exploration between the baptistery and the cathedral led to the discovery of a trichora, constructed toward the end of the 4th c. By the first half of the 5th c. a small basilica had been added to the trichora. The basilica, domnorum apostolorum, recorded by the inscription of sanctus Maurentius presbiter, had relics of St. John the Baptist, and of the apostles John, Andrew, Thomas, and Luke. Thus in the second half of the 4th c. the church of Concordia received the relics of the saints, had a bishop who was perhaps Eusebius, the brother of Cromazius, and was the seat of the bishopric. The transformation of the basilical trichora probably took place in the first half of the 5th c., resulting in a double basilica similar to that at Aquileia.
Material on view at the National Museum of Concordia, in addition to the inscriptions from the military necropolis mentioned above, are stelai with portraits, an interesting sarcophagus with a nuptial scene, and a polychrome mosaic showing the Three Graces.
BIBLIOGRAPHYR. Egger, “Der heilige Heragoras,” in Carinthia I, Mitteil. d. Geschichtsvereins für Karnten (1947) 14-58; G. Brusin & P. L. Zovatto, Monument romani e cristiani di Iulia Concordia (1960) 242 and fig. 135; B. Scarpa Bonazza et al., Iulia Concordia dall'età romana all'età moderna (1962); P. L. Zovatto, Guida del Museo e della Città di Portogruaro (1965).
G. BRUSIN