Salona

Salona — Salona (Croatia), Pleiades 197488

Salōna, ae, f. u. Salōnae, ārum, f., eine Hafenstadt in Dalmatien, Form -a, Mela 2, 3, 13 (2. § 57). Form -ae, Caes. b. c. 3, 9. § 1 u. 2. – Dav. A) Salōnīnus, ī, m., der Saloniner, als Beiname, Serv. Verg. ecl. 4, 1. – B) Salōnīniānus, a, um, saloninianisch, trientes, Gallien. bei Treb. Poll. Claud. 17, 7. – C) Salōnītānus, a, um, salonitanisch, aus Salona, urbs, Salonä, Augustin. de civ. dei 20, 5, 4. p. 414, 8 D².: archigallus, Corp. inscr. Lat. 3, 2920^a.

Sălōna, (15) æ, f. , Salone [ville de Dalmatie] : Plin. 3, 141 ; Mela 2, 57 et Sălōnæ, ārum, f. , Cæs. C. 3, 8 et 9 || -ēnsis, e, de Salone : Inscr.

SALONA

SALO´NA, SALO´NAE (Σαλῶνα, Σαλῶναι; this latter is the more usual form, as found in Inscriptions, Orelli, Inscr. nos. 502, 3833, 4995; and on coins, Rasche, vol. iv. pt. 1. p. 1557: Eth. Σαλωνίτης, Σαλωνεύς, a town and harbour of Dalmatia, which still bears its ancient name, situated on the SE. corner of the gulf into which the Adriatic breaks (Can. di Castelli), on the N. of the river IADER (il Giadro). Lucan's description (8.104)- Qua maris Adriaci longas ferit unda SalonasEt tepidum in molles Zephyros excurrit Iader- - agrees with its oblong form, still traceable in the ruins, and with the course of the river. Though the public buildings and houses of ancient Salonae have been destroyed, enough remains of the wall to show the size, as well as position, of the city; and the arch of the bridge proves that the course of the river is unchanged. The city consisted of two parts, the eastern and the western; the latter stands on rather higher ground, sloping towards the N., along which the wall on that side is built. Little is known of Salonae before the time of Julius Caesar; after the fall of Dahninium it became the chief town of Dalmatia, and the head-quarters of L. Caecilius Metellus, B.C. 117. (Appian, Illyr. 11.) It was besieged a second time, and opened its gates to Cn. Cosconius, B.C. 78. (Eutrop. 6.4; Oros. 5.23.) When the Pompeian fleet swept the Ionian gulf from Corcyra to Salonae, M. Octavius, who commanded a squadron for Pompeius, was compelled to retreat with loss from before this, stronghold of Caesar's. (Caes. B.C. 3.9.) The profligate Gabinius, after being cooped up for months in the fortress, died here. (Auct. B. Alex. 43; Dio Cass..) In B.C. 39 Asinius Pollio defeated the Partheni, who had espoused the cause of Brutus and Cassius, and took Salonae, in commemoration of which his son Asinius Gallus bore the agnomenS aloninus. (Comp. Virg. Bucol. 8.7; Hor. Carnm. 2.1. 14--16.) From the time it received a colony it was looked upon as the great bulwark of the Roman power on that side the Adriatic, and was distinguished for its loyalty, as was shown in the siege it maintained against Bato the native leader, A.D. 6. All the great Roman roads in Dalmatia met at this point, and when the country was divided into three conventus,o r assize towns, as many as 382 decuriaew ere convened to it. (Plin. Nat. 3.26.) Under the earlier emperors the town was embellished with many public buildings, the number of which was greatly increased by Diocletian, who, according to Porphyrogenitus (de Adm. Imp. 29), completely rebuilt the city. No great change took place for nearly two centuries after the death of that emperor; but if we are to believe Porphyrogenitus (l. c.) the long Salonaea ttained to half the size of Constantinople. In A.D. 481 Salonae was taken by Odoacer, king of the Heruli, but was recovered from the Goths by the Gepid prince Mundus, the general of Justinian. Totila occupied it for a time. Little is known of these sieges, except that it was partially destroyed. (Procop. B. G 1.5, 7, 17, &c.) It soon recovered from these diasters; and it was from Salonae that Belisarius in 544, and Narses in 552, set out to rescue Italy from Totila and the Goths. (Comp. Gibbon, c. xliii.) The Avars invaded Dalmatia in 639, and, advancing upon Salonae, pillaged and burnt the town, which from that time has been deserted and in ruins. (Const. Porph. l. c.) The town possessed a dockyard, which, from Strabo's (7. p. 315) account, seems to have been the only one deserving that name on the Dalmatian coast. The present state of the place offers many illustrations of past events; the following works touch very fully upon the remains of the fortifications and other ruins: Wilkinson, Dalmatia, vol. i. pp. 151--164; Neigebaur, Die Sud-Slaven, pp. 151--164; Lanza, Antiche lapide Salonitane inedite, Zara, 1850; F. Carrara, Topografia e Scavi di Salona, Trieste, 1850.

The fame of Salonae mainly rests upon its neighbourhood having been chosen by Diocletian as the place of his retirement. That emperor, after his resignation, spent the last nine years of his life in the seclusion of the palace which has given its name to Spalato. Spalato, often erroneously called Spalatro, in Illyric Split, is a corrupted form of Salonae Palatium or S. Palatium. The building of the palace, within the precincts of which the greater part of the modern town is constructed, occupied twelve years. The stone, which was very little inferior to marble itself, was brought from the quarries of Tragurium. After the death of Diocletian, but little is known of the palace or its occupants. Part of it was kept by the magistrates of Salonae, as a state palace; and part was occupied by the Gynaecium,o r cloth manufactory, in which women only were employed,--whence the name. It was tenanted by the phantom emperors of the West, Glycerius and Julius Nepos, the latter of whom was murdered here. When Salonae was captured by the Avars, the houseless citizens fled to the massive structure of the palace for shelter; the settlement swelled by the arrival of their countrymen became a Roman city under the name of ASPALATHUM, and paid an annual tribute of 200 pieces of gold to the Eastern emperors. (Const. Porph. l. c.)

The palace is nearly a square, terminated at the four corners by a quadrangular tower. According to the latest and most accurate admeasurements, the superficial content, including the towers, occupies a space of a little more than eight acres. (Wilkinson, Dalmatia, vol. i. pp. 114--143; Neigebaur, Die Sud-Slaven, pp. 134--151.) The entire building was composed of two principal sections, of which the one to the S. contained two temples--one dedicated to Jupiter the other to Aesculapius--and the private rooms of the emperor. Two streets intersected each other at right angles, nearly in the centre of it the principal one led from the Porta Aurea, the main entrance on the N. front, to a spacious court before the vestibule; the other ran in a direct line from the W. to the E. gate, and crossed the main street just below the court. What remains is not enough to explain the distribution of the various parts of the interior. By a comparison of what existed in his time with the precepts of Vitruvius, Adams (Antiquities of Diocletian's Palace, 1764) has composed his ingenious restoration. of the palace. (Comp. Gibbon, c. xiii.) All the gates, except the Porta Argentea, were defended by two octagonal towers; the principal or golden gates till remains nearly perfect. The temple of Jupiter is now the Duomo,a nd that of Aesculapius is a baptistery dedicated to St. John. Diocletian's palace marks an aera;--columnar was so combined with arched architecture, that the arches were at first made, to rest upon the entablature, and afterwards were even forced immediately to spring from the abacus, in violation of the law of statics, which requires undiminished and angular pillars under the arch; at length the entablature itself took the form of an arch. (Miller, Ancient Art, § 193.) But although this architecture offends against the rules of good taste, yet these remains may serve to show how directly the Saracens and Christian architects borrowed from Roman models many of the characteristics which have been looked upon as the creation of their own imagination. (Comp. Hope, Architecture, vol. i. c. viii.; Freeman, Hist. of Architecture, p. 52.) A plan of the palace of Diocletian, taken from Adams, will be found in Fergusson's Handbook of Architecture, vol. 1. p. 356, accompanied by an account of the general arrangements of the building.

[E.B.J]

SALONA (Solin) Croatia, Yugoslavia.

A suburb of Split in Kaitelanski bay (Manios Kolpos) was the site of the capital of ancient Illyricum and later the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia. It is first mentioned in 119 B.C. (App. Ill. 11) as an important port and fortification of the Illyrian tribe of the Delmatae, when L. Caecilius Metellus with his army wintered there. The neighboring settlements of Epetion (Stobreč) to the E and Tragurion (Trogir) to the W were foundations of the Syracusan colony of Issa (Vis). The area was early under strong Greek influence. C. Cosconius took it from the Delmatae in 78-77 B.C. (Eutrop. 6.4). A nucleus of traders and settlers from Italy was attracted here early, and they formed a conventus civium Romanorum. About 47 B.C. Caesar established a colony, Colonia Martia Iulia Salona (or Salonae), to reward his allies (Caes. BCiv. 3.9; Dio Cass. 42). The settlers, enrolled in the tribus Sergia and the tribus Tromentina, were given a large fertile area on the bay. The traces of this limitatio are still visible. The economic and strategic importance of Salona made it the seat of the governor of the province. One of them, P. Cornelius Dollabella, with the soldiers of Legio VII and Legio XI began the construction of the five roads toward the frontiers of the province. Salona, becoming the focal point for a large area of Illyricum and beyond, developed into a flourishing city of ca. 60,000 mhabitants in the 2d c. A.D. It continued to prosper under its native son Diocletian, who built his magnificent palace 5 km SW of Salona in what is now the town of Split. Between 449 and 458 the town was attacked by Huns and Goths. In 461 Marcellinus from Salona proclaimed himself the king of Dalmatia. His nephew was Iulius Nepos. In the 6th c. the town was under the protection of the Eastern Empire. The Avars and Slavs destroyed it ca. 613-614. The citizens took refuge in Diocletian's palace and on the islands of the central Adriatic.

The elongated city plan, measuring ca. 1600 by 700 m, perhaps inspired Lucan's description of the city as “longae Salonae” (Phars. 4.104). The oldest part of the town was in the central part of this elongated area, where stood the E town gate, the so-called Porta Caesarea, which later growth left in mid town. The new town walls were built in A.D. 170 by the units of the Roman army in the period of the Marcomannic wars. In the 6th c. the walls were reinforced with several towers. The amphitheater, built in the 2d c., served as part of the city defenses in the NW corner of the town. It was built of stone and had a seating capacity of more than 15,000. Only its foundations are preserved because in the Middle Ages it became a quarry for the building of Split and Solin. To the W of the amphitheater there is a necropolis of the 1st-4th c., the so-called Hortus Metrodori. A long wall of megalithic blocks extending 1.5 km W is perhaps the remains of the earlier Graeco-Illyrian settlement which protected the settlement from the N. The forum was in the central and oldest part of the colony. It was connected with the theater, only partly preserved, on the S side. Not much of the forum can be seen. The foundations of two temples, the curia, and basilica have also been found. Of several baths the most important was the one near the forum; but the best preserved are those in the E part of the town. They were built in the 2d c. A.D., and parts of the heating installations are still visible. The main archaeological and historical glory of Salona lies in its Early Christian basilicas and cemeteries which made this town, after Rome and Carthage, the most important center for the study of the beginnings and development of the Christian cult. Between the 4th and 6th c. a grandiose episcopal center developed. In its last phase it consisted of two basilicas. The N one was a large three-aisled cathedral built in the beginning of the 5th c. by bishop Sympherius and his nephew Esychius, under whom the church of Sabona was made a metropolitan church. The S basilica is a large cruciform church built by the bishop Honorius in the 6th c. The basilicas had a common narthex. The interiors of the churches were decorated with splendid mosaics. The rooms of the episcopal house are to the E of the baptistery. Inside the city walls there are remains of eight other basilicas.

Outside the city walls are three necropoleis. North of the city walls, and to the E of the amphitheater, is Kapljuč, a place of Christian cult over which the basilica was built ca. 350. The Marusinac cemetery is situated ca. 1.5 km from the city walls N of the amphitheater. The complex of Manastirine is the largest Christian cemetery from antiquity at Salona. Several memorial chapels were covered by or included in a three-aisled basilica ca. 400. It was destroyed ca. 600 m Avaro-Slavic attacks.

The rich finds from the site of Salona are preserved in the Archaeological Museum at Split.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

F. Bulić, Yearly reports in Bull. di Arch. e storia dalmata 10-40 (1586-1919); W. Gerber et al., Forschungen in Salona, I-III (1917-1933); J. Brøndstedt et al., Recherches à Salone, I-III (1928-33); E. Dyggve, History of Salonitan Christianity (1951); M. Suić, “O municipalitetu antičke Salone,” Vjesnik za arheologiju i historiju dalmatinsku 60 (1958) 11-38.

M. ZANINOVIĆ