An enduring agricultural know-how, an administrative organization in progress
Demetrios, born in the Greek colony of Pharos (today's Hvar), surrendered the island to the Romans in 229 B.C. They established their first protectorate there. But the Illyrians, who had been there before, had already introduced writing, coinage, commerce, agriculture. Since these first settlements, the island plain has kept the same land use. The geometric plots of land delimited by dry stone walls, the small buildings, the garden shelters, which the farmers have carefully restored: nothing has changed. The traditional rainwater harvesting system still works. The site named Fertile Ager has been declared a nature reserve by Unesco since 2008.
On the sunny lands of Dalmatia and Istria, the Greeks and then the Romans introduced oenology and oyster farming. Today, enterprising peasants are using the ancient methods to produce sweet wines and aromatic oils. For example, Pharos wine, which is produced in Bastijana (Jelsa/Hvar), or this Croatian red grape variety, based on plavac, which rests one to two years in an underwater cellar, 18 to 25 m deep. At constant temperature, the benefits of immersing the wine during fermentation were already known in ancient times. At the winery Edivo Wine located at Drače (Pelješac), sea trips are organized to approach the amphoras, stored in the wreck of an old boat.On the island of Korčula, a stone fragment engraved with a Greek text has been discovered, which would date back to the 4th or 2nd century B.C. This decree law (psephisma), one of the oldest ever found in Croatia, governed the colonial property regime. It is kept in the National Archaeological Museum in Zagreb. Pannonia, in the north of Croatia, saw the birth of spa towns, such as Aquae Iasae, today included in the Varaždinske Toplice wellness complex, the necropolis of Certissia in Štrbinci, near Ðakovo, and other settlements in Sisak, Slavonski Brod, Osijek, Vinkovci, where only a few remains remain.
Finding an ancient bronze at the bottom of the sea, the dream of every diver
But the most incredible thing was the fortuitous discovery of René Wouters. This Belgian tourist and amateur diver was, on July 21, 1996, off the Vele Orjule islet (Mali Losinj) in a depth of 40 m. Wanting to settle down to take a picture, he notices that the rock he is leaning on... a sculpture of a man covered with molluscs and corals, lying on his side, partly buried under the sand. Three years later, the statue will finally be raised to the ground. It was indeed the Apoxyomena, not a Roman replica, like the one in the Vatican Museum, but a Greek original dating from the 6th or 4th century BC. After restoration, it looks like the Apoxyomena of Ephesus. Almost complete - just the little finger of the left hand is missing and in an exceptional state of preservation - it is represented by foot on its antique plinth. The Italian art historian, Paolo Moreno, attributes it to Daedalus of Sicyone. A museum, inaugurated in 2017, is entirely dedicated to Mali Losinj. You have to see this colossus of 1.94 m, 184 kg, a magnificent naked athlete at his grooming. He wore a strigile, a kind of scraper with which sportsmen used to remove sand and sweat from their skin. We don't know yet how he ended up there. Was the giant on a ship that was wrecked? Anchor jars were found near him that were used in Roman ships. In any case, this impressive discovery allows us today to admire one of the rare great antique bronzes so well preserved.
From the 2nd century onwards, imperial Rome stabilized itself on the Mediterranean rim
In the provinces of Istria, Dalmatia and Pannonia, the republican and then Roman imperial authorities organized the cities according to a formal urban plan, with architecture/sculpture typical of Hellenistic civilization, reinforcing their imperialism with the progress of agriculture, coinage, respect for cults, cultural development. In Istria, the first Romanized region, many examples of the Greco-Roman style have been found. For example, the rural villa on the seafront with small port and outbuildings on the island of Veli Brijuni, the Villa Loron near the current town of Tar-Vabriga or the Parentium settlement (Poreč). On an archaeological site near Omišalj (Krk Island), an entire town (Fulfinum) was later expanded by an early Christian complex (Mirime).
The Roman monuments of Pula, Zadar or Split are at the heart of the summer festivities
On a completely different scale, Pula, the Colonia Iulia Pollentia Herculanea, is already establishing itself as the capital, the overactive urban centre. In the middle of the 1st century, major works began in the capital of Istria: monumental gates, triumphal arches to the glory of Emperor Augustus, fortress, forum, temple, theatre, so many monumental historical buildings have crossed two millennia. But the most famous monument is of course the amphitheatre. Ranked the sixth largest in the Roman Empire, it could hold up to 24,000 spectators. Today, he's still playing his part. A much-visited historical monument, a concert hall, both a popular arena and a cultural hotspot, a favourite meeting place for locals and tourists alike for the sound and light of the Visualia multimedia show, the Antiquity Days, film and music festivals, concerts by international stars, etc.
Other smaller ancient sites dot the Dalmatian coast and region, such as the Augusteum of Narona (Vid, near Metković), the recently restored military camp at Burnum/Ivoševci near Kistanje, and the ruins of the aqueduct in the Krka River National Park.
The glorious past of the ancient Iader (Zadar), first appears on the forum, a formidable agora, where we still meet today. Opening on this central point, the church of Saint-Donat, with its formidable acoustics, was built in the 9th century with Roman shafts, columns and capitals found on site. In Zadar, the Archaeological Museum is proud of its five large imperial statues, which are beautifully displayed, as are the smaller, equally precious objects in the Museum of Ancient Glass, inaugurated in 2009. We can observe the work of the craftsmen, who restore before our eyes all the art of the glassmakers of antiquity.The Palace of Diocletian, unique in its kind
In the year 303 AD, the Roman Emperor Caius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus (Diocletian) withdrew to central Dalmatia, his home province. He feels weakened by the disease. He thinks it's wiser to leave the affairs of the Empire. It's his homeland he wants to return to. He wants to see Solina again, the town where he was born. There, the convalescent patient regains his health and lives another nine years. For his retirement, he will have this rural town built, but it is mainly for his palace in Split, facing the Adriatic Sea, that he is retained. To those in Rome who implore him to take back control of the burning house, the transformed man assures that he finds more pleasure in cultivating his own garden than in "governing the whole earth". These words are reported by Lactance, a famous chronicler of the time. This is how the despot Diocletian, the ruthless imperialist, ended up as an accomplished philosopher. This renunciation of power remains in history as the first abdication of all times, the one that is cited as an example to the leaders of this world.
The construction of Diocletian's palace within the walls, with a quadrilateral plan, holds a special place among Roman monuments. Both a military camp and an imperial residence, with outbuildings and powerful foundations, this monumental complex, one of the best preserved in the Empire, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. Nowadays it remains a lively historical centre, the people of Split come to the fish auction, shop in the workshop shops. The pedestrian streets are swarming with visitors eager for shows under the peristyle, art galleries, craftsmen, bars-restaurants terraces. Always present, proud gladiators are ready for the souvenir photo, a theatre troupe every day brings back to life the daily life of the great Spalatum.During the late antiquity, the magnificence of Byzantium shines in the Adriatic
With the Edict of Milan, signed by Constantine in 313, the persecution of the first Christians came to an end, which favoured the birth of a new form of religious art. The Paleochristian period was nourished by Hellenistic culture while at the same time raising new, more hieratic aesthetic canons. Croatia is rich in several architectural examples, in Solina, two parallel basilicas erected at the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries, in Nin (near Zadar), a rural double church with a baptistery, and later in Istria.
In the 6th century, the Byzantine Empire controlled the whole of the Adriatic, with a system of massive fortifications on the eastern shore of the coast, in order to secure maritime traffic, as well as the strategic Veli Brijun castrum in the archipelago off Pula. But the great pride of Croatia is the Euphrasian Basilica complex at Poreč. With its central apse, octagonal baptistery, rectangular atrium and sumptuous mosaics, this well-preserved early Christian episcopal complex is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1997).
The end of the 6th century marked the decline of the Eastern Roman Empire on all its territories and present-day Croatia was absorbed into the Ostrogothic kingdom.
