The following incident happened shortly before our arrival at Scutari. A Turkish officer of police, who had carried on a flirtation with the German servant of a foreign consul, was discovered, seized by several men, and beaten till he fainted with his wounds, and was left by them for dead.
The next day was Sunday. Hiring a trap, we drove, with our two friends, along a good road, across a wine-producing country, commanding pleasant views of sea and mountain, to Salona—the old Roman city—the birthplace of Diocletian. It is but four miles from Spalato. As we approached it we saw, some miles off inland, on a precipitous buttress of the mountain, the ancient and impregnable fortress of Clissa, commanding the approach to Spalato from the Herzegovina.
Salona is situated on the sloping ground at the head of the deep and beautiful inlet of the sea, which bears the same name. The ruins have been excavated, and there are no important remains to be seen, for the town was thoroughly sacked and destroyed by the Gothic hordes. It was from Salona, in 544, that Belisarius set out to rescue Italy from Totila and his Goths. The town had withstood several sieges. Attila himself is reported to have once captured it. Having for years enjoyed peace, lulled into a false and fatal sense of security, the Salonites, the historian tells us, gradually fell into a state of incredible luxury and sensuality. This was the Sybaris of the East. At last the day of trial came, and the effete citizens were found to be incapable of defending their homes against the hardier foe.
The Avars overran Dalmatia in the year 639.
Salona easily fell into the hands of the Barbarians. The sinful city was plundered and burnt to the ground; and where stood its stately theatres and temples, there is now but an uninhabited wilderness.
Its site commands a splendid view over the blue gulf, and dark, far mountains. This day, at this season of the year, when a brown tint was on the tangled groves, and a purple bloom on the grapes, while a fresh sea wind sighed through the desolate ruins, the general effect was very impressive.
Here we wandered a couple of hours or so through vines and brushwood, the fallen walls of houses, tombs, shattered friezes and columns meeting us at every turn. Nearly everywhere, on raking off the thin layer of overlying rubbish, beautiful tessalated pavements are disclosed to view. The Morlak peasantry crowded round us and sold to us, at ridiculously low prices, coins of the Diocletian era, vases and beautiful lacrymals, irridescent and scaling off with age. Several were melted out of shape by the fires of that fierce sacking more than a thousand years ago.
The Roman aqueduct which supplied the palace of Diocletian, at Spalato, with water, is still in very fair repair.
The modern city suffers much from want of water. This necessary has to be carted in from a long distance.
The restoration of the old aqueduct has been decided on; and to have come to a decision will suffice the Dalmatians for some years to come. It is to be hoped that the plan will ultimately be carried out. "The Spalatans will then have no excuse left for not washing themselves;" so I said to Mr. Vigneau, innocently. "Oh, you don't know them," said he; "they will discover that washing opens the pores, and renders them more susceptible to the trebesine (the fever)."