The Shores of the Adriatic / The Austrian Side, The Küstenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia

by F. Hamilton Jackson

The oldest part of the city is towards the Clissa road, for it spread westwards. The Basilica Urbana is quite close to the wall, and only a little farther south are the Porta Suburbia and the Porta Cæsarea. Of the latter the arches no longer exist, but the ruts in the stone show the carriage-way, flanked by two footways. The Basilica Urbana, with its accompanying buildings, has been fully excavated. It was used for religious purposes till its restoration in the ninth century, for Salona was not entirely abandoned after its destruction in 639. The soil removed showed evident traces of its destruction by burning. It consisted of nave and aisles with a western narthex, and buildings both to the north and to the south. The nave appears to have had twelve columns on either side, with projecting piers from the narthex and from the eastern wall. There was one apse with an ambulatory surrounding it, as in the Lycaonian buildings recently described by Miss Lowthian Bell. The foundations of the chancel were found, and of an enclosure which reached to the second column on the right. In the north aisle wall were two doors, one towards the baptistery, the other to the catechumens' room, and all along the wall there was a seat. The prothesis is an irregular space to the north of the apse, entered by a door at the end of the aisle, with a short column in the middle, probably the central column of a table. For ritual reasons this arrangement (the diakonikon communicating directly with the presbytery, while the prothesis does not) is usual in the Greek Church. The nave appears to have been flagged, but the aisles were covered with a mosaic pavement, now more or less damaged. Fragments of glass were found, and an inscription of the fourth or fifth century discovered in the cemetery, "Pasc[asi]o vitriario," shows that glassmaking was a Salonitan industry. Beneath the presbytery remains of an earlier building were discovered with a pagan mosaic of the second or third century, representing the poetess Sappho and the nine muses. The ambulatory is also floored with mosaic, in which is this inscription:

NOVA POST VETERA
COEPIT SYNFERIUS
ESYCHIUS CJUS NEPOS
CUM CLERO ET POPULO FECIT
HAEC MUNERA
DOMUS xpe GRATA
TENE.

BASILICA OF THE CHRISTIAN CEMETERY, SALONA

The two names here recorded are those of bishops of the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth centuries, judging from the palæography of other inscriptions. Esychius was bishop, 406-426. The baptistery is accessible by steps both from the basilica and the narthex. Attached to it is the consignatorium, as at Parenzo. This retains its mosaic pavement, with a design of stags drinking at a vase, and the text "Sicut cervus," &c. It is kept covered with pebbles to preserve it. The baptistery itself is octagonal externally and circular internally, with niches and several doors. It appears to have had six columns (fragments of three of cipollino remain) and grey stone bases. The font is somewhat cruciform in shape, about 3 ft. deep, and with a little step at one end. The slabs at the bottom and the conduit for the water still remain. North of this is the house of the Director of the Excavations, with a pergola composed of fragments from the campanile, &c., among which is a cap the exact counterpart of one in the cathedral at Veglia.

North-west of the house is the Christian cemetery, a bewildering mass of sarcophagi and foundations of several epochs, from among which many objects have been taken to the museum. All the sarcophagi had been broken into and plundered; with a single exception, that of a little Greek girl who still had the earrings in her ears. Apparently apses were built round the martyrs' tombs, pointing in all directions, and many burials took place close to them. When the Goths destroyed the city they plundered the tombs; and when the Christians returned they levelled the ground, and built another basilica properly orientated; and here, also, burials took place. The Avars descended upon this and destroyed it, and the soil washed down from the hills covered much of it to the depth of 15 ft. Fragments found of the eighth and ninth centuries, however, show that the place was not abandoned; the theatre was only demolished at the end of the tenth century to build S. Michele, and the amphitheatre lasted till the close of the thirteenth. Upon the extinction of the Croatian dynasty in 1102, Salona rapidly declined, and when the Turks appeared in the sixteenth century it became a neglected ruin.

At Marusinac, some distance to the north of the station and the amphitheatre, is another basilica, dedicated to S. Anastasius, and a Christian cemetery. The children are on the look-out for chance visitors, and ready to point out the road; and sell copper coins and tesseræ of mosaic at a price which lowers remarkably as the basilica is approached. It is to be feared that they come from the great mosaic, which is necessarily unguarded. The basilica consists of nave and aisles, separated apparently by six columns on each side, with a single apse, which seems to have had external buttresses, but there is no trace of the usual internal bench. The total length approaches 150 ft., the nave is 39 ft. wide, the left aisle about 14 ft., and the right 17 ft. 6 in. The prothesis and diakonikon are square, and a long schola cantorum forms a continuation to the presbytery westward, though it is less in width. The westward angles of the aisles also have rectangular rooms walled off. The whole surface was covered with mosaic, of which a great deal is still preserved, consisting of geometrical pattern work for the most part, without inscriptions, though there is one panel showing a vase with scrolls issuing from it. A large drawing to scale has been made of it, which is in the communal palace. It took a full year's labour to complete. The basilica was built between 425 and 443, but there was a villa there previously, of which considerable remains were discovered in 1890, at the same time that the first sarcophagi came to light.

A MORLACCO FAMILY, BETWEEN SALONA AND CLISSA

In the modern chapel of S. Caius, pope and martyr, the side of an antique sarcophagus serves as altar-frontal. It is sculptured with the deeds of Hercules. The subjects are the Killing of the Dragon of the Hesperides (which the peasantry mistake for the Garden of Eden), Alcestis being brought back from Hades, and the Binding of Cerberus. The water which filtered into the sarcophagus believed to be the tomb of S. Caius was credited with the same miraculous powers as the "Manna" of S. Nicola at Bari.