Vacation days in Greece

by Rufus B. Richardson

The city Spalato was once all inside the palace (palatium), and got its name from that fact; but in later years the city has so grown that the palace is embedded and almost lost in the city. In order to get a good idea of the city and palace together one should climb the campanile, a fine Romanesque structure, incomparably finer than that the loss of which Venice now mourns. In 1882 it became necessary to take down all but the four lower stories and rebuild. Money has come in slowly, and the staging which practically hides the beautiful campanile may not come down for several years more. The door leading into this immense wooden structure bore the legend, L’ingresso è vietato. But following a maxim hewn from life, that a sightseer must always go on until he is stopped, I went and pushed my way through the workmen, boss and all, probably with a more assured air because a good citizen had a few minutes before told me, "You will see a sign saying ‘No admittance,’ but it doesn’t mean anything.”

SPALATO. PALACE OF DIOCLETIAN. SOUTH FRONT.

At the foot of the campanile is an Egyptian sphinx whose head has been battered by a falling stone. The natives call it the “man-woman,” and, curiously enough, they call the sun disk between its paws “pogazza” (a loaf of bread), a roundabout corroboration of what I used to hear in childhood: "The moon is made of green cheese; the sun’s a loaf of bread." The view from the top is fine, whether you look landward or seaward; but the real reward of the climb is that here only the extent and plan of the palace and the adjustment of the buildings within it become perfectly clear.

The term “palace” is a misnomer. What we have is really an enormous enclosure, a sort of Roman camp. The area is trapezoidal; in other words, the sides vary in length. The north or landward side, which is the longest, has a length of 700 feet. The circuit is about half a mile, and it consumes the better part of half an hour to work your way around it. There could, of course, be no question of roofing over such a space. The whole area was divided into four approximately equal squares by two great passages, one thirty-six feet broad, leading from the water gate on the south side called the Silver Gate, through which the imperial barge used to sail into the palace, to the Golden Gate on the north side, the other running from the Iron Gate on the west to the Bronze Gate on the east. The first of these ways is interrupted near the south end by the imperial house itself. The enclosing wall was fifty feet high at its lowest part, and was seventy-five feet high near the sea where the ground fell off, so that all the buildings, sacred and profane, distributed within were hidden from view to outsiders. Not only did the imperial family, but courtiers and menials, making a population of some thirty thousand, have quarters here.

The builder and occupant of this palace was the greatest personality of the Cæsars after Marcus Aurelius, whom in military and administrative force he greatly surpassed. Entering the service as a simple legionary, he rose by slow degrees of service in all parts of the empire under various nonentities of emperors, until at Chalkedon, in 284 A.D., the soldiers proclaimed him emperor. There is a legend that a Druid priestess had prophesied to him when he was serving in Belgium under Aurelian that he would become emperor immediately after killing a boar. It is said that he saw the fulfilment of this prophecy when the Emperor Numerianus was assassinated at Chalkedon by a certain Aper (i.e., boar), whom he immediately struck down, exclaiming, “I have killed the boar.” Of course there are those who think that the legend grew out of the name of the assassin. Diocletian’s name will ever be associated with the last and most wide-reaching and systematic persecution of the Christians; but this policy was most likely forced upon him by the fanaticism of his colleague, Galerius. At this time the Roman Empire had become too bulky to be well administered by one man, however able and conscientious, and of his own accord he associated others with himself in the imperial power, confining himself entirely to the eastern part. Two years after he had issued at Nikomedia, in 303 A.D., his edict of persecution of the Christians, the cares of office weighing too heavily upon him, he laid aside the purple, retired to Salona, and began building this palace about four miles distant from it. When his withdrawal was so sorely felt that he was importuned to resume the imperial power, he declined, referring to the sweet peace which he enjoyed among his cabbages at Salona. There can be little doubt that the reason which influenced him to choose Salona as his place of retirement was that it was his birthplace, although the Montenegrins hold that they have the true birthplace in Doclea, not far from Cettinje.

But the old Emperor’s musings in his great palace must have been sadder than Hadrian’s conversings with his soul at Tivoli. Here he learned of the triumph of Christianity through Constantine, a meaner spirit than he. Then came the overturning of his statues at Rome and the banishment and subsequent butchery of his wife and daughter. Added to all this was a painful illness; and in the eighth year of his residence in that palace where he had promised himself so much comfort and sweet peace, to adopt the words of Marcus Aurelius, that noblest Roman of them all, he “found the house smoky and went out.”

Beside the pathetic interest attaching to the great founder of the palace, another interest attaches to the immuring of it in the modern city. In the seventh century Anno Domini waves of barbarians swept down along the coast of Dalmatia. One of these was composed of Avars—a people often mixed up, whether rightly or wrongly, with the Huns. Even more than the Huns they were a “scourge of God.” After leaving a desert in their trail, butchering men and yoking women to their carts, they came into this lovely region, destroyed the great city, and then decided to settle down here. There was a grand scattering of the degenerate Romans, who had been unable to hold their own, to the neighboring islands, but after awhile a remnant came back and occupied the palace, which was fairly well adapted to be used as a fort. Here they defied the Avars, and at last outstayed them. The result was the present city of Spalato.

One’s first impression is that the palace, although tremendously impressive from the outside wherever that is visible, has yet suffered immensely from its partial burial in the modern city. The two temples within were much more buried than the great wall, and have been only partially brought to light again. But in another aspect of the case the modern city saved the palace. Had the latter stood by itself it would have been treated as a stone quarry, like so many ancient cities, Salona itself, for example. Now there is hope that by removing here and there a modern building—a process that was begun some time ago—the greater part of the palace may be restored to the light of day. In fact, the Porta Aurea has quite recently been freed from encumbrances and, even without being restored, makes a fine impression.