But this medallic fertility, which has scattered the coins of Siscia over the fields of remotest Britain, was only the natural result of her commercial eminence. She was the staple of trade between the Adriatic and the Danubian basin—old Celtic trade-routes probably surviving the Roman conquest. ‘Siscia,’ says Strabo, ‘lies at the confluence of many rivers, all navigable. It is at the foot of the Alps, whose streams bear to it much merchandise, Italian and other. These are borne in waggons from Aquileja over Ocra, the lowest part of the Alps, to Nauportus, and thence by the Corcoras into the Save,’—and so to Siscia. The wine and oil wafted from more southern climes into the havens of that Venice of Roman Adria; the carpets and woollens of Patavium that rumbled into her markets by the Æmilian Way; the furs and amber that the barbarian dealers bore her from the cold shores of the Baltic, and Fennic forests; perhaps, too, her own costly wine stored up in wooden barrels—all these, we may believe, and more, were piled on the Aquilejan waggons and dragged up the Alpine steep by oxen, thence to be floated down the Save to the Siscian wharves. In the markets of Siscia the Aquilejese merchants might lay in their stock of grain, or hides, or keen Noric steel, and take their pick of cattle, or tattooed Illyrian slaves. From the whole of Eastern Europe wares might flow together here; for not only was Siscia at the confluence of the Save and Kulpa, but she was at the junction of great roads, which, with their branches, connected her with the Upper and Lower Danube, with the interior of Dalmatia as well as her coast-land, and with Nauportus and Italy, overland.
Not long ago an interesting relic was found in Croatia, which perhaps speaks more clearly than anything else of the majesty to which Siscia ultimately attained. It is a cedarn chest, once gilt, on which are carved, by a late Roman hand, what are meant to be personifications of the five premier cities of the Roman world. In the centre—
Prima urbes inter, Divum domus, Aurea Roma,[165]
Rome, with her usual attributes of helmet, spear, and shield, is enthroned as a goddess. To her right two more female figures, distinguished by scrolls as Constantinople and Carthage, hold wreaths in their hands and look towards Rome. On her left, two other goddess-cities do the same; one is Nicomedia, the other Siscia. The carving is probably fourth-century work; and certainly, exalted as is the position claimed on it for Siscia, it is almost borne out by her coinage of the same period, for the activity of her mint shows that her commercial splendour was still at its zenith down to at least the days of Theodosius the Great; while the coins of her rival Sirmium wax fewer and fewer, and finally cease altogether. For Sirmium may have been of greater value as a military station,[166] and perhaps a pleasanter residence for emperors and bishops, and therefore of greater administrative importance, and of more frequent mention by historians; but that she was a greater city than Siscia—as is so confidently assumed by some writers—may reasonably be doubted, and the very bustle of Siscian markets may have deterred princes from fixing here their court.
The comparatively high state of Siscian civilisation is also attested by her coins—those superb medallions of gold and silver—those gems of the fourth-century monetary art that stand out among the poorer products of mints Gallic and Britannic. But what distinguishes the Siscian coins as much as their workmanship is their peculiarly Christian character. It is here that the first purely Christian type—that, namely, which alludes to the vision of Constantine, first makes its appearance—indeed, during the fourth century the sacred monogram may almost be regarded as a Siscian mint-mark. And we know from other sources that Christianity had early struck root here; for not only is its existence attested by two sepulchral inscriptions of Roman date discovered here, but its vitality is celebrated by a relation of Jerome and a hymn of Prudentius,[167] recording the martyrdom of a Siscian citizen and bishop, Quirinus:—
Insignem meriti virum
Quirinum placitum Deo,
Urbis mœnia Sisciæ
Concessum sibi martyrem
Complexu patrio fovent.