Historical overview
Illyricum had been in the Roman sphere of influence since the end of the 3rd century BC. The Roman conquest of the Dalmatian part of Illyricum lasted for over a century, from 156 BC, when the Roman army destroyed Delminium (today’s Tomislavgrad), the main Dalmataean stronghold, until 9 AD, after the Great Illyrian Revolt (6-9 AD) was crushed. Firm Roman rule was then established in Illyricum, thereafter called the province of Dalmatia with its seat in Salona (Solin). Julius Caesar, the proconsul in Gallia (59-51 BC), simultaneously served as the procurator of Illyricum. At the time Illyricum became a province that Caesar personally visited in 54 BC. During the civil war between Caesar and Pompey (49-48 BC), Roman citizens in Salona, mostly merchants and tradesmen, sided with Caesar, while Greek Issa (Vis) and certain Illyrian communities allied themselves with Pompey. Issa would pay for this mistaken political move with the loss of its independence.
A colony of Roman citizens, a city with the highest status, had probably already been established in Salona in Caesar’s time. Later, the colonies of Iader (Zadar), Narona (Vid), Epidaurus (Cavtat) and Aequum (Čitluk near Sinj) were founded. A prefecture was a part of a colony’s vast ager or territory, seated in a settlement that has some attributes of urban status, but still dependent on the colony’s seat. In the Salonitan ager, the seats of the prefectures were in Epetium (Stobreč), probably Pharos (today’s Stari Grad on the island of Hvar), Tragurium (Trogir) and Issa. A proper cadastral parcelization or centuriation was conducted in the agers, and the land was then assigned to Roman citizens, veterans. The hubs of such established economies were the villae rusticae, inhabited mostly by slaves. They also served as country homes for occasional stays by their owners. Villae rusticae drove the ancient economy and way of life outside of urban settlements, supplying them with various goods.
During the reign of Emperor Augustus, provinces were organized in the wider Illyrian sphere, and Roman administrative institutions, laws, customs and religion permeated provincial life. The border of the Roman province of Dalmatia ran from the mouth of the Raša River in Istria to Snježnik, and from there, along the line south of the Sava River, across the Sana estuary to the Una to the source of the Kolubara and Ljig in today’s Serbia, whence it descended with the Ibar to the Šar Mountains, then turned west to the Mat River in Albania and on to the sea. Dalmatia also included the eastern Adriatic islands from Kvarner to Boka. The seat of Dalmatia was in Salona, where the imperial consul governed the province. It was divided into three judicial districts with seats in Scardona (Skradin), Salona and Narona. Two legions were stationed in Dalmatia in the 1st century, Legio VII in Tilurium (Gardun) and Legio XI in Burnum (Ivoševci). After the end of the Great Illyrian Revolt, during the Pax Romana (‘Roman peace’), active military units participated in the construction of public structures, mainly roads. The road network in Dalmatia was mostly completed by the mid-1st century. Besides the army, the drivers of Romanization and urbanization were Italic settlers who populated the province’s more important centers.
The repercussions of the barbarian invasions could be felt even in Dalmatia after the end of the Pax Romana. The defense of the provinces was organized during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180) and the incursions of the Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi, and ramparts were constructed around Salona in 170. The constant threat of barbarian invasions also reinforced the army, as mostly barbarians from the border peoples as well as local populations were recruited into it; this was the so-called time of the ‘barracks emperors’, because the emperors came from the ranks of the military. Thus, officers also proclaimed Diocletian, an ethnic Illyrian from Dalmatia, emperor. During his reign (284-305), however, a new era in the history of the Roman Empire began.
Collection overview
More than seventeen thousand objects are held in the Roman Provincial Collection. It was created mainly on the basis of finds and purchases of materials from various sites, mainly from Salona, then from Narona, Asseria (Predgrađe) and Issa. Even those items from unidentified site are Dalmatian.
The inventory logs compiled in the 19th century were organized according to materials and subject matter, and then periods (Prehistoric Collection). In the 20th century, the collections were primarily organized according to periods and sites (Issa, Salona and Narona). While the Coin and Epigraphic Collections continued to be maintained in separate catalogues, an inventory log for the Early Medieval Collection was also established. Some objects, those with inscriptions and reliefs, were recorded in two logs. The consolidated materials from Antiquity were still recorded in a single log organized in the old way based on materials and subject matter, and “Antiquity” was entered under the “department/collection” heading. This continued for the most part until 2005, when the introduction of M++ software contributed to solving the multi-layered problem of inventorying museum materials. An examination of the recorded materials shows that from 1978 to 1984, ancient Greek, Roman and early Christian materials were combined in the Antiquities Department, which in 1984 was sub-divided into different collections. The Roman Collection was first established as an independent unit in 1984, as the Roman-Illyrian Collection, and it has had its current designation since 1993. The curators of the Antiquities Department, i.e., the Roman-Illyrian Collection, were Don Frane Bulić, Mihovil Abramić, Antun Grgin, Cvito Fisković, Kruno Prijatelj, Mladen Nikolanci, Branko Gabričević, Duje Rendić Miočević, Ante Rendić Miočević, Nenad Cambj, Branko Kirigin, Emilio Marin and Ivo Lokošek. It was only in 2003 that a depot was arranged, from which the materials in the Greek-Hellenistic Collection were separated, but even today, due to a lack of space, the materials in the Roman-Provincial, Late Antiquity and Epigraphic Collections and the Salona Branch Collection and Site are stored there.
Approximately 1,600 items from the Roman Provincial Collection are on exhibit in the permanent display opened in 2000 and in the lapidarium, remodeled in 1970 for a new permanent display and opened to mark the Museum’s 130th anniversary. There are permanent exhibits in the courtyard, portico, atrium, corridor and Great Hall. The finds from different military, secular and sacred sites include objects of varying utilitarian, subjective, symbolic and artistic value. These archaeological finds, as well as inscriptions, coins and historical sources, reveal how people in Dalmatia during the Roman era were born, how they lived and worked, how they were organized, how they spent their leisure time, and how they worshiped, fought, suffered and died.
Permanent display
Stone monuments, the key components of the Roman Provincial Collection, are exhibited mainly in the Museum’s portico, mostly in the southern wing of the lapidarium. They are accompanied by bilingual labels. These are monuments which illustrate the funerary cult of cremating and interring the deceased of all social statuses and professions, guilds, or military and gladiatorial burials, portrait markers, those that testify to the erasure of reviled rulers (Damnatio memoriae), military monuments, for example a fragment of the Tilurium trophy, sculptures and reliefs depicting various deities, fragments of sacred and profane architecture, and floor and tomb mosaics. Several stone monuments contain illustrations objects of everyday use and jewelry that are on display in the Great Hall.
The presentation of the Collection in the Great Hall begins with military items; the earliest dated finds are from the 1st century, from the time when the Great Illyrian Revolt was quelled and firm Roman rule was established in Dalmatia. All exponents are accompanied by bilingual labels.
The next two display cases contain exhibits that bear witness to everyday life through the prism of various trades, skills, expertise, and commerce. This mainly pertains to tools dated to the time of the Roman Empire, which means that they were not discovered in closed units and that they are not chronologically sensitive, that is, they were in use over extended periods.
Cosmetic articles, mainly mirrors, combs, hairpins and balsamaria, are displayed in two cases.
Religious circumstances in Dalmatia are illustrated by small objects of varying cultic, decorative and other significance. Besides figurines probably from temples or lararia, household sanctuaries of family guardian deities, household items and parts of apparel and jewellery are also exhibited. Such a selection indicates the intermingling of the secular and sacred. The official Roman cults of Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Neptune, Mars, Venus, Apollo, Diana, Vulcan, Vesta, Mercury and Ceres, i.e., the twelve supreme deities (the same number that the Etruscans and Sabines had), as well as lower ranking deities, heroes and emperors , were nurtured in the cities, which had also been penetrated by the oriental cults of the Phrygian deities Cybele and Attis, the Egyptian deities Isis, Osiris and Serapis, and the Persian Mithras. They had been brought to Rome by itinerant artisans, merchants and slaves and introduced to the Roman pantheon by the emperors.
Components of attire and jewellery are also exhibited. Following the dictates of fashion, these often changed their appearance, so they are preserved as precise relics, markers of the time in which they originated.
These are followed by exhibits which illustrating entertainment, with emphasis on depictions of theatrical masks and gladiators on various objects.
Six display cases, one of which is meant to evoke a fully set dining table, contain household inventory, starting from the entrance (locks, keys), through lighting (lamps, candlesticks), through parts of furniture (bronze fittings for lounge chairs) and artistic crafts, to crockery and utensils for preparing and serving food and beverages.
Necropolises are presented in five display cases by objects made and used only for cultic purposes and those that are known to come from a specific grave. Next to the urns for storing cremated remains, mostly glass balsamaria are exhibited, some of which have melted because they were incinerated together with the deceased on a pyre in order to reduce the spread of unpleasant odours. The light of the lamp illuminated the journey of the deceased through the underworld, while they were refreshed and cooled by crystal products that helped them cross the Phlegethon, the underworld river of fire. The symbolism of an object was not only reflected in its material, but also in the way it was rendered and portrayed. Thus, amber or glass distaffs, too fragile to use, signified the activity of the deceased and the virtues of the housewife, while the portrayal of Eros and Psyche embracing on an amber ring too large to wear, was a symbol of comfort, bliss and salvation after death.