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EARLY CHRISTIAN SALONA

The development of the Salonitan Christian community began in the mid-3rd century under the first Salonitan bishop - Bishop Venantius who came from Rome on a mission to spread the Christian faith in the province of Dalmatian. In the persecutions of 304 A.D. that were initiated by Diocletian many Christians perished in Salona, among them also Bishop Domnius, the most prominent member of the Christian community who was of Syrian descent.

With the Milan Edict of 313 A.D., allowing free practice of the Christian faith, begins the most glorious period in the Salonitan history. A powerful Christian community develops, and at the beginning of the 5th c. the Salonitan bishop was appointed metropolitan bishop of Dalmatia. In the course of this period numerous churches were built, completely changing the urban layout of Salona. The town centre was moved from the Forum into its eastern part, near the place where the tradition of cults existed ever since the period of persecution of the Christians. Located in a nearby residential house was the oldest secret church (domus ecclesiae) called Oratory A, where the Salonitan Christians secretly met in the second half of the 3rd and the early 4th centuries. In the 5th century, a large Christian complex, the Episcopal centre, was constructed south-east of Oratory A, with double basilicas (built on the site of an earlier church dating from the mid-4th c.), a baptistery, and the bishop's palace.

lIn the 6th century, the entire complex underwent reconstruction; the rectangular baptistery was turned into an octagonal structure with a cruciform pool. In a room west of the baptistery there was a polychrome floor mosaic depicting deer drinking water from a cantharus.

This mosaic representation of the 42nd psalm, symbolising baptism, has unfortunately not been preserved. Under the influence of Byzantine architecture, a basilica having the shape of a Greek cross was constructed in the 6th century by Bishop Honorius II on the site of the southern longitudinal basilica. In 535 A.D., at the beginning of the twenty-year Byzantine-Gothic war, the Byzantine army conquered Salona banishing the Ostrogoths from the town. The town walls were reconstructed once again, and triangular ends added to the rectangular towers to provide better protection.

Aside from the Episcopal centre, seven church buildings were discovered within the town walls. These date back to the 5th c. The basilica in Gradina (central building with a cupola) was erected in the 6th century under the influence of Byzantine architecture. In the early 4th century, the first early Christian cemeteries were built at Manastirine, Marusinac, and Kapuljuc outside the town walls. Salonitan martyrs, who were killed in Diocletian's persecutions, were buried on the site of old pagan necropolises. Their graves became places of worship around which Christian cemeteries with complex tomb structures developed. The oldest cemetery basilica was built in the mid-4th c. at Kapljuc over the graves of five martyrs (the priest Asterius and four soldiers of the imperial guard). In a family tomb (mausoleum) at Marusinac lie the mortal remains of Anastasius, a martyr who was thrown in the Salonitan bay with a millstone around his neck.

East of the mausoleum, a large basilica was erected at the beginning of the 5th century, and Anastasius' sarcophagus was moved into its presbytery. Next to this basilica, relics of another basilica were found. It was called basilica discoperta, as it was thought to have had no roof construction. Bishop Domnius (St Duje, later the patron saint of Split), who died a martyr's death in the arena of the Salonitan amphitheatre, was in 304 A.D. buried at Manastirne, and over his grave a memorial chapel was built. Soon to be erected around it were similar chapels which served as Christian burial places. In the 5th century, Bishop Gaius had a large three-aisled basilica constructed over the cemetery complex, with Bishop Domnius' grave in the presbytery. Next to it are the graves of other Salonitan bishops, Bishop Domnius' successors, who were buried there in the course of the 4th and 5th centuries.

At the beginning of the 7th century, after it had been invaded by the Avars and Slavs, Salona ceased to exist as an ancient urban settlement. Its residents fled to the off-shore islands or the nearby Diocletian's Palace which in the Middle Ages developed into the nucleus of Split. Along the eastern walls of ancient Salona a Croatian settlement sprang up that was soon to become one of the most important centres of the medieval Croatian state. After conversion to Christianity in the 9th century ensued a period of intensive construction during which the early Christian monastery complex at Riznice was reconstructed under Prince Trpimir, and several new churches built: Basilica on the island of Sveti Stjepan (with the sarcophagus of Queen Helen found in the atrium), and the so-called Hollow Church, the coronation basilica of the Croatian King Zvonimir. The life in the ancient Salona was never to revive again, with its ruins having become the most famous archaeological site in Croatia.

View of the remnants
of the Episcopal Centre

Mosaic from the baptistry
depicting a deer

View of the northern wall
with triangular insertions

Marusinac, view
of Anastasius' Mausoleum

Remains of
the Old Christian church
and cemetery at Manastirine