SALONA. - Today a small village in Dalmatia, in Yugoslavia, in the surroundings of Split, with very rich ancient remains from the era in which it flourished as an important Roman city.
Founded by the Greeks (from Issa, a colony of Syracuse) on the territory of the Dalmatians, probably in the course of the 3rd century B.C., S., an important port of the eastern Adriatic, had a great development under Roman rule, having then become not only a colony (Martia Iulia S.) but also the administrative center of the new province (Illyricum, later Dalmatia). Seat of a «legatus Augusti pro praetore» and of other high magistrates, S. became in the 3rd century also the seat of a bishop. A considerable Christian community had formed there within a very numerous Eastern population, the first propagators of Christianity in the Dalmatian cities. Having survived the many incursions of the barbarian peoples who had temporarily taken possession of the entire territory of Dalmatia, S. recognized, like all of Dalmatia, Byzantine authority until its complete destruction by the Avar-Slavic tribes, which occurred around 615. S. never again arose as a city, and social life passed to nearby Split (Split), where the ecclesiastical organization was also transferred. In the vicinity of S., however, in the early Middle Ages a notable center of the nascent Croatian State arose.
The ecclesiastical organization was formed in the course of the 3rd century, and is due to the bishops Venantius (who had, as F. Bulliè has demonstrated, a purely missionary function in Illyrian territory) and Domnio, who suffered martyrdom, the first, as is believed, under Aurelian, and the other under Diocletian. S. had a considerable number of martyrs (among them Anastasius, Asterius, Telius Antiochianus, Gaianus, etc.), whose relics were transferred in part, through the efforts of Pope John IV, a Dalmatian, to Rome in the baptistery of St. John Lateran (chapel of St. Venantius with the magnificent mosaic: cf. Wilpert, Mosaiken, p. 731 and pl. 111). Some are also preserved in the cathedral of Split.
S. has become famous for its Christian monuments (it was there that the first Congress of Christian Archaeology took place, in 1894). Among the first and most important, the cemetery basilicas should be remembered (so far five have been discovered: the relics of all the most important Salonitan martyrs were transferred. Marusinac, on the other hand, is of exceptional importance in the development of Christian architecture. Besides a rare example of a mausoleum (of St. Anastasius), with orientalizing (Syriac) features, two basilicas have come to light, one beside the other, the first originally without a roof (basilica discoperta). Another notable Christian complex is represented by the Urban Basilica, a large three-aisled church (of the 5th century, rebuilt in the 6th century) with the baptistery and other adjacent buildings. By means of a broad narthex this Basilica is joined to another in the form of a Greek cross, which displays several phases of construction. S. had very many other basilicas, of which, for the most part, traces are still visible. Within the bounds of the ancient city alone, inside the perimeter walls, as many as fifteen have so far been recorded. S. was elevated by Pope Zosimus (414) to the dignity of ecclesiastical metropolis of Dalmatia, retained until the destruction of the city. - See plate CVI.
Bibliography22 works
Vincenzo Brajević