Aquileia

Overview

In 452 AD, it was destroyed by the hordes of Attila's Huns.

Aquileia, which is closest to the gulf of the Adriatic Sea was founded by the Romans, fortified against the barbarians from the interior. One goes up with ships to the city by ascending along the course of the Natiso for about 60 stadia. it served as an emporium to those Illyrian peoples living along the Istro. They come to be supplied with products from the sea, such as wine, which they put into wooden barrels by loading it onto wagons, and also oil, while the people of the area come to buy slaves, cattle and leather. Aquileia lies across the border from the Veneti. The border is marked by a river that flows down from the Alps and through which, with a navigation of 1,200 stadia, one goes up to the city of Noreia.

This is how Herodian describes it at the time of his 238 siege by the troops of Maximinus Thrax:

Before these events occurred, Aquileia was a very large city with a very large stable population. Located on the sea, it had all the Illyrian provinces behind it. Aquileia was used as a port of entry to Italy. The city had, thus, made it possible for goods to be transported from the interior by land or rivers, to be exchanged with merchant ships. [Goods] were, in addition, transported from the sea to the mainland as needed, when goods were not produced locally, due to the cold climate, but sent up to the mountainous areas. Since agriculture in the hinterland had many people employed in wine production, they exported large quantities of wine to markets that could not grow vines there. The large number of people living permanently in Aquileia consisted not only of native residents, but also of foreigners and traders. At this time the city was even more crowded than usual. All the people from the surrounding area had left the small towns or villages and fled [to the big city]. They placed their hopes of safety in the large city and its defensive walls. These ancient walls, however, had mostly collapsed. Under Roman rule the cities of Italy did not, normally, need walls or weapons. They had substituted lasting peace for war and had also earned the right to participate in Roman rule.

Republican period (181-31 BC).

Aquileia was founded in 181 B.C. near the Natissa River as a colony under Latin law, by Lucius Manlius Acidinus, Publius Scipio Nasica and Gaius Flaminius, sent by the senate to bar the way to the neighboring Carni and Histrian peoples who threatened the eastern borders of Italy. It was established in the territory of the Carni:

In the same year 181 BC the colony of Aquileia was deducted in the territory of the Gauls. 3 000 infantrymen received 50 iugera each, the centurions 100, the horsemen 140. The triumvirs who founded the colony were Publius Scipio Nasica, Gaius Flaminius, and Lucius Manlius Acidinus.

The first settlers were 3,000 veterans, followed by their respective families from Samnium, a total of about 20,000 people, who were followed by groups of Veneti; later, in 169 B.C., another 1,500 families were added, while eastern communities, such as Egyptians, Jews and Syrians, also settled in the city.

It was ruled initially by duumvirs and later by quattuorviri with its own senate. The city first grew as a military outpost in preparation for future campaigns against Histri and Carni, later as "headquarters" for eventual Roman expansion toward the Danube.

Aquileia formed the main base of the military operations in Illyricum of the consuls Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Lupus, Gaius Marcius Figulus, and Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum, during the years 156-155 BC, against the Dalmatian tribes, which then led to the conquest of the city of Delminium. In 129 B.C. consul Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus attacked the Histrian peoples of Iapodes and Liburni from northern Italy (from his "headquarters" in Aquileia, as reflected in a eulogy dedicated to him), and later also defeated the Alpine peoples of the Carni and Taurisci (from the area of Nauportus), earning for these successes the Triumph. Ten years later, in 119 BC. Lucius Caecilius Metellus completed a new victorious campaign against the Dalmatians, using Aquileia as the base of his operations, celebrating his triumph the following year and earning himself the victorious title of Delmaticus. Four years later, in 115 BC, the consul Marcus Aemilius Scaurus operated in Cisalpine Gaul against both the Ligurians in the west and the Carni and Taurisci in the east, using Aquileia, in the latter case, as his "headquarters." Still two years later, in 113 B.C., the consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo was sent to confront an invasion of Germanic-Celtic peoples (including the Cimbri), who had penetrated Illyricum and then Noricum. Carbo, at the head of an army that had Aquileia as its headquarters, was however defeated near Noreia.

Archaeology of Republican Aquileia

In 148 B.C. from Aquileia began the construction of the Via Postumia, which connected the Adriatic with the Tyrrhenian Sea near Genoa. The road was a Roman consular road built by the Roman consul Postumius Albinus in the territories of Cisalpine Gaul, today's Po Valley, mainly for military purposes. Some fifteen years later, in 131 B.C., praetor Titus Annius Rufus started the Via Annia, which connected Hatria (modern Adria) with Patavium (Padua), Altinum (Altino), Iulia Concordia (modern Concordia Sagittaria, where it intersected the Via Postumia) and finally Aquileia.

The remains of the large river port on the Natissa River (piers, warehouses, and roads that connected with the city), built on both sides of the river, can be visited along the Via Sacra and would date as far back as the end of the 2nd century B.C., later expanded and renovated several times. From the earliest times in Aquileia the deities of the Latin pantheon, as well as of the local pantheon, were worshiped. Numerous inscriptions of the soldiers of the garrison, who resided there for about two centuries, bore the cult of Mitra, and later also that of Christianity.

A first century BC inscription mentions a freedman named Lucius Aiacius Dama, possibly originating from Damascus, who describes himself as a "Iudaeus", a Jew.

Early imperial period (30 B.C.-285 A.D.)

At the time of Augustus, after an initial campaign led by Publius Sillius Nerva in 16 B.C. following an invasion of Pannonians in Istria and the subsequent Roman conquest of territories as far as Pula and Raša, in 15 B.C, his stepson Tiberius, together with his brother Drusus, led a military campaign against the populations of Rhaetians, settled between Noricum and Gaul, and Vindelici. The two, in an attempt to encircle the enemy by attacking him on two fronts without leaving him any escape routes, planned a large "pincer movement," which they put into practice also with the help of their lieutenants: Tiberius moved from Helvetia, while his younger brother moved from Aquileia and reached Tridentum, dividing the army into two columns. A first column traveled along the Adige and Isarco valleys (at whose confluence he built the Pons Drusi, near present-day Bolzano), ascending as far as the Inn; the second went along what was to become under Emperor Claudius the Via Claudia Augusta (traced therefore by his father Drusus) and which, through the Vinschgau valley and the Reschen pass, also reached the Inn river. Tiberius, advancing from the west, defeated the Vindelici, reuniting near Lake Constance with his brother Drusus, who, in the meantime, had defeated and subdued the peoples of the Breuni and Genauni. These successes enabled Augustus to subdue the peoples of the Alpine region as far as the Danube and earned him renewed imperatorial acclaim. A few years later, beginning in 14 B.C, Aquileia again turned out to be instrumental in the subjugation of the whole of Illyricum and Pannonia, under the commands first of Marcus Vinicius, then of Augustus' son-in-law and brotherly friend Agrippa, then of his stepson Tiberius. Aquileia again continued to be an important military center during the Dalmatian-Pannonian revolt of 6-9, forming the last bulwark against the possible threat of an invasion by these peoples, who could thus have reached Rome itself in only ten days. It was clear, however, that Aquileia had lost its former function as "headquarters," which was now attributed by Tiberius to Siscia on the Sava River, in a more advanced position. From this point on, Aquileia ceased to play a decisive military role any longer, maintaining instead an important economic and social function in the rear, now that all military forces had been moved to Pannonia and Dalmatia.

Drusus the Younger, son of Tiberius, most likely passed through Aquileia when he went to Pannonia to put down a revolt among the legions (in 14). More than fifty years later, in 69, the legions VII Claudia and VIII Augusta under the leadership of Marcus Antonius Primus, passed through this city. They had deployed and proclaimed Vespasian their emperor. Some have also speculated that the scenes on Trajan's Column No. 58-63 depict the forum of Aquileia, from where Trajan would have passed for the Dacian campaign of 105.

Archaeology of early imperial Aquileia

Beginning in 15 B.C. following the conquest of the eastern Alpine region, construction of the Via Claudia Augusta was begun, linking Venetia to the banks of the Danube in Noricum (roughly present-day Bavaria) via the Brenner or Reschen Pass. It was built by Drusus the Elder, stepson and general of Emperor Augustus; later expanded and completed by his son and emperor Claudius in 47 AD. This road connected the Latin world with the Germanic world, and other important Roman arterial roads converged on it: this was the case with the Via Annia (which joined Adria to Aquileia), the Via Popilia (which connected Altino and Rimini), the Via Aurelia (between Padua and Feltre via Asolo) and the Via Postumia (the consular road from Genoa to Aquileia). In later years (around 14 B.C.) the Via Gemina was also begun, connecting Aquileia with Emona, following the first section of the amber road. This road seems to have been built by the Legio XIII Gemina, which was located near the city of Venetia et Histria during these years.

From the middle of the first century AD the city began to be provided with stone structures along the river port east of the city (previously the structures were wooden), made from an artificial widening of the Natissa, and the associated port facilities, still made of wood; towards the end of the century, the port was rebuilt in stone.

Both the present location and the structure of Aquileia's Roman forum date to the late 2nd-early 3rd century. The measurements appear to have been 115 meters x 57 meters, according to a 1934 study by Giovanni Battista Brusin. The continued expansion of the city led to the construction of new and imposing walls in the southern and western parts, first in the time of Maximinus Thrax, then of Flavius Claudius Julianus and Theodosius I.

Late imperial period (286-452)

Maximian, once he became Augustus of the West, preferred to use two capitals: Aquileia (which Ausonius calls the ninth city of the Empire), farther east, as a river-sea port on the Adriatic Sea and a military hinterland, given its proximity to the limes of the Claustra Alpium Iuliarum; Mediolanum, on the other hand, farther west, was positioned to guard the passes north of the great Alpine lakes. In these two locations he therefore had large imperial structures and palaces erected, leaving mainly the care of the defense of the Rhine limes to Constantius.

In 312, during the civil war, Constantine I, now suspicious of Maxentius, assembled a large army and moved across the Alps into Italy, and after defeating Maxentius's armies twice in a row, near Turin and Brescia, laid siege to and occupied, first Verona and then Aquileia, subduing the whole of northern Italy. Shortly thereafter he marched on Rome, where he finally defeated Maxentius' army just north of the Eternal City in the decisive Battle of the Milvian Bridge, on October 28, 312. With the death of Maxentius, all of Italy came under Constantine's control, while the Praetorian Guard and the Castra Praetoria were suppressed.

Throughout the continuation of the fourth century, imperial presences in Aquileia intensified, and many bloody clashes resolved fratricidal contentions such as the one between Constantine II and Constans I in 340; or between Constantius II and Magnentius in 351-352; or episodes of usurpation: Theodosius I defeated Magnus Maximus there (in 388); Valentinian III killed Joannes there in the Hippodrome (in 425).

Aquileia exercised, moreover, a new moral and cultural function with the advent of Christianity, which, according to tradition, was preached by the apostle St. Mark, and whose development was based on a series of bishops, deacons and presbyters who suffered martyrdom. The first were Hermagoras and Fortunatus (ca. 70 AD). A native of Aquileia is supposed to have been Pope Pius I (d. 154). Other martyrs of the Aquileian church were, in the 3rd century, Hilarius and Tatianus (d. 284). At the beginning of the 4th century, Chrysogonus, Proto and the brothers Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla were martyred, the cult of whom found wide diffusion throughout the territories of the Diocese of Aquileia, from Veneto to Istria, and from Carinthia to Slovenia. In 313 Emperor Constantine ended the persecutions. Under Bishop Theodore (c. 319 m.) a large center for worship arose consisting of three beautifully mosaicated halls, each accommodating more than 2,000 worshippers.

Archaeology of late imperial Aquileia

Despite the Crisis of the 3rd century, Diocletian founded the mint of Aquileia, and the city, due to its many authoritative offices and institutions, still turned out to be, at the death of Emperor Theodosius I (395), an important city in the Empire. At the time of the tetrarchy Aquileia became one of the capitals of the Roman Empire and was endowed with magnificent public and private facilities for the augustus Maximian. Beginning in 293 a large circus was built there, connected to the nearby imperial residence (located east of the facility), as well as a mint with three workshops (from 294/296 to 425). After the descent of Attila's Huns and the subsequent devastation, the city never recovered, so much so that it shrank to half its size along the north-south axis.

The construction of the Patriarchal Basilica dates back to the early fourth century. Founded in 313 by Bishop Theodore with the direct support of Emperor Constantine, the buildings known as the Theodorian halls (the remains of which can still be visited in the nave of the present building and under the foundations of the bell tower) probably constitute the first public worship complex for Christians. The halls rested on pre-existing Roman buildings (probably horrea, vast Roman granaries that stood in the area near the basilica) whose perimeter walls were presumably reused. The two parallel halls (both about 37x20 m) were connected by a 29x13 m vestibule, next to which was the first baptistery. They both lacked an apse, with six columns supporting a richly decorated coffered ceiling and a floor consisting of an extraordinary mosaic complex. The north hall probably constituted the church proper, while the south hall (located where the present basilica stands) was a catechumenum, a place where baptized people received Christian instruction and prepared for entry into the community. The next phase of the basilica dates from the mid-4th century, during the time of Bishop Fortunatianus, with the expansion of the north hall (73x31 m) and the creation of new halls. The large basilica, divided into three naves by twenty-eight columns and without an apse was connected through the baptistery to the catechumenum and preceded by a large cloister (following a pattern also found in the contemporary Augusta Treverorum complex).

Aftermath

The authority of its church and the myth of a city that had been powerful survived, although by then its direct dominion was limited to a small territory that had its strengths in the urban area with its seaport and in the village of Grado. The latter developed and gained increasing importance following the Lombard invasion in 568. From that time the region of Aquileia was divided between the Roman-Byzantines (who occupied its coastal area) and the Lombards (the inland part). In the 8th century the seat of the patriarchate was moved to the safer Cividale.

Around the year 1000 there was a rebirth of the city, which regained great prestige under Patriarch Poppo (1019–45), who returned the seat to Aquileia.