DOCLEA
(Duklja) Crna Gora, Yugoslavia.
At the confluence of the Zeta and Morača 10 km N of
Titograd.
The Docleatae, their capital at the later Roman city
of Doclea, were conquered by Octavian in 35 B.C. (App.
Ill. 16); Pliny (
HN 3.143) mention them as part of the
conventus of Narona. Ptolemy (
Geog. 2.16) includes them
among the inhabitants of the interior of S Dalmatia. The
site of the city was already occupied in the pre-Roman
period, probably by one of the dependencies of Illyrian
Meteon. First a civitas, then a municipium (under the
Flavians), the city became the most important center in
SE Dalmatia. It retained its dominant position in Diocletian's new province of Praevalitana but under Justinian
was administered by the Metropolitan See at Justiana
Prima (Caričingrad), and, in the early 7th c., fell to
the Avars.
The site of the city is a trapezoidal plateau, bounded
on the S and W by the Morača and Zeta rivers and on
the N by the mountain torrent Širalija. A stone wall with
towers, dating from the Roman period, surrounds the
site; the defenses of the unprotected E side were augmented with a double line of ditches.
The major buildings, known from excavations at the
end of the 19th c., occupy the W half of the site along
the principal E-W street. Most of the monuments date
from the 2d c. A.D., the period of the city's greatest
prosperity.
The main gate was in the W wall where the road from
Diluntum and Narona entered the city and continued E
to form the principal thoroughfare. East of the gate,
beyond the foundations of a triumphal arch, lies the
Temple of Dea Roma, the seat of the imperial cult transferred from Epidaurum to Doclea in the 2d c. The temple, distyle in antis with a single cella and apse, is
situated within a precinct opening onto the main street.
Farther E is a smaller temple, enclosed in a portico
connected with an elegant town house. The building is
square in plan and of unknown dedication. The adjoining
house is organized around a central peristyle and. contains a small set of baths on its E side. The Temple of
Diana, almost identical in plan to that of Dea Roma, is
on the S side of the street in a peristyle temenos.
The public baths, E of the Diana Temple, were divided into men's and women's sections sharing a common
entrance on the S side of the street opposite the forum.
Excavations of the men's half have revealed the usual
group of hot and cold rooms and a peristyle courtyard.
The forum consisted of an open area, rectangular and
unpaved, bordered on the N by a row of official buildings, on the E by shops, and on the W by a basilica with
its long side facing the forum. The basilica is divided
into two chambers with an apsed tribunal in the N wall.
In the E half of the city a three-naved Christian basilica and a small central-plan church were built.
The finds from the site are in the Archaeological Museum at Titograd.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. Alačević, “Rovine ed iscrizioni di Doclea,”
Bullettino di archaeologia e storia dalmata 5 (1882) 179-83; V. Petričević, “Dukljanske starine. Doclea,” ibid., 13 (1890) 99-105; P. Sticotti,
Doclea, Die
römische Stadt Doclea in Montenegro (
Schriften der Balkankommission. Antiquarische Abteilung 6; 1913)
MPI;
D. Basler, “Problem rekonstrukcije prvobitnog isgleda
antičkih hramova u Duklji,”
Starine Crne Gore 1 (1963) 139-45
I; J. J. Wilkes,
Dalmatia (1969)
MPI; A. Boëthius
& J. B. Ward-Perkins,
Etruscan and Roman Architecture
(1970)
P.
M. R. WERNER
