PARENTIUM
(Poreč) Croatia, Yugoslavia.
On the peninsula ca. 400 m long E-W and 200 m wide
N-S, in the center of the W coast of Istria, a site settled
by the Illyrians in the Late Bronze Age. Livy mentions
it in the battles between the Romans and the Histri in
178-177 B.C. (41.11.1). In the second half of the 2d c.
B.C. a castrum was built here on the consular road along
the coast. Later it developed into an oppidum civium
Romanorum (Plin.
HN 3.19.129). Octavian gave the
settlement the rank of municipium, and in the 1st c. A.D.
Tiberius made it Colonia Iulia Parentium.
The colony had a large ager centuriatus extending
between the Mirna (Ningus) river and Limski Channel.
The settlement developed an orthogonal street grid with
cardo and decumanus. Some of the ancient insulae are
still preserved in the town grid. The decumanus is the
principal street today and bears this name in its Croatian
form (Dekuman). The forum (46 x 45 m), situated at
the W end of the decumanus and peninsula, had glimpses
of the sea. Its W side was closed by temples of Mars and
Neptune, typical of Classical temple architecture in the
1st c. A.D. Poreč still preserves an important Early Christian church, the basilica of Bishop Euphrasius from the 6th c. In the environs of Poreč are many ancient villa sites with mosaics.
Tombs with the interesting tombstones are preserved
with the other finds in the local Museum of Poreč
County.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Degrassi,
Inscriptiones Italiae, X/II
(1934); id.,
Parentium (1934); M. Prelog,
Poreč, Grad
spomenici (1957); Š. Mlakar,
Die Römer in istrien (3d
ed., 1966); A. Šonje, “La costruzione preeufrasiana di
Parenzo,”
Zbornik Poreštine 1 (1971).
M. ZANINOVIĆ
