NARONA
(Vid by Metković) Croatia, Yugoslavia.
An ancient site at the mouth of the Neretva
(Narenta) river, whose valley served in all periods as the
route for an exchange of the goods between the Mediterranean and the interior of the Balkans. Theopompus
(
Strab. 7.5.5) mentions it as a port of exchange between
the Greeks and Illyrians in the 6th c. B.C. It served as
a center for several Roman military campaigns in 156,
77, and 44 B.C. against the Delmatae and other Illyrians
whose trading community was established there in the
late 2d c. B.C. A seat of conventus iuridicus for the S part
of the province of Dalmatia, Narona became the Colonia
Iulia Narona between 47 and 27 B.C. The development
of Salona in the 1st and 2d c. A.D. overshadowed Narona, whose commercial traffic was lost to the capital of
province. A silting of the river mouth and marshes probably hastened this decline. It is last mentioned when its
delegates attended Salona church councils in 530 and
533. After that it was probably destroyed by the Avaro-Slavic invasion.
To the NE of the village of Viol parts of the city
walls and towers from the colonial period can be seen.
The town was built partly on the hill, partly in the plain.
Many inscriptions, and architectural and sculptural fragments are built into the walls of the village houses. In the
gardens at many places foundations of the architecture
with mosaics have been found. Systematic excavations
are obstructed because marsh covers the greater part of
the site. In the village cemetery some sarcophagi and
fragments of sepulchral monuments can be seen. There
is a local archaeological collection and also a number
of finds in the Archaeological Museum at Split.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Patsch, “Narona,”
Zur Geschichte
und Topographie von Narona (
Schriften der Balkankommission, Antiquar. Abteilung, Heft 5; 1907); id., “Aus
Narona,”
JOAI 16 (1912) 75-82; 1. Marović, “Novi
neobjavljeni nalazi iz Narone,”
Vjesnik za arheologiju i
historiju dalmatinsku 54 (1952) 153-73.
M. ZANINOVIĆ
