SERDICA
(Sophia) Bulgaria.
An ancient
Thracian center, today the national capital, situated in
a valley surrounded by mountains at the juncture of the
road from Belgrade to Istanbul and the natural waterway
of the Danube to the Aegean. It was occupied by the
Romans, conquered by Licinius Crassus (29 B.C.), raised
to the status of a colony by Trajan, and coined its own
money from the reign of Marcus Aurelius to that of
Gallienus. The city was the seat of the council that condemned the Arian heresy (343). It was destroyed by the
Huns in the 5th c., was reconstructed by Justinian, under
whom Santa Sophia was built. Originally, the Romans
had probably established a garrison in the village and
area of the Thracian market, giving the city a praetorium
and a castellum. The city did not gain great military
importance but in the 4th c. when it became the capital
of the frontier province, Dacia Mediterranea, it was surrounded by walls (brick and rubble core on a stone base)
with round towers. One walled area within the city with
the remains of large structures is thought to have been
the praesidium. The plan of the city is rectangular, covering an area of ca. 84 ha. The remains of the buildings
belong to two distinct periods: 2d and 3d c. stone architecture, and 3d c. and 4th c. brick architecture. Except
for some traces of the walls, round towers, and triangular
abutments, only the foundations of some buildings are
known: a temple of Serapis and its pediment; a brick
calidarium of a 3d c. Roman bath, transformed into the
church of St. George in the 5th c. Probably the 6th c. a
basilica of Santa Sophia was built. It had three aisles and
an apse which was close to the ancient necropolis where
there are remains of two small ancient churches (with
mosaics) and many chambered tombs. The tombs were
painted between the 4th and 5th c. with floral motifs,
birds, and candelabra, and one with the busts of arch-angels. In all these tombs we may recognize Hellenistic-Oriental and Roman elements. On the coins of Serdica various buildings are represented. Funeral stelai, religious inscriptions, architectural fragments, and inscriptions are collected in the National Museum and displayed
in the great nine-domed mosque. The Museum houses
antiquities not only from the city but from all over Bulgaria.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
B. Filov,
La chiesa sofiota di S. Sofia
(1912)
PI; id.,
La chiesa sofiota di S. Giorgio (1933)
PI; K. Mjatev,
La peinture décorative de la nécropole de Serdica (1925)
PI; N. Musmov,
Le monete di Serdica (1926)
I; S. Bobcev,
Serdica, Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Topographie, Gestaltung u. Architektur der Stadt
(1943)
MPI; “Serdica” in
Mat. et Recherches Archéologiques, 1 (1964).
Notes and reports in
Izv. della Soc. and Ist. Arch.
Bulg. and
Ann. Museo Naz. di Sofia (in Bulgarian, with
summaries in French and German).
A. FROVA