![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/files\/2013\/07\/split1.jpg\")
<\/a>We came to Split to get aboard the Athena, our home for the next 11 days. However, \u00a0I chose this trip partly because Split was one of the places I HAD to visit\u2014it houses (literally) one of the finest Roman ruins of Late Antiquity, the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian.<\/p>\nThe Emperor, who apparently was born in Illyria (the Roman province we call Dalmatia in honor of one of the first Illyrian tribes to settle here\u2014the Dalmatia, but equally well known for the dogs which Disney made famous!) at what was then the nearby capital, Salona.\u00a0 Inheriting an empire in shambles, Diokles (his Greek name), was quite a warrior.\u00a0 He reconquered Egypt (which accounts for the sphinx in the palace, transported from Thutmose\u2019s tomb, as well as columns from Aswan, used to build the palace), but decided that the empire was too big to succeed, and accordingly, appointed a co-emperor, and two successors.\u00a0 Having stabilized the government, and reorganized the military, after 20 years on the throne, he abdicated as emperor, and got his co-emperor to do the same, elevating the successors as co-emperors of the Roman empire.\u00a0 Until Diocletian, our guide quipped, Rome changed emperors in the late 4th<\/sup> century as often as babies changed diapers.<\/p>\n After his death, some subsequent emperors used the palace, but eventually In other ways, the results were not what Diocletian might have anticipated.\u00a0 He might have been right in anticipating that the Empire, as constituted, was too big to succeed, but his tetrarchy (2 emperors, two successors) might have worked in his reign\u2014a statue of the four looking harmonious, was carted from Constantinople by Crusaders to St. Marks in Venice, where it remains today\u2014but the rise of Constantine and\u00a0 the creation of Constantinople (the new Rome) marked the end of the successful Eastern and Western Emperors.\u00a0 Rome never became the capital again, and the last Western Emperor (by some reckoning), died in the palace in Split in 480.\u00a0 Even Split came, eventually, under Venetian rule, as the Eastern Empire crumbled after 1204, when the 4th<\/sup> crusade got misdirected on its way to Jerusalem, capturing, sacking, and ruling the Byzantine Empire for a half century; Venice took many\u00a0 of the former Byzantine possessions, ruling some areas of the Adriatic until Napoleon ended the Venetian Republic (our Croat guides were bitter about the Italian connection, noting the Venetians forbade the use of Croatian; she added that when Croatians drove out the Germans and Italians in World War II they also destroyed many of the Venetian relics that still remained).<\/p>\n When Constantine issued his declaration on tolerance of Christianity, and eventually converted to\u00a0 Christianity, the Christian community in Split eventually (in the fifth century) converted the mausoleum to a church, destroying Diocletian\u2019s sarcophagus, and 200 years later, the mausoleum designed to house the remains of Diocletian, worshipped as a god by the Romans, became a Cathedral, home of the archbishop of Split. It is still in use as a church today.\u00a0 We left just before the mass started this morning.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" July 28, 2013 Split We came to Split to get aboard the Athena, our home for the next 11 days. However, \u00a0I chose this trip partly because Split was one of the places I HAD to visit\u2014it houses (literally) one of the finest Roman ruins of Late Antiquity, the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian. The … Continue reading “You don’t want to miss Split”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eastern-mediterranean-2013"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3003"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8359,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3003\/revisions\/8359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>He retired to his palace in Split, which he\u2019d spent 10 <\/a>years building, employing 20,000 workers to surround the son of Jupiter (as he was wont to call himself, as the last pagan emperor) with the splendor he had known in Nicomedia (where he was based; it\u2019s near Istanbul).\u00a0 The result was a walled enclosure 750 feet long and 450 feet wide that housed military, religious, administrative, and residential quarters, with 16 gates (3 of which still stand) and a number of towers (none standing).\u00a0 One impressive feature\u2014since he was the emperor, he could not go up and down stairs, so the whole complex\u2014being built on the Adriatic, had to be level, requiring an extensive foundation that has since been excavated, revealing the superior architecture of late Roman antiquity.<\/p>\n<\/a>a city grew up within, especially using the walls as one of their walls.\u00a0 It is mostly this jumble of medieval and ancient that greets the visitor today; as our guide noted (he was funny!), it\u2019s probably the only 1700 year old ruin where you can see people hanging underwear to dry.<\/p>\n<\/a>The biggest irony of Diocletian\u2019s palace, though, involved his mausoleum.\u00a0 Diocletian was buried in the palace. He was also known for his persecution of Christians\u2014many Saints date from his efforts to suppress Christianity.\u00a0 He even executed his wife and daughter when he discovered they had become Christians.<\/p>\n