Diocletian's Palace

Our next stop was the port of Split in Croatia: in particular the palace of Diocletian. The illustration below gives you an idea of its grandeur and scale. (The pointer and the elegant hand are those of our guide.) Note its position, the Adriatic lapping at its walls. Since then, land has been reclaimed, the sea pushed back, allowing some light traffic and the ability to buy ice cream on the promenade.  I can seriously recommend their lemon ice cream.

The picture below shows the present-day exterior now largely devoted to restaurants, cafes and shops. Pleasant and nondescript, it’s hard to imagine what lies immediately behind, nor the sea once lapping at its walls.

Because the sea was so close, the original palace had a substantial substrata, nicely cool in the heat of summer, useful for storage, except when heavy rain or tidal surges flooded the cellars. Then, one imagines a subterranean Venice, gondolas by torchlight. 

 

 

 

 Diocletian, I guess, never imagined they’d one day be used for a key scene in Game of Thrones.

Diocletian, I think, would have approved. He was one of the more interesting Roman Emperors. Over twenty years he almost tamed the Roman bureaucracy, a herculean task akin to ‘draining the swamp.’ Bureaucracy has a function, but for him it had become parasitic, a drain on Imperial power. He divided the empire in the interests of efficiency, and he persecuted Christians, regarding them as the ‘enemy within.’ 

Obsessed with restoring the power and virility of the Roman empire, he championed the old pagan virtues and saw Christianity as an insidious threat. The Diocletian persecutions were severe and a mirror image of the later Christian persecution of pagans—both claiming the moral high ground. 

At last, worn out, Diocletian proved unique amongst emperors by choosing early retirement. He did so in style, his palace both a fortress and a monument to his power. The palace itself covered seven acres, its sea facing walls 7 ft thick and 22 ft high, and 60ft high on its Northern side. It had 16 towers and four gates covering the four points of the compass. Inside, it was organised along the lines of a Roman camp with four arcaded avenues 36 ft wide meeting in the middle. Guards, slaves and servants were housed in the Northern quadrants. The diagram at the top shows you what it would have looked like 1700 years ago. What's left retains much of its grandeur and size

                                     The archway leads into a major square within the old palace....

Bursting with modern shops, cafes, and apartments owned by modern Croatians but rented out for a small fortune. A surprising number of tourists are happy to pay a premium for living in Diocletian's palace, for however short a stay.

                                 But everywhere you walk, you are confronted with ancient grandeur....

.... narrow alleys and tantalising glimpses of what would supplant it.

                                   And, below, a  small, modern palace within Diocletian's more impressive pile.

The imperial apartments were in the southern quadrants facing the sea. Along their width ran a 524 ft long and 24 ft wide arcaded grand gallery with views of the sea and the Dalmatian coast. 

In the Imperial quarter he also built a temple to Jupiter, and a grand mausoleum for his own use after died. 

In later years, Diocletian’s palace became a focal point of Christian hatred. His statue was beheaded, along with a series of ancient Egyptian sphinxes that hadn’t laid so much as a finger on a Christian.

 A headless sphinx. The Taliban would have been proud.

 In 603 AD Diocletian's octagonal mausoleum was sanctified as the first, arguably the oldest 

Christian cathedral still in use. The tall bell tower was attached some time in the C12th. Commonly referred to as the Cathedral of St Domnius, it's a nice illustration of how the wheel turns. St Domnius was martyred (beheaded) by Diocletian in 304 BC. In a nice touch of Christian triumphalism,  Diocletian’s temple of Jupiter and personal mausoleum were in turn sanctified as a cathedral and baptistry, The new masters were in town

Diocletian’s sarcophagus was smashed. I’m not too  sure what happened to his body, but the mausoleum and its fine Roman barrelled roof remain intact.

This is not a statue of Diocletian showing what he thinks of iconoclastic Christians, but a modern statue of John the Baptist, occupying the space where a statue of Jupiter once stood.

The cathedral of St Domnius is a joy to walk around though, to my mind, there is a kind of moral in the way the richly ornamented altar obscures the actual crucifixion of Christ.

The statue on the altar above commemorates the visit of Pope John Paul's visit to Split and Croatia after its struggle for independence from the failing Yugoslavia.

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Below, the undecorated cupola of Diocletian's mausoleum.

And I even found time for a quick and cheeky swim in the Adriatic, which brings my grand goat up to two oceans and three seas

Next stop Dubrovnik!

Split harbour

 

Northumbrians are chewy

 

                                                                  An interesting menu

Northumbrians are chewy, often hard to digest. Gristle gets caught in the teeth. The Hownslow peasant has a sour taste. In contrast, the Cotswold peasant is succulent and soft. As I studied the menu, I wondered whether they had gone for the cheaper option, and whether if slow cooked in a rich honey glaze, I would notice the difference. I noticed they went for breast of peasant, which is nice enough, but a bit bony.  My preference tends towards the leg or loin, but I  steer clear of feet or hands. Peasant cheeks are nice pan-fried with a red wine jus.

Some of you may prefer peasant children fattened in crates, but I call that depraved—even with Fava beans.

"What are you looking at?" my wife asked. 

I pointed at the menu above.  "I know what I'm having" 

She looked thoughtful. "I wonder where they keep them?"

That set me off on a quest, and on the deck, I may have found the answer

It was a three-day journey to Split and Diocletian’s palace, so in between eating peasants I watched a lot of sea, convincing myself there was a discernible difference between the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. I can convince myself of most things. 

And how do you stop taking pictures of sunsets? You have been warned.

Syracuse, Ortigia and Neapolis

Catania, in the shadow of Mt Etna

We berthed at Catania, nestling in the brooding shadow of Mt Etna. A bus took us to Syracuse and the ironically named Neapolis (ie new city 734 BC)

Taking photos proved addictive, but what they show, doesn’t fully capture sunlight on stone nor the sense of mystery and awe as you wandered through something so old.

As you enter the park the first thing you see is the Latomia del Paradiso (Paradise Quarry). Now it is a peaceful and beautiful garden stroll. Three thousand years ago, it would have been noisy and very far from paradise.  Here slaves sweated and toiled, quarrying stone for the new city and its great public buildings. 

Dominating the quarry is a narrow cavern, 76 feet high, 214 feet deep and 25 feet wide. Caravaggio called it the ‘Ear of Dionysus’ because of its shape and acoustics. It once  housed slaves and another time 7000 prisoners from the war between Athens and Syracuse. 

If legend is to be believed,  Dionysus, the Tyrant of Syracuse, was able to hear the whispering of mutinous slaves via the cavern’s startling acoustics. We witnessed it ourselves when a bunch of European tourists burst into song: Ode to Joy. A rival bunch of tourists – French – counter-attacked and drowned them out with the Marseillaise

The Greek Theatre

Note the modern seating near the top. It is still a working theatre

as the modern stage in the picture below illustrates

Caves used as burial chambers surrounding the theatre. Best seats in the house for the dead.

Some believe Greek theatres were aligned to the constellation associated with the gods they were dedicated to. What’s more obvious is the fact they were built in hillsides,  using nature as a natural backdrop, not only enhancing the acoustics, but also allowing audiences greater visibility. The position of the sun and prevailing winds were also taken into account.  Theatres were often positioned near to the sea, where breezes  both cooled the spectators and amplified sound.

Stylised masks amplified sounds through their mouths. The exaggerated features allowed them to be seen from a distance

 The Ara di Gerone II

          A  monolithic sacrificial altar to Heiron II where up to 450 oxen could be killed at one time. 

 

 And of course, when the Romans came, so did the Amphitheatre, cannibalised for stone over the years.

 

Ortigia harbour and sea

Syracuse’s old town centre is connected to Syracuse by two small bridges. It’s a tiny island about a mile long but packed with historical interest and surrounded by a turquoise sea.

 

Ortigia was the nucleus of Syracuse, founded about 734 BC and eventually becoming the most important city in Magna Graecia. For a time, it dominated the Mediterranean, was home to Archimedes, and was visited by Plato. Later it struggled against Carthage until eventually swallowed up by the Roman Empire where it enjoyed renewed prosperity. In later years, Syracuse, along with the rest of Sicily was influenced by Byzantines, Arabs, and Normans.

Piazza del Duomo

Began life as a Greek temple, developed further by the Byzantines and then Normans and became what we see now in the C18^th. It houses palaces and churches and from it a spider-web of narrow, mysterious and beautiful streets

So, what remains of the temple?

 The Temple of Apollo

Dominating the square is the  Cathedral built in the C7^th on the site of a previous Greek temple, and it reflects the complexity of Sicily’s unique culture. On its side wall, you have the ancient Doric columns of the original Greek temple. Above, you can see Norman battlements reflecting their obsession with warfare and defence. And after the great earthquake of 1693, when much of the church was destroyed, it was rebuilt in the Baroque style  best seen from the front.

As you walk through the narrow streets,  you pass palaces and some glorious buildings. 

A palace front

And its more intimate courtyard

 

The Fountain of Diana

All this in an island it takes 15 mins to walk around

I felt sad leaving, compensated by the fact there was still more to come