Split [antikvár]

Through Ancient Split Let our starting point of this first walk, two thousand years back into the past, be the shore. Here there stretches in front of us, in all its grandeur and magnificence, the huge palace of the Román emperor Diocletian, although additional construction has somewhat altered its face. The arches of the long roofed-over corridor, where the emperor - after his abdication - walked and watched the sea and the islands to the south, still dominate the scene. Let us enter through the small southern gate of the Palace, that used to lead directly to the sea. We shall be met by the milennial shade and semi-darkness of the palace cellars. We may roam the countless halls and corridors with pumice vaults and solid pillars supporting them. Watching these impressive spaces, wrested from the destruction of time, we need but little fancy to visualize the arrangement and appearance of the upper (destroyed) rooms of the palace and of the apartments of the imperial f amily. Over steep stairs we shall climb to one of old age's most beautiful squares, the Peristyle. It is surrounded by the monumental rhythm of gránité and marble pillars joined with arches. It still seems to echo the bustle of ancient life; in the evening, with the sound of festival trumpets, it still echoes the verses of Sophocles' Antigoné. The black sphinx watches us mutely, over an even greater time span of almost four thousand years. On the one side, we shall be attracted by the monumental Emperor's Mausoleum, on the other by a small temple, one of the rare ancient temples with a fully preserved originál interior. We shall come out of the palace through one of the three gates, one-time sumptuous triumphal arches, and make the rounds of the sturdy palace walls that have withstood the onslaught of the Avars and Mongols and Tartars, who besieged them in vain. In the afternoon, when the summer heat subsides, we shall walk through the ruins of ancient Salona, one-time large metropolis of the Román province of Dalmatia, and muse - over the tombs and sarcophagi - about the ephemerality of glory and power.