Original scientific paper
Mirjana Sanader
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Abstract
An effective and highly ramified network of roads was one of the main An effective and highly ramified network of roads was one of the main elements on which the Roman Empire was based and on which it functioned. It underpinned the mobility characteristic of imperial expansion and of the maintenance of imperial power. Scholarship today owes its degree of knowledge of the main Roman road routes not only to the records of ancient geographers and the large number of extant milestones but also to the ancient itineraries. From information found in these sources, not only has a topography of Roman settlements been worked out, but researchers have at the same time endeavoured to identify Roman sites at contemporary existing places or localities. Since the Itinerarium Burdigalense lists all the way stations on the route more systematically than other such guides, this also refers to those stations that were to be found in what is today Croatian territory. Little has been written about the Itinerarium Burdigalense in this country, and for the purpose of this paper, from among several possible objectives, we have chosen a survey and analysis of the current, present-day situation in the research into these localities in our country recorded in this famous
itinerary.
The first places in the Bordeaux Itinerary in the area of today‘s Croatia appear after the Slovene site of Ramista (Formin – Gorišnica), described as follows: Transis pontem, intras Pannoniam inferiorem - Mutatio Ramista mil VIIII. In the Croatian part of the route, some twenty sites are listed, six being designated as mansio, eleven as mutatio and three as civitas, which at the beginning of the 4th
century, when the itinerary was composed, were strung out along the road that led from Poetovium to Sirmium.
From even the first review of the Croatian scholarly literature that has discussed the Roman road network in the north of Croatia, particularly that part of it
interested in the Poetovio to Sirmium route, it is clear that on this road, no proper attention, let alone adequate archaeological research, has been devoted to the way stations that must have existed along it. What we have for the moment as testimonies to these stations are reports of Roman portable finds or remains of Roman walls of some building the ground plan of which has never been ascertained. A
paradigmatic case is the first place that appears on the old itineraries under thename Mansio Aqua Viva. This mansio was long ago identified as being located in the little town of Petrijanec, about 30 km west of Varaždin. Petrijanec attracted the close attention of the professional public above all because of the fortuitous and fascinating find of gold jewellery and coins at the beginning of the 19th century, in 1805, in fact. After that came other accidental rich finds concerning which some very interesting papers were written, of both Croatian and foreign scholars. In spite of that, the certain siting of Petrijanec in mansio Aqua Viva has never been proven. In order for it to be shown to be any Roman way station, additional information is necessary (founded on additional new archaeological data) that might
produce new knowledge and comprehension. From the research that we carried out for the writing of this report, it follows that this holds true for Petrijanec and for all other sites that have been identified as either mansio or as mutatio. This, of course, does not mean that the existing locations will not be confirmed, but it is also not to be ruled out that new archaeological campaigns might not change some of them. In these efforts that need to be made, interdisciplinary methods and techniques used by landscape archaeology will have to be employed, particularly the hydrography of the Drava River as well as reports about archaeological finds of way stations in other provinces. This would be the first step towards and a
sound preparation for that other step that will have to follow sooner or later, and which will be much more demanding, in both scholarly and financial terms.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
240528
URI
Publication date:
29.6.2020.
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