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City walls

The oldest remains of the city’s defensive walls date back to the fourth and third centuries BC, from the time when the emporium was formed. They were situated atop a hill where two round towers were found, flanking the city’s main gate. The walls were built in the tradition of Illyro-Hellenistic defence systems. In the second phase, the city expanded down the slopes of the hill like a fan, stretching southeast. The round towers were replaced with square and rectangular ones, with two lines of walls meeting at an obtuse angle at the hilltop. In the eastern side, where the river flowed, walls were not needed. Six towers were found on the northern wall, four of an earlier and two of a later date, as well as the city gate on the communication route from Narona via Bigesta (Ljubuški) to Salona.

Two preserved inscriptions speak of the construction of the towers. One dating to the Roman Republican era (first half of the first century BC) mentions the city magistrates and quaestors who raised or repaired a tower. Four rectangular towers were discovered along the south-western defensive walls, which are most probably contemporary with the remains of the Hellenistic emporium from the second century BC, found below the level of the Roman forum.

Next to the fourth ancient tower is the so-called Ereš Tower, a two-story house built by the pastor of the village of Vid, Fr. Bariša Ereš, in 1825. This house is something of an outdoor epigraphic museum because, in addition to a number of other stone fragments, many inscriptions from old Narona were built into its walls. In the third stage of development, the city occupied the area at the foot of the hill which, at the end of the first century BC and the beginning of the first century AD, became the site of the forum, the Augusteum – a temple dedicated to Augustus and the imperial dynasty – and other public buildings. This was a time of peace (the Pax Romana) and the city’s greatest prosperity, when its fortifications were not even needed. It was only in the latter half of the second century, during the invasion of the Germanic Quadi and Marcomanni tribes, that the city’s defensive walls were repaired and rebuilt.

During the uncertain times of Late Antiquity, the city slowly fell into ruin and the walls were again extended, but the construction techniques were of considerably poorer quality.