Salona

“Stone tables rest on classic pillars and inverted Roman capitals take the place of benches. So we know that we are approaching ancient Salone - Rome’s proudest city in Illyria. Soon antique walls appear and the horses pull heavily over loose stones. A fragrant avenue of rosemary and now fantastic olive-trees, hung with small black fruit and festooned with vines and creepers, frame in a landscape of surpassing loveliness; gently undulating slopes dropping to the peaceful sea on the one hand, climbing to majestic mountains on the other; purple ranges cutting their pure profiles against blue ranges, outlined against yet fainter forms and dying at last into the opalescence of the distant sky.

At our feet the dead fragments of the Roman city - few they are, but how they speak! The early Christian cemetery with its hundred and sixty sarcophagi, desecrated, lying in confusion, each broken open by a rude barbarian hand. One little tomb alone escaped the greed of the Hun, that of a girl of three, and in it have been found, together with her tiny bones, her baby jewels and rattle. Some of the stones are quite plain, others carved with Pax and with acanthus leaves, while on others, more pretentious, are figured scenes from mythology: the works of Hercules, Hippolytus and Phædra, Meleager killing the Calydonian boar. 

Among the tombs lie ruins of the Great Basilica - a fifth-century cathedral, many of whose shafts are still standing. As we approach the remains of the Baptistery near by, a group of ragged urchins, running ahead, throw themselves upon the ground and with grimy hands brush up the earth to show the squares and circles of a fine mosaic pavement. After seeing the extensive ruins of the city walls and gates, of the arena and theatre, we are off again along the coast” (pp. 85-86).