ssn uoin oH ® 1 Jo | 98eq The Rise and Fall of an Imperial Shrine: Roman Sculpture from the Augusteum at Narona Michael Vickers i125 mesmo tom the Areal Meum in pi, Creat, bean co dig in the area ofthe Roman Forum of Narona, the present-day village of Vid. When farm buildings on che sie of hill wo che north were demolished, the tins of a Raman temple were uncovered. A conspicuous Fearare was che presence ofa number of headless marble rorsos of male and female figures that had clearly been thrown down from platforms that ran along thie sides of che interior of the building. The damage AD when Christianity replaced paganism asthe oficial religion of the Roman inflicted atthe time in the 4th century Empire. Few cults cauld be quite as pagan as the one practise ac Narona, The temple proved to have been dedicated ro the cul ofthe emperor Augustus 3s part of the Romanization process that occurred in the province of Dalmatia ac the end ofthe Ist century BC The background to the loan exhibition from the Archecological ‘museum in Split on show in the Ashmolean’s Randolph Sculpture Gallery until 17 october‘The Augusteum at Narona seems co have been built in about 10 8. It had four columns across the front supporting a triangular pediment. The outer walls were roughly built from local stone, bur given 2 decorative seucco external surface that resembled carefally drafted ashlar masoney: The single chamber (ella) had a simple mosaic floor. At fist there was 2 podium along just che west wall on which were placed. statues of Augustus and his wife Livia and pethaps Agrippa, Augustus’ righthand man. Afier Augustus’ death in AD 14, the Roman governor of Dalmatia (Publius Cornelius Dolabella) added two more statues ofthe imperial couple, as well as one of the new emperor Tiberius, There were further additions over the next couple of centuries, so many in fact that che podium was extended along owo mote sides of the cela. The substancial marble fragments include ‘major parts of statues of the emperors Claudius (ruled AD 41-54) and Vespasian (aD 69-79). “The heads of most of the statues ate missing, but chose of Vespasian and one of the Livas sil survive, The Vespasian head was found in rescue excavations in che Forum area in 1978, but the rst of dhe statue ofa figure wearing 2 ‘oga with his hand across his chest was found lying prone on the mosaic floor luring the major excavations in 1996, The head of Livia was aequited in Meckovié, nor far from Vid, in 1878 by Arthur (ater Sir Arthur) Evans. It has recently been reunited with its body which was located together with ‘other large pieces inthe town hall of nearby Opuzen and had almost certainly come from dae Augusteum of Narona in the 19th century, for a ‘missing fragment of one of them was found in the 1996 excavations. Ancient Naronay like the Roman predecessors of Colchester, Lincoln, Gloucester and Yor, held the honorific tite of Ik vas situated on the River Naron (modem Nerewva) some 15 miles from the Adviatc sea, and was one of the thtce most important cities of Roman Dalmatia. Ie had long been an Jimporeant trading centre, and was ina location of strategic importance for communication beeween the Adriatic and the incerior a far inland as the Sava and Danube rivers. Today itis 2 small village in a backwater, but there is project to build 2 new museum on the site of the ancient temple, where the finds wll have a permanent home.