Bar The Roman Period

Due to the piracy of the Illyrians and pleas for help from Greek colonists who lived on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, the Romans declared war on the Illyrian queen Teuta in 229 B.C. After two wars, the state of Illyria was obliterated in 168 B.C. and the Roman consul Lucius Anicius announced abolishment of the kingdom to Illyrian rulers in Scodra. A period of gradual Romanization of the people ensued. Archaeological research carried out in a wide area of the Montenegrin coastline speak of the revival and territorial expansion of Illyrian littoral towns during the 1st century A.D. It was a period of intensified Romanization of the Illyrian ethnicity a process which would have been nearly completed in the following centuries. None of the ancient writers specifically mentions a certain place which could be found in the area of Bar, as was the case with Budva, Risan and Ulcinj. Nevertheless, as confirmed by archaeological research carried out in the past decades, a great deal of material evidence from the period of the Roman empire were found scattered over a number of sites near Bar, dating from the 1st to the 4th century A.D. The most important marks of the Roman civilization were found in the heart of the town by chance. They are parts of a Roman sarcophagus from the 3rd century, whose relief represents a drama from Greek mythology. Its a scene from The Caledonian Boar hunt or Meleagro. The mythological display of the hero Meleagro was widely used in ancient monuments during the 3rd century and its a frequently met motif in ancient reliefs. Two such sarcophaguses, which were practically identical with those in Bar when it comes to composition, were found in Salona and Elusina. A mosaic floor was discovered near Luka sometime in the fifties, and a large necropolis with tombs made of terracotta, which contained a vast number of insets, was destroyed when a drainage system was being dug in the centre of the city. After reforms had been induced by Emperor Diocletian in 297 or 305-306 A.D., a complete administrative reorganization of Roman provinces was conducted. The major part of the present-day Montenegro was a part of the province of Prevalis, which was separated from the province of Dalmatia. When the Roman Empire was divided into Eastern and Western in 395 A.D., Prevalis, whose territory included Bar, was attached to the Eastern Roman Empire. The administrative center of the province was Scodra.

Bibliography: Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary Merriam Webster Dictionary Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyria, accessed 2012-04-26. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praevalitana, accessed 2012-04-26.
About. com http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/myths/p/100808CBoarHunt.htm, accessed 2012-04-26.

Marija Joji