Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI | Page 9

the
Emperor--stood ready to become a city.
It was a chester ready made, with its four streets, its four gates, all but
that toward the sea flanked with octagonal towers, and with four greater
square towers at the corners. To this day the circuit of the walls is
nearly perfect; and the space contained within them must be as large as
that contained within some of the oldest chesters in our own island. The
walls, the towers, the gates, are those of a city rather than of a house.
Two of the gates, tho' their towers are gone, are nearly perfect; the
"porta aurea," with its graceful ornaments; the "porta ferrea" in its stern
plainness, strangely crowned with its small campanile of later days
perched on its top. Within the walls, besides the splendid buildings
which still remain, besides the broken-down walls and chambers which
formed the immediate dwelling-place of the founder, the main streets
were lined with massive arcades, large parts of which still remain.
Diocletian, in short, in building a house, had built a city. In the days of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus it was a "Káotpov"--Greek and English
had by his day alike borrowed the Latin name; but it was a "Káotpov"
which Diocletian had built as his own house, and within which was his
hall and palace. In his day the city bore the name of Aspalathon, which
he explains to mean "little palace." When the palace had thus become a
common habitation of men, it is not wonderful that all the more private
buildings whose use had passed away were broken down, disfigured,
and put to mean uses.
The work of building over the site must have gone on from that day to
this. The view in Wheeler shows several parts of the enclosure

occupied by ruins which are now covered with houses. The real wonder
is that so much has been spared and has survived to our own days. And
we are rather surprised to find Constantine saying that in his time the
greater part had been destroyed. For the parts which must always have
been the stateliest remain still. The great open court, the peristyle, with
its arcades, have become the public plaza of the town; the mausoleum
on one side of it and the temple on the other were preserved and put to
Christian uses.
We say the mausoleum, for we fully accept the suggestion made by
Professor Glavinich, the curator of the museum of Spalato, that the
present duomo, traditionally called the Temple of Jupiter, was not a
temple, but a mausoleum. These must have been the great public
buildings of the palace, and, with the addition of the bell-tower, they
remain the chief public buildings of the modern city. But, tho' the
ancient square of the palace remains wonderfully perfect, the modern
city, with its Venetian defenses, its Venetian and later buildings, has
spread itself far beyond the walls of Diocletian. But those walls have
made the history of Spalato, and it is the great buildings which stand
within them that give Spalato its special place in the history of
architecture.
RAGUSA[12]
BY HARRY DE WINDT
Viewed from the sea, and at first sight, the place somewhat resembles
Monte Carlo with its white villas, palms, and background of rugged,
gray hills. But this is the modern portion of the town, outside the
fortifications, erected many centuries ago. Within them lies the real
Ragusa--a wonderful old city which teems with interest, for its
time-worn buildings and picturesque streets recall, at every turn, the
faded glories of this "South Slavonic Athens." A bridge across the moat
which protects the old city is the link between the present and past. In
new Ragusa you may sit on the crowded esplanade of a fashionable
watering place; but pass through a frowning archway into the old town,
and, save in the main street, which has modern shops and other
up-to-date surroundings, you might be living in the dark ages. For as
far back as in the ninth century Ragusa was the capital of Dalmatia and
an independent republic, and since that period her literary and
commercial triumphs, and the tragedies she has survived in the shape of

sieges, earthquakes, and pestilence, render the records of this
little-known state almost as engrossing as those of ancient Rome.
Until I came here I had pictured a squalid Eastern place, devoid of
ancient or modern interest; most of my fellow-countrymen probably do
likewise, notwithstanding the fact that when London was a small and
obscure town Ragusa was already an important center of commerce and
civilization. The republic was always a peaceful one, and its people
excelled in trade and the fine arts. Thus, as early as the fourteenth
century the Ragusan fleet was the envy of the world; its vessels were
then