Diocletian's Palace

Diocletian -the only Emperor ever known to have abdicated peacefully. The divider of the Roman Empire into 4. The persecutor of 30,000 Christians. And builder of a vast retirement palace a few miles from his home town in Dalmatia.


We arrived with the first rains of winter, leaving the warmth of the bus onto a gleaming wet promenade backed with a façade of old houses facing towards the sea. A closer look showed it to be a massive stone wall with buildings set into it and between two of them a dark arched portal. This was the Sea gate of the Palace and when it was first built the Adriatic lapped at the wall allowing goods to be shipped into the huge storage halls beneath.
As we walked through the gate we entered a colonnade of massive multi material pillars holding up a vaulted roof many feet above. The whole weight of the palace, and now the town above rests on these. They are a stupendous engineering construction for any age. Their working preservation largely is due to the fact they were buried in sewage and waste that accumulated in the space after the fall of the Empire, poured and tipped in by the new inhabitants and subsequently increasing as the town grew inside.
It took a Herculean effort over 100 years to clear it. Now it bustles with tourist groups following the raised umbrellas of guides, flanked by stalls selling souvenirs and strings of Adriatic coral.
A wide steep flight of steps leads up from this man made cavern to the central courtyard. When Diocletian was in residence he and his wife and daughter lived in the south rooms facing the sea. To the North were the quarters of the servants and guards.


 Like many of us today Diocletion planned his own funeral , although on a rather grander scale than a Co-op option. A huge Mausoleum dominates one side of the square where his sarcophagus rested. Rather ironically it now has a very beautiful bell tower attached and the inside is converted into a Christian cathedral, deliberately so, thus getting even with the man who had caused the death of so many Christians.


It is impossible to describe the complexity and uniqueness of the site from there onwards. It is like a fiendishly folded piece of architectural origami with buildings from every era crammed in, divided by narrow streets, joined by stairs and overhead walkways, blocked by walls and locked doors. We had lunch in a courtyard made of Roman stone, topped with mediaeval upper stories and in one corner an original ornate marble pillar was set into a stucco wall supporting two modern air conditioning units. Bizarre but practical.


It had suffered from bombing in the second world war and one hole has been filled with a 1950’s box unit build next to a byzantine palace. 3000 people still call it home.


I wondered if Diocletian had thought it would last forever and whether its present form would cause him wonder or anger.


Other things that happened today


Swimming in choppy seas before breakfast with a black squirrel scurrying amongst the pines
Running along ghost resort path of closed beach bars
Ist rain of winter with grey lowering clouds all day and wet much of the time.
Drive under the coastal mountains in series of tunnels to take the faster road to Trogir. This is another island fortress.
Lunch Croatian soup – cold white yoghurty
Omis – Pirate port. Mirabel tower shut for winter.

Back to Hotel Romana in dark. – Could still see Brac island quarry where building stone comes from .