{"id":7519,"date":"2021-06-16T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T19:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roamintheempire.com\/?p=7519"},"modified":"2021-08-31T11:13:16","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T18:13:16","slug":"tergeste-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roamintheempire.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/16\/tergeste-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Tergeste, Histria – Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Theater<\/a>
Theater of Tergeste.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Located on the Gulf of Trieste (the Sinus Tergestinus in antiquity) at the start of the Istrian peninsula, was the ancient city of Tergeste, or Tergestum. Today, the remains of Tergeste are located among the modern city of Trieste, which like its predecessor, now shares a name with the adjacent gulf. The origins of the pre-Roman settlement at Tergeste were a matter of some debate among the ancient authors. Both Strabo and Pliny the Elder attributed the settlement as being Istrian, while Ptolemy claimed the original inhabitants as being the Carni, who may have been either Gallic or a branch of the Veneti. The name too seems as though it may be Venetic in origin, adding some additional weight to that identification. Pomponius Mela, meanwhile, seems to believe that Tergeste was the point to which the Illyrian territory stopped and the Gallic and Italic territory began, though it is unclear to whom he allotted the actual settlement. As such, it is subsequently unclear whether Tergeste was politically part of Venetia or Istria, though they were combined into a single region under the Augustan reorganization of Italy.<\/p>\n

\"Arco<\/a>
Arco di Riccardo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Further clouding the issue of origins, Tergeste doesn\u2019t distinctly appear in the historical record until about 51 BCE, when it is noted as having been attacked by neighboring Illyrian Iapydes people, who had been a foederatus<\/em> of Rome but had begun a rebellion that year. By this time, though, Tergeste was already a Roman settlement, likely having been conquered around 177 BCE with the rest of the region. A colony was established in the middle of the 1st<\/sup> century BCE, either by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE or perhaps under the second triumvirate following the Battle of Philippi in 42 BCE. A decade later under Octavian in 32 BCE, the city\u2019s was given robust defensive walls and administration over the recently conquered Iapydes.<\/p>\n

Though an important port city on the Adriatic, Tergeste was overshadowed in terms of profile by Aquileia on the opposite side of the Sinus Tergestinus. The construction of the Via Flavia, which connected Tergeste with the rest of Dalmatia, helped to increase the commercial prospects of the city. By the reign of Trajan, Tergeste seems to have reached the peak of its prosperity. Though not explicitly mentioned, it likely began to suffer in the later stages of the empire from the barbarian incursions and passed into the territory of Odacer following the fall of the Western Roman Empire.<\/p>\n