Mogorjelo
Encyclopedia
Roman villa
A Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...
that dates from the early fourth century. It is situated on a hill off the Neretva
Neretva
Neretva is the largest river of the eastern part of the Adriatic basin. It has been harnessed and controlled to a large extent by four HE power-plants with large dams and their storage lakes, but it is still recognized for its natural beauty, diversity of its landscape and visual...
branch, 5 km south of Čapljina
Capljina
Čapljina is a town and municipality of the same name in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located in the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Čapljina is located on the border with Croatia a mere from the Adriatic Sea....
, alongside the road to Gabela
Gabela
Gabela is a town in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina, 5 kilometres south of Čapljina and 4 kilometers from Metković, in Croatia. It is situated in the navigable lower course of the Neretva, off the major road linking the coast with the mountainous hinterland...
in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
.
History
Ancient Italic peoples
Ancient people of Italy are all those people that lived in Italy before the Roman domination.Not all of these various people are linguistically or ethnically closely related...
settler had a private manor complex built for agricultural purposes on the Mogorjelo site in the mid first century CE. He located the building designed for processing agricultural produce (villa rustica fructuaria) on a salient on the hill (the ground plan of the villa lies near the north or main gate of the walls of later date), and the residential building (villa rustica habitatoria) on the south slope exposed to the sun. This building burned down in the third century. In the early fourth century, a state-owned estate was constructed over the ruins, with a villa which now forms the major feature of the complex. During the third century the property probably changed hands to become state-owned. The villa at Mogorjelo supplied the town of Narone, the ruins of which lie in the village of Vido
Vido
Vido is an island of the Ionian Islands group of Greece.It is a small island at the mouth of Corfu city port.- History :...
near Metković
Metkovic
Metković is a city in the Dubrovnik-Neretva county of Croatia, located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the river Neretva and on the border with Herzegovina.-Demographics:...
. The estate was destroyed in a major fire. The latest coins discovered on this site, in a layer of soot, were minted by Honorius
Honorius (emperor)
Honorius , was Western Roman Emperor from 395 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of the eastern emperor Arcadius....
in 388, so that it may be assumed that Mogorjelo fell into enemy hands some time between 401 and 403 with the Visigoth
Visigoth
The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, the Ostrogoths being the other. These tribes were among the Germans who spread through the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period...
invasion of these parts. Life continued in these new circumstances. In the mid fifth century, two basilicas were erected within the ruined perimeter walls in the north-eastern corner of the former villa, first one to the north and immediately thereafter the one to the south. To judge from various conversion works within the buildings, it appears that they were converted to residential use. Some items of Carolingian
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...
provenance, dating from the ninth century, have been found in the round tower and adjacent premises. Burials took place all over the site and its surroundings from the period of construction of late antique churches to the nineteenth century.