UPDATE: Unfortunately, the Roman Wall at Porto Romano is no longer accessible to the public (February 2022)
Today I visited Porto Romano to see the
remains of a Late Roman wall, about 7km north of the city of Durrës. It’s easy
to find – you just continue along Rruga Aleksander Goga and eventually you will
see it on your left, just before you get to the ‘RomanoPort’ complex.
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| Wonderful stretch of opus mixtum |
Driving out from the city, you have the
uplands on your left (to the west) and a very flat plain to your right. This
c.10 km peninsula, with modern Durrës at the southern tip, and Porto Romano at
the north, was within the environs of the ancient Greek polis of Dyrrachium. That’s
quite an impressive size for an ancient city!
The terrain has changed greatly since
ancient times. The flat land to the northeast of the city of Durrës is now
farmland punctuated by small irrigation canals but is actually reclaimed
marshland, the drainage having been carried out in the Communist era.
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| The RomanoPort Complex |
It is likely that the area of high ground was
once an island that was joined to the mainland only by a sandbar, or may have
been completely detached. Ancient texts describe Epidamnus as a city on a
peninsula named Dyrrachium, and Thucydides says it is on an isthmus. Over time
the landscape has changed, due to a variety of factors, including rising
sea-levels, seismic shifts and human activity and now even the marshland,
formerly sea, is arable land..
A visit to Porto Romano today reveals a handsome
stretch of Late Roman wall that is some 6o metres long. The purpose of the wall
appears to have been to enclose the spit of land which was bordered by the sea
to the west and the marshes to the east, and therefore protect the city from
attack from the north. The wall was first
recorded by French archaeologist Leon Heuzey in 1861. Heuzey thought that it
was similar to the walls within the city centre of Durrës and therefore built
at the same time. Austro-Hungarian archaeologists Kamilo Prashniker and Arnold
Shober included the wall in their survey of 1816. They considered the wall to
be part of the fortifications of the city carried out by local Emperor Anastasius
I (r. 491 to 518). There is not yet a general consensus on the date of the
wall: some scholars place it in the 4th century AD, while others
date it to the reign of Justinian I (r. 527 to 565), who according to Procopius
of Caesarea refortified Durres.
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| Lovely bricks! |
Though only a 60m stretch of the wall
remains, it is still impressive and well worth a visit. The wall is constructed
of that good old Roman staple, opus
mixtum, with fairly large well-made bricks and various rubble and stone
layers. Some of the natural boulders used are of a considerable size. When the
wall was cleaned in 2017 the letter Φ could be seen stamped on some of the bricks, but when I visited
today (March 2019) the wall was quite overgrown and I couldn’t see any stamps. The wall is about 1.75m in width.
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| The gateway |
A square tower (5.95 × 6.15m) is preserved
along the section of wall, but unfortunately this has been converted into a
type of bunker (a bunker also abuts a further section, and there are others in
close proximity to the wall). It is still possible, however, to make out that
the tower had an upper story, and the top of a fine brick arch is still
visible. Further along from the tower towards the sea it is possible to discern
where there was a gateway.
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| The gateway is visible just behind the right of the bunker |
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| Square tower with 'bunker' inserted |
The site is not fenced off and there is plenty
of space to park nearby.
Further Reading
Gutteridge A., Hoti A., Hurst H. R., The walled town of Dyrrachium (Durres):
settlement and dynamics Journal of Roman Archaeology, January 2001
14:390-410
Davis, J. L., et al. Archaeological Survey in the Territory of Epidamnus/ Dyrrachium in
Albania Hesperia 72 (2003) 41 – 119
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