Emona, Legacy of a Roman City
Emergence of Emona
The Roman occupation of the wider Ljubljana area is linked to the conquest of the Balkans by Augustus. Archaeological investigation in Ljubljana in 2008 yielded the traces of two military camps in the area where the navigable Ljubljanica River came closest to the castle hill, below which ran the main road link towards the Balkans. Behind the first camp two defensive ditches were excavated, and west of the ditches a defensive embankment. The soldiers lived in tents. At the beginning of the 1st century CE, on the left bank the walls of this camp were levelled with the ground and the ditches filled in, and then a large part of this area was developed with wooden huts to house the soldiers who built Emona.
In the first decade of the 1st century, in the area of what is now Ljubljana, along the left bank of the Ljubljanica River, the Romans established their colony of Julia Emona. From the inscription stone discovered nearly a century ago, we know that Emona already stood in the second half of the year 14 or beginning of the year 15, and that within it the emperors Augustus and Tiberius ordered the construction of a large public building, perhaps as envisaged by the reconstruction in the writing of Jaroslav Šašel, a walled fortification with towers. The city was settled by colonists from northern Italy. We know the names of around 30 families that settled in Emona; of these 13 were from northern Italy, mainly from the Po River valley.
As a result of archaeological research conducted in the centre of Ljubljana, in recent years we have found out a great deal about the pre-Roman, ancient settlement of Ljubljana. The beginnings of Ljubljana can be traced back to the proto-urban settlement under the Castle Hill, in the area of the modern-day district of Prule, which emerged in the 10th century BCE. The builders carefully planned their settlement. A proper grid of streets was adapted to the terrain and the streets were laid with gravel. Along them were lined wooden buildings, each with one or more rooms. The buildings were renovated and reconstructed several times, yet nevertheless the basic plan of the settlement did not change significantly. The cemetery for the inhabitants of this settlement lay on the other side of the Ljubljanica.
The settlement below the castle hill enjoyed renewed vigour from the 3rd century BCE on. In the 1st century BCE the ancient inhabitants traded intensively with the Romans, and the Ljubljanica River played an important part as a transport route. Later, when the colony of Emona was already established, the settled area below the castle hill existed as a suburb of Emona.
