Naissus Civic Center and City Baths
About
A 22-hectare walled civic quarter with a forum, temple, basilica and a 775 square meter city bath was uncovered in 1987-88 campaigns, but Naissus only reached municipium status under Marcus Aurelius or later, decades after this map's 117 CE moment. At the snapshot date Naissus was still a road station without this civic architecture. Its later fame as Constantine's birthplace belongs to this post-117 town, not the site as it stood in 117.
What happened here
Business starts at first light. The magistrates' tribunal opens, cases are called, and the crowd that gathers to listen is half the point of coming. Money-changers work from tables under the porticoes, weighing coin from a dozen mints against the local rate. Notices are painted on the walls and whitewashed over when they go stale: elections, gladiator shows, a lost slave, a house to let. By the sixth hour the heat empties the open square and the arcades fill instead. Statues of the town's benefactors stand between the columns, and the men who paid for them expect to be greeted by name. Public slaves sweep at dusk. The forum is where a Roman town keeps its records, its gossip and its self-regard in the same place.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →