Historical profile of Fiume

Author: Gianpaolo Dabbeni

Fiume, located on the north-east bank of the Carnaro, occupies the place of the Roman Tarsatica and, precisely because of its fortunate position as a natural outlet to the sea of ​​Eastern Europe, has always been much contested. Its origins are lost in the mists of time; it was inhabited by various populations, including the Illyrian warriors, later dominated by the Celts, who descended to conquer Gaul and who retained the character of dominant warriors without ever dealing with agriculture or other servile work; and the bold Liburnians in Roman times who with their fast biremes, the “saevae liburnae “ of Horace dominated the entire Adriatic Sea. After the conquest of the Carnaro by Julius Caesar and the constitution of the Illyrian province which includes Illyrium, Dalmatia, Liburnia, Giapidia and Istria, the Roman colony of Tarsatica arose, perhaps from an ancient and Celtic Tarsach. It was a quiet provincial town inhabited both by Romanized natives and by men who had come from other parts of the empire; and where Greek merchants arrived to exchange their goods for amber from the north. At the death of Theodosius in 395 and the consequent division of the Roman Empire, Liburnia passed to the diocese of Italy of the Western Empire and then to the Italian kingdom, at the time of Theodoric. The information that has come down to us on the history of Tarsatica, both in the most ancient period and in the imperial period and in that of the barbarian invasions, is vague; its belonging to the Roman Empire, as a municipality and no longer a military station, can be deduced from the two tombstones that commemorate the "duumviri iure dicundo" Vettidius and Vettidiano; furthermore, since the Slavs who came from the inland areas occupied all the regions from Istria to Dalmatia, with the exception of the coastal cities and the islands defended by the Byzantines, it is assumed that also with regard to Tarsatica, the invaders stopped on the surrounding mountains, allowing the city to maintain its institutions and its character as a Roman municipality. It was mentioned in medieval chronicles until the time of Charlemagne, then after 800 its name no longer appears; perhaps it was destroyed in a fire by the Franks to avenge the death of Henry of Strasbourg, Duke of Friuli, or perhaps following a rebellion against Frankish rule; then in the late Middle Ages the nucleus of Flumen Sancti Viti arose on its ruins, which in the 1028th century, probably in 1291, passed under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Pola and in the XNUMXth century became a fief of the Counts of Duino, vassals first of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, then vassals of the Dukes of Austria. Submission to the powerful house of Duino earned it prosperity on the one hand, and the enmity of the Venetian Senate on the other, which in XNUMX forbade the export of goods to Fiume.

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