Pula [antikvár]

Pula lies deep within a bay on the southwestern coast of the Istrian Peninsula. The bay, situated along the northern reaches of the Adriatic Coast, is actually a sunken Carso valley marked by promontories on the southern and northern sides extending far into the sea. The first to mention the toponom of Pola (Polai in the plural) in the third century B. C. were the Alexandrine writers Kallimahos and Likofron who referred to the Colchians as the founders of a new settlement called "Polai - the town of exiles" somewhere along the deep bay on the eastern shores of the Adriatic sea then inhabited by Illyrians. Illyrian Pola - the very name Pola being of preRoman origin (meaning either town or source of drinking water) grew in the shadow of Nesactium, the principal political and religious center of Illyrian Istria, and as such was invaded by Román legions in 178 and 177 who violently interruipted the independent development of the Illyrians of Istria. The first century of Román rule brought no esisential change to Pula. The process of intensive colonization and Romanization, and the transformation of Pula into an important commercial town and military port, was launched in the second half of the first century B. C. and terminated after approximately a hundred years, About 40 B. C. Pula was accorded the status of a Román colony the agricultural hinterland of which extended from the Lim Canal to the Rasa River. The earliest ancient settlement in the Pula area must have originally been a fortified military stronghold at the top of Kastel which, judging from present-day remnants on the northeastern side of the hill, were protected by defensive walls. Parallel with the military stronghold at the top of the hill, grew the crafts, trading and fishing quarters of the settlement along the narrow beit of