We were unprepared for the sheer scale of Diocletian’s Palace. We were also rather shocked by how popular it was this late in the year. But even the palace was dwarfed by a massive cruise ship a few meters away, one of the last of the season; tourists flowed through the cheesy curio booth area, along the waterfront, up through the palace, and into the old city within the palace. We dodged off to the side with the more studious tourists to get a feeling for one of the most impressive Roman ruins in existence.

Diocletian was born in Spalatum (Split), Dalmatia, in 245 CE, became emperor in 284, abdicated (!) in 305, and died seven years after that. He rose from poverty, through the military ranks, to become the Eastern Emperor of the tetrarchy, achieving victories and peace on all sides.

Toward the rising Christian threat he was a bit of a softie at first. While wintering in 302 at Nicomedia, a Roman capital not far east of modern-day Istanbul on the Anatolian Peninsula, he tried to argue that the gods would be content if he just kept Christians out of military and bureaucratic positions. However, the oracle of Apollo at Didyma vaguely suggested that “impious” Christians were the root of all evil, and this was enough to convince him to issue an Edict against Christians, with persecutions including pouring salt and vinegar into wounds, beheadings, slow boilings and the like. The mayhem didn’t end up convincing Christian clergy that paganism was superior, however, and the whole thing ended up a failure. Indeed, Constantine himself was the next in line in the East.

Diocletian gave up trying to rule the corrupt and cynical imperial citizens and retired to his palace for a few declining years. He had started its gargantuan, fort-like construction around 295; after he died, the palace remained in his family before becoming the basis for the walled town of Split. Eventually, the existence of the lower level, the Cellars, where Diocletian himself had lived, passed beyond memory, even as the outer walls and upper interior structures were lauded as some of the best-preserved Roman relics in existence and became a principal inspiration for Neoclassical architecture.

For over a thousand years, the underparts of the Palace were used to store refuse from the town, until the 20th century, when, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, the packed and hardened garbage sediments were painstakingly (and partially) removed to reveal parts of a hidden world.

Given Diocletian’s predilections, the presence of dragons in the Games of Throne site of Meereen seems appropriate; they certainly would have had enough space to crawl about without getting stuck. Indeed, the sheer scale of the Cellars, levels below the old town itself, puts to shame most ancient monuments in the world. It’s one thing to see the old amphitheaters and aqueducts that are scattered liberally across Europe, but another to walk through a dwelling built by someone (nicknamed Jovius) who, genuinely believing in the gods of Olympus, might very well have conceived himself as godlike. The cold bulk of it all was quite overwhelming to us mere mortals; one could easily comprehend how people who lived in palaces like these left a legacy that echoed through the many pretenders to New Romes (or Romanovs) of East and West, Holy and not-so-holy Roman Empires, all the way to the pretenses of Pax Americana.

Up top, we were tempted to hang around, but with a long drive ahead, we opted against paying the entry fees that would get us sucked into hours more of exploration.

Instead, we continued southeastward through the hills on an excellent road until we finally dropped down into the delta of the Neretva River, Croatia’s so-called Golden Valley, with a California-like climate perfect for the region’s famous mandarins and tangerines. Its miles of canals, some originating as long ago as the 1600s, were particularly scenic from an overlook on the far side.

A few miles further on, I was expecting to have to leave the European Union to go through Bosnia’s tiny Adriatic connector at the town of Neum—and then back again into the EU, perhaps to endure a second lengthy vehicle search. To my surprise, we were instead routed over the brand-spanking-new and once-controversial Pelješac Bridge to Croatia’s Pelješac Peninsula. The project was combatted by environmentalists and also by Bosnia due to its potential to block seagoing vessels into Neum, a potential violation of the law of the sea. Confusingly, while the Federation opposed it, the Republika Srpska supported it. The bridge was completed in 2023, and we were definitely not complaining.

Traversing Ragusa

With every mile closer to Dubrovnik (“oak grove” in Slavic), the historical capital of the maritime Republic of Ragusa, the mountains closed in even further and we enjoyed a sublime sunset. The landscape, sere mountain slopes plunging Big Sur-like into the sea, now looked exactly like my mental picture of the Balkans, which I realized was largely a construct of Game of Thrones. But we still had quite the treat in store, miles to go before we slept at Cavtat on the far side of Dubrovnik.

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