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About Butrint | Early Butrint | Roman Rule | Byzantine Rule
Battle for Butrint | Threats to Butrint | Bibliography
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Courtesy of The Butrint Foundation
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Butrint under Roman Rule
By 168 B.C.E., the Romans had established effective control over the valuable port of Butrint. The Romans ruled the region for over six centuries by establishing numerous military camps and colonies along the coast, which served as supply bases for military campaigns in the Balkans. They advanced their commercial and military interests by constructing roads, including the Via Egnatia, the military highway and trade route that led from the coast through Macedonia and Byzantium.
The Romans, having established a colony at Butrint, also built a major aqueduct in the first century B.C.E. to bring fresh water from the springs six kilometers away into the city to feed the newly constructed bath-houses and to meet growing public and domestic needs. The aqueduct crossed the Vivari Channel to the south of the city and prevented the passage of sea-going vessels between Lake Butrint and the sea. As a result, archaeologists believe, Butrint's harbor must have moved to the seaward side of the city.
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Courtesy of The Butrint Foundation
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The position of Butrint's harbor significantly influenced the development of the city. Butrint was first settled for its ideal position on the coast. Yet, over the course of 3,000 years, the sea inlet silted up with alluvial materials brought down by the two rivers that fed into the area, so that Butrint now sits 2 kilometers inland. As the delta built up, a marsh developed and the coastline gradually retreated, leaving the lake of Butrint isolated.
By the time Julius Caesar arrived in Butrint in 44 B. C. E., the city's only connection to the Straits of Corfu was through the Vivari Channel. Strabo, a geographer and historian well respected by the Romans, described Butrint as a muddy and marshy harbor.4 The marshlands and the consequential flooding forced Butrint's inhabitants to relocate from the center of the city to the hills. Finally, in the fourteenth century, the population abandoned Butrint entirely.
Despite the initial development of marshlands, Butrint's trade thrived under Roman rule. Culture and art also flourished in Butrint, and throughout the coastal region. To celebrate the culture of the city, the Romans added a scene-building to the edge of the theater's orchestra and expanded the seating arrangement.
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Courtesy of The Butrint Foundation
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In the process of piecing together the history of this theater, archaeologists have made a particularly fascinating discovery. Excavations of the theater uncovered an impressive collection of statues from the front of the stage. The discovery of these fine statues so near to their original places was very unusual. When buildings such as theaters were abandoned, the statues and fine marbles in them were usually stripped and reused in another location, or turned into lime. Because these statues were found so near to their original site, archaeologists believe that the theater might have been destroyed by a dramatic event, most likely a third-century earthquake, which may have buried the statues under the rubble until their excavation in the twentieth century.
While natural events, such as flooding and earthquakes, may have negatively impacted the development of Butrint, the city continued to entice empires vying for control of the Straits of Corfu for centuries to come.
4Ceka, Neritan. Butrint: A Guide to the City and its Monuments. (London: The Butrint Foundation, 1999): 16.
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About Butrint | Early Butrint | Roman Rule | Byzantine Rule
Battle for Butrint | Threats to Butrint | Bibliography
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