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Hidden gemHub · 1stop1st c. BC – 5th c. ADFree

Iader – Zadar

Iadera, Colonia Iulia Iader

city · Zadar County, Croatia

What it is
Zadar grew from the Liburnian settlement of Iader into a Roman colony under Julius Caesar, and the old town on the peninsula took its urban structure in Roman times.
What you’ll see
The one stop with its own page is the Roman Forum, an open square of Roman paving, foundations and carved blocks beside the church of St Donatus.
Worth the trip?
Zadar is well worth visiting, but not mainly for its Roman remains. Come for the old town and stop at the forum on the way; do not expect standing Roman buildings.
Getting there & cost
The old town is on a peninsula and the forum is at its heart; everything is on foot. A paid car park is mapped about 80 m from the forum (OpenStreetMap).FreeHours, tickets and parking
An aerial view of a narrow peninsula packed with red-roofed old town buildings, edged by a seafront promenade with a pier, with a large open square visible among the roofs.
The old town of Zadar on its peninsula, the site of Roman Iader. · Photo: dronepicr · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
An aerial view of an old town square with a round domed church and a tall bell tower, the open area of the Roman forum beside it, a park and car park in the foreground and the sea behind.
The forum quarter from the air, with the round church of St Donatus. · Photo: dronepicr · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Walking route

HIader1
Schematic, generated at build time from each stop's coordinates; no streets are drawn. Some positions are approximate, so the route is a guide, not a path. Open on the interactive map →

Walk it in this order

About 0 m and 1 minutes on foot from the centre of Iader, plus time at the stop.

  1. 1
    Roman Forum in Zadar

    city

    Free

Walking times are estimates: the straight-line distance × 1.3 for streets, at 80 m a minute.

The stops

  1. A sunken rectangle of rough ground with low stone wall lines and round column bases, edged by pale paving, in front of a modern stone museum building marked "Arheološki muzej".

    Photo: Carole Raddato · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Commons

    Stop 1 · city · Zadar County

    Roman Forum in Zadar

    The remains are at ground level: stretches of paving and wall footings, bases of columns and carved blocks, set out in an open square between St Donatus and the Archaeological Museum (the photographs; en.wikipedia).

Zadar grew from the Liburnian settlement of Iader into a Roman colony under Julius Caesar, and the old town on the peninsula took its urban structure in Roman times. Most of its Roman stone went into the later fortifications, so what you see today is concentrated in one place: the forum.

What is there today

The one stop with its own page is the Roman Forum, an open square of Roman paving, foundations and carved blocks beside the church of St Donatus. Beyond it, Roman Iader shows in the grid of the old town’s streets and in fragments: two squares have tall marble columns, a Roman tower stands on the eastern side of the town, the Sea Gate (Porta Marina) incorporates part of a Roman arch, and remains of the aqueduct can be seen outside the ramparts (en.wikipedia). The Archaeological Museum Zadar stands on the forum.

Is it worth the trip?

Zadar is well worth visiting, but not mainly for its Roman remains. Come for the old town and stop at the forum on the way; do not expect standing Roman buildings.

Getting there

The old town is on a peninsula and the forum is at its heart; everything is on foot. A paid car park is mapped about 80 m from the forum (OpenStreetMap).

Visiting details

Tickets
Free
Parking
A paid car park about 80 m from the forum (OSM way/135569284, fee=yes).
On foot
At the parking

History

Iader was a settlement of the Liburnians, a seafaring Illyrian people, from the 9th century BC. It became a Roman municipium in 59 BC, when Illyricum was assigned to Julius Caesar, and in 48 BC Caesar rewarded its support in the civil war by making it a colony, Colonia Iulia Iader, where veterans were settled (en.wikipedia; Pleiades). The town was fortified under Caesar and Augustus and laid out with a regular street grid, a forum, baths and a 40 km aqueduct from Lake Vrana (en.wikipedia; hr.wikipedia). It had a bishop by the end of the 3rd century, and after 476 it became the capital of Byzantine Dalmatia (en.wikipedia).

Nearby

  • A corner of massive city wall built of long courses of squared limestone blocks, standing several metres high, with lower stone foundations and a rubble path in front of it.

    Photo: Carole Raddato · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Commons

    37 km · city · Zadar County

    Asseria

    Long stretches of the city wall survive, in courses of massive squared blocks, with corner towers; English Wikipedia says the ashlar walls predate the Roman occupation, while German Wikipedia says the monumental late antique walls largely replaced the earlier Roman and Liburnian defences.

Straight-line distances.

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from the records below, each used under the licence noted.

SourceLicence
Pleiades 197312CC BY
Wikipedia (en) — ZadarCC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (hr) — JaderaCC BY-SA 4.0