B. ŽUPANEK: Late Roman Emona: Understanding the transformation of the city 26 Bernarda Županek Late Roman Emona: Understanding the transformation of the city* * The article is based on the paper presented at the international symposium on the 1600th anniversary of Jerome’s death, Hieronymus noster, Ljubljana, October 24th–26th, 2019. Bernarda Županek, PhD, Museum Advi- ser, Department of Antiquity, Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Gos- poska 15, bernarda.zupanek@mgml.si Late Roman Emona: Understanding the transformation of the city The archaeological remains of the Roman colony of Emona from the 4th and early 5th centuries point to a period of prosperity in the 4th century, a time of renewed infrastructure and new building development in several lo- cations across the city, reinforcements to the city’s defence system, and in the second half of the 4th century there was also considerable investment in Christian buildings. At the same time, secular monuments and, in some cases, infrastructure such as the city moat and the cloacae were often abandoned or neglected. These changes were closely linked to a range of factors, an important one being the rise of Christianity. With the ongoing Christianisation of Emona, a diocese from the 4th century, the character of urban life was gradually transfor- med, as well as city’s appearance. Key words: Roman Emona, urbanism, Late Antiquity, Early Christianity, transformation of urban space Bernarda Županek, dr., muzejska svetnica, Kustodiat za antiko, Muzej in galerije mesta Ljubljane, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Gosposka 15, bernarda.zupanek@mgml.si Poznorimska Emona: razumevanje tran- sformacije mesta Arheološke ostaline rimske kolonije Emone iz 4. in zgodnjega 5. stoletja opozarjajo na obdobje razcveta v 4. stoletju, na obdobje obnavljanja infrastrukture in razvoja gradnje na razli čnih lokacijah v mestu, utrjevanja mestnega obramb- nega sistema, v drugi polovici 4. stoletja pa je prišlo tudi do ve čjih investicij v krš čanske zgradbe. Hkrati so bili posvetni spomeniki in infrastruktura, npr. mestni jarek in kloake, pogosto zapuš čeni in zanemarjeni. Te spremembe so bile tesno povezane z vrsto dejavnikov, eden od pomembnih je bil vzpon krš čanstva. S pokristjanjenjem Emone, škofi je iz 4. stoletja, se je postopoma spremenil zna čaj življenja v mestu in njegov izgled. Ključne besede: rimska Emona, urbanizem, pozna antika, zgodnje krš čanstvo, sprememba mestnega prostora. Early Roman Emona: Form and function The construction of the Roman city of Emona was completed by the middle of the second decade of the 1 st century AD, 1 which was roughly the time when the Roman city, with all its physical and ideological connotations, was becoming the normative form of social, political and administrative organisation in the Roman Empire. As a newly built, fully fl edged Roman city, Emona took on the typical form of the time: a rectangular layout enclosed by walls with towers, four main gates and several side gates (Fig. 1). The forum, covering an area of six insulae, had a special place in the rectangular grid of intersecting streets and the buildings between them. On one of the shorter sides of the forum stood the temple; on the other, sunnier side stood – in accordance with the principles of Vitruvius 2 – the basilica. Both longer sides were lined by colonnades housing shops and offi ces. The curia was probably to the north of the apse of the basilica. 3 The Roman Empire may be seen as a network of cities: relatively autonomous administrative units together with their surrounding territories, all of them closely connected with the city of Rome (Fig. 2). Since the city was key to the administration of the empire, it is often seen mainly as an administrative and fi scal tool; however, this was no longer the case from the Augustan period at the latest – which roughly coincides with the beginnings of Roman Emona. At that time, urbanisation and state (or political) architecture started to receive strong legal and fi nancial support and encouragement. 4 From then on, the Roman city was a crucial systematic element in Roman imperialism. 5 The Roman city’s ideological charge was not only manifested in its layout and architecture, but also – perhaps even mainly – in its urban lifestyle. The Roman concept of urbanism was not just about living in a city, but the right way of living in a city: political involvement and responsibility, communal religious events and public spectacles, erection and maintenance of public monuments and buildings testifying to the wealth of the community and demonstrating loyalty to the 1 Slapšak, Unravelling the townscape, 36; for a discussion about when Emona became a colony, see Šašel Kos, Colonia Iulia Emona, 87–92. 2 Vitruvius, The Ten Books of Architecture (https://www.gutenberg.org/fi les/20239/20239- h/20239-h.htm, accessed on 22.2.2020) 3 Plesni čar Gec, Emonski forum, 42. 4 Häussler, Architecture, Performance and Ritual, 11. 5 Whittaker, Imperialism and culture: the Roman initiative, 143–163; Häussler, Archi- tecture, Performance and Ritual, 1–13; Revell, Roman Imperialism and local identities. Zgodovinski časopis | 75 | 2021 | 1-2 | (163) | 26–41 27 B. ŽUPANEK: Late Roman Emona: Understanding the transformation of the city 28 Figure 1: Emona beneath the present-day Ljubljana: the city’ s rectangular layout with the forum and insulae. Drawing: Janja Gojkovi č/MGML. Figure 2: Emona on the Tabula Peutingeriana, marked by a white circle; Rome is on the far right. This and other itineraria show a dense network of cities of various sizes, connected by well-main- tained, fast roads that provided an effi cient means of communication across the vast empire. https:// sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana#/media/Slika:TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg, 21.1.2020 Zgodovinski časopis | 75 | 2021 | 1-2 | (163) 29 empire. 6 Establishing the proper Roman way of life in the city was not just a question of getting the architecture – the shape and ornamentation of public spaces – right: it was also down to the inhabitants, the colonists. Approximately 30 families, mostly from northern Italy, settled in Emona. They brought with them their culture and habitus: their lifestyle, values, dispositions, expectations and experiences of everyday life. 7 In a sense, then, we can say that a Roman city such as Emona functioned as an ideological, political and administrative machine to romanise its inhabitants, communicate the empire’s ideological principles, and speak of romanitas. In ad- ministrative, political and ideological terms, the empire was driven by a multitude of such machines, a whole network of cities and their surrounding territories. A tough city: through thick and thin Emona was a relatively small city with some 3,000 inhabitants. The comple- tion of the colony was soon followed by additional investment in the water supply and municipal infrastructure. The central sewage system, consisting of a network of sewers and, in some parts of the city, a water supply system supplemented by numerous water wells, 8 was constructed in about the middle of the 1 st century AD – and there had been sporadic attempts even before that. The city fl ourished in the 1 st and 2 nd centuries, which were a time of peace and prosperity across the empire. In the 3 rd century, however, the empire was hit by a series of crises, the result of barbarian incursions, economic hardships and various other factors. Emona was particularly affected in the late 2 nd and 3 rd centuries. This key period is usually as- sociated with the Marcomannic Wars, during which Emona became the centre of the military-administrative region of Praetentura Italia et Alpium; as well as with a decades-long plague epidemic that broke out during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and general economic decline. 9 Emonan cemeteries show a decline in the number of the city’s inhabitants in this period, which can be attributed to these factors. 10 A partial reconstruction of Emona took place as early as the 3 rd century. 11 The 4 th century was again a time of prosperity for Emona, bringing with it the recon- struction of some of the infrastructure as well as new building development in a number of parts of the city. 12 The number of burials in Emona’s cemeteries increased. 6 Županek, Emona: a city of the empire, 54–59. 7 Bourdieu, Outline of a theory of practice. 8 Gaspari, Water in Roman Emona, 112–114, 139–144, 170–171. 9 Kos, The monetary circulation in the Southeastern Alpine region. 10 The low number of graves that can be reliably dated to the 3 rd century is partly due to dating methods. The 2 nd century saw a considerable decline in the number of terra sigillata placed in graves; until then, these had provided a solid and relatively precise basis for dating. As regards grave goods, Loeschcke X-type oil lamps became much more common, but these are more diffi cult to date; metal objects and coins were rare. Graves from the 4 th century were again easier to date, as they often include coins and/or glass vessels which provide good chronological support. 11 Gaspari, Prehistoric and Roman Emona, 220–223. 12 Cf. the next chapter and Plesni čar Gec, Emonski forum, 54. B. ŽUPANEK: Late Roman Emona: Understanding the transformation of the city 30 Based on the archaeological record, life in Emona came to an end in the 5 th century, probably sometime in the middle of the century as a result of the catastro- phic Hun invasion of 452. 13 However, there are some indications that life in Emona continued into the late 5 th century; Ljudmila Plesni čar Gec even argues that life in the city continued into the early 6 th century. 14 Late Roman Emona: Christianising the urban landscape As mentioned above, the 4 th century was a time of resurgence for Emona. But the Emona of the late 4 th century differs considerably from that of the Early Roman period. In the 4 th and 5 th centuries maintenance work on parts of the city infrastructure ceased. In the second half of the 4 th century, parts of the sewage network were left uncleaned, resulting in some cloacae becoming almost completely blocked. 15 In the 5 th century the city ditches were no longer cleared. 16 However, more recent exca- vations show that sediments in some parts of the sewage system were still being removed more or less regularly in the 4 th century. The city’s water supply system presumably functioned until at least the late 4 th or early 5 th century. 17 Parts of Early Roman funerary monuments were used in the repair of the cloacae 18 , suggesting that parts of the city’s cemeteries had been abandoned and/or that attitudes to Early Roman graves had changed by that time. In the city’s southern section, part of the defensive ditch that had been fi lled in in the 1 st century was dug out again in the 4 th century, 19 probably for security reasons. In the Late Roman period, parts of the city walls were reinforced and some side gates walled up. 20 As the city walls became increasingly important for defensive and military purposes, so their symbolic signifi cance declined. New public buildings of that time were a mix of secular and early Christian. The most notable public building is a large public baths complex situated in Insulae XIII, XVII, XXVII and LXVI and dated to the 4 th and early 5 th centuries. 21 Belonging to this complex was a public latrine discovered nearby, in the north-east corner of Insula XVII, dated to the late 4 th or early 5 th century. 22 The early 4 th centur y saw the renovation of the forum: the ceiling of the colonnade was painted and Insula 13 Plesni čar Gec, Emonski forum, 54. 14 Cf. the next chapter and Plesni čar Gec, Emonski forum, 69. 15 Plesni čar Gec, Urbanizem Emone, 36. 16 Plesni čar Gec, Emona in Late Antiquity, 407. 17 Gaspari, Water in Roman Emona, 162, 115. 18 Plesni čar Gec, Urbanizem Emone, 42. 19 Matej Draksler, Luka Gruškovnjak, Andrej Gaspari, Tina Žerjal, Mojca Fras, Arheološke raziskave v Križankah v Ljubljani, Prvo strokovno poro čilo o raziskavi 18-0257, (Ljubljana: MGML, ARKLJ, September 2019): 7, 66, 74. 20 Plesni čar Gec, Urbanizem Emone, 51, 58. 21 Plesni čar Gec, Emona in Late Antiquity, 403–404. 22 Snoj, Anti čni pisoar iz Emone, 555. Zgodovinski časopis | 75 | 2021 | 1-2 | (163) 31 Figure 3: The fl oor mosaic in Insula XIII at the time of its discovery. Photo: Aleš Ogorelec/MGML. B. ŽUPANEK: Late Roman Emona: Understanding the transformation of the city 32 XXI was turned into public baths. 23 Some private homes were lavishly renovated too, accommodating a high standard of living. 24 Among the fi rst new early Christian buildings in the city were two assembly halls (aula primitiva): a smaller one in Insula XIII, built in the late 4th century, 25 and a larger one in Insula XXXII, erected in the second half of the 4 th century. 26 The fl oors of both were covered with multi-coloured mosaics featuring early Chri- stian ornamentation (Figs. 3 and 4), and both mosaics were made by the mosaic workshop that was active in Emona at the end of the 4 th century. 27 In Insula XIII, to the south of the aula primitiva, 15 transparent glass tesserae containing a thin layer of gold foil between two layers of glass were found, along with a number of other tesserae, some colourless, some blue and some green. 28 These once formed part of a wall or ceiling mosaic. Figure 4: Reconstruction of the fl oor mosaic in Insula XXXII. Draughtsman unknown, photo: Srečo Habič/MGML. Soon afterwards, in the late 4 th or early 5 th century, a large and lavish early Christian complex was built in one section of Insula XXXII. 29 The complex in- cluded a baptistery, complete with a baptismal pool and a mosaic fl oor featuring the names of the donors along with the amounts they had contributed (Fig. 5). It 23 Plesni čar Gec, Emonski forum, 68. 24 Gaspari, Prehistoric and Roman Emona, 230–234. 25 Djuri ć, The Emona XIII.8 mosaic from the Late Roman period, 92. 26 Plesni čar Gec, Starokrš čanski center v Emoni, 16–18. 27 Djuri ć, The Emona XIII.8 mosaic from the Late Roman period, 92. 28 The tesserae are kept at the City Museum of Ljubljana under inventory numbers 510:LJU;0061003 and 510:LJU;0043752 and accession numbers S0014137, S0014155, S0014160, S0014161, S0014168, S0024176, S0024177, S0024178, S0024228, S0024230 and S0024231. 29 The complex as a whole is referred to as the “Early Christian Centre” in the Slovenian archaeological literature. Zgodovinski časopis | 75 | 2021 | 1-2 | (163) 33 probably also included the bishop’s residence and at least one church. 30 That there was a church here is evidenced by the architectural remains and by the fact that the baptistery could not have existed without a church in the vicinity. Figure 5: The baptismal pool and the mosaic featuring the names of donors in the baptistery of the Early Christian Centre. Photo: Andrej Peunik/MGML. Two other locations housing early Christian activities were discovered in the course of earlier excavations. The fi rst was Insula XII, which yielded part of a bronze candlestick and three oil lamps, 31 all decorated with a Christogram and dated to the 4 th century. The second, in Insula XXX, features a large hall, also dating to the 4 th century. 32 The most recent major excavations carried out in what is believed to be the early Christian section of the large northern necropolis of Emona have yielded 350 graves, believed to be early Christian, including a large number of sarcophagi, all clearly arranged around the central grave in line with the burial practice known as ad sanctos. 33 Over time, further sacral structures were added, both above the central grave and around it: modest at fi rst, but becoming more luxurious later. These were the major changes in the urban fabric of Emona in the 4 th and early 5 th centuries. One further change might have been the demolition of the forum 30 Plesni čar Gec, Starokrš čanski center v Emoni, 21–23. 31 Klemenc, Krš čanstvo v Emoni, 356–358. 32 Klemenc, Krš čanstvo v Emoni, 358–359. 33 Gaspari, Hvalec, Masaryk, Urankar, Stehlikova, Bekljanov Zidanšek, Žerjal, Bre či č, Verbi č, Leskovar, Kolar, Babi č, Plohl, Prvo strokovno poro čilo o predhodni arheološki raziskavi, 79–80. B. ŽUPANEK: Late Roman Emona: Understanding the transformation of the city 34 temple. This could have happened at about the same time, given that one of the slabs that had previously adorned it was discovered in the water well in Insula XIII. 34 We must also mention a couple of other discoveries dating to the 5 th or possibly 6 th century. One of these is the rotunda erected on the southern edge of what had been the forum prior to its demolition in the Hun invasion of 452. 35 The rotunda dates to the second half of the 5 th and the 6 th century. 36 This large round structure had a diameter of 13.5 metres and walls 1.4 metres thick, two marble capitals of which have been preserved. It was probably used for early Christian rituals, a theory supported by the discovery of a small pool to the north of it. 37 Three fragments of glass lamps were also discovered, all from hanging oil lamps, or polycandela, and dating to the same period: the second half of the 5 th or perhaps the 6 th century. 38 Two of the fragments were discovered in Insula XXXI, and one in Insula XXXII. Insula XXXII was the site of the Early Christian Centre discussed above, but no early Christian remains have been found in Insula XXXI. 34 Plesni čar Gec, Emonski forum, 67. 35 Plesni čar Gec, Emona in Late Antiquity, 405. 36 Plesni čar Gec, Emonski forum, 69. 37 Plesni čar Gec, Emonski forum, 59. 38 Milavec, A glass lamp with base knob from Emona, 101. Figure 6: Oil lamp featuring a Christogram, discovered in 1961 during excavations in Insula XXX. Photo: Matevž Paternoster/MGML Zgodovinski časopis | 75 | 2021 | 1-2 | (163) 35 Understanding the transformation of the city in the Late Roman era How did the transformation of Emona occur? How did an Early Roman city in the classical style and with regularly maintained infrastructure evolve into a Late Roman city with a very different appearance and – as will be argued below – function, poorly maintained infrastructure and several new and lavishly decorated early Christian buildings? It was all the result of a long process that was typical of a number of cities in the western part of the empire during the Late Roman period. The complex causes underlying this urban transformation have been widely discussed and cannot be summarised in a couple of sentences. It is worth noting, however, that the Late Roman Emona was a city in an increasingly fragmented and unstable empire; its surrounding territory therefore became part of the Claustra Alpium Iuliarum, a defensive system designed to prevent invasions and other threats from the east. Other factors include a strong Christian community, as evidenced by architectural remains and two letters written by St Jerome. Judging by some well documented cases from the western part of the empire, the fact that Emona held the status of diocese from the 380s to the end of the 6 th century 39 might imply that the bishop was increasingly assuming certain secular functions, thereby becoming an infl uential and authoritative fi gure in the city. After the legalisation of Christianity, the social life of the city became incre- asingly desecularised, with the focus of investment shifting from public buildings (though these did not disappear altogether, as can be seen from the major baths and the renovation of the forum) to early Christian ones. A change in attitude to- wards public buildings and city infrastructure was also signifi cant, as refl ected in the fact that the city sewers and ditches gradually fell into neglect and the forum temple was demolished. The Church was slowly becoming a focal point for the accumulation of wealth. The bishops and their assistants started investing in new buildings, as we can see from the name of Archdeacon Antiochus inscribed on the portico of the Early Christian Centre 40 (Figure 7). The role previously played by secular monumental structures was now taken over by ecclesiastical buildings promoting the Christian way of life and new ideas and values. It should be noted that the transformation in Emona’s appearance went hand in hand with changes to the way of life in the city. The Roman city was not only a residential space, physical structure and administrative unit but, as suggested above, a place with a strong symbolic and ideological charge, where people lived in the proper – that is to say, the Roman – manner. When it came to attesting to and reaffi rming the romanitas of the city, the practices of everyday life were at least as important as the city’s appearance. In Early Roman Emona, Roman-ness was refl ected and reinforced in the rhythm of everyday life: in the offerings to the gods, the meetings of the city council, attendance at various games or ludi, the Roman manner of dining and so on. 39 The last mention of a bishop of Emona dates to the late 6 th century, by which time he probably resided somewhere outside Emona. Bratož, Bischofssitze und Kirchenorganisation in Slowenien, 187–188. 40 Šašel, Napisi v mozai čnih tleh, 53. B. ŽUPANEK: Late Roman Emona: Understanding the transformation of the city 36 Figure 7: The inscription to Archdeacon Antiochus in the portico of the Early Christian Centre. Photo: Matevž Paternoster/MGML. Zgodovinski časopis | 75 | 2021 | 1-2 | (163) 37 By contrast, in Late Roman Emona the focus was on Christian rituals and events: processions, holy masses, christenings, Christian funerary rituals, and the distribution of food. The Church organised almsgiving and care for the poor. We can hypothesise that a monastery was founded 41 ,and that a recently discovered grave of a woman who clearly held a special position in Emona’s early Christian community might have been a place of pilgrimage. 42 The spaces and buildings required for the activities of early Christians were promptly built; structures that were no longer required were either rearranged or fell into disuse. Parts of funerary monuments in the classical style were now used as building material for new structures. 43 In short, attitudes to secular public buildings changed profoundly. The focus of public life gradually expanded from the central forum to other city spaces; while some parts of the city prospered, others fell into decline. An in- teresting insight can be gained by analysing Emona using space syntax tools. The construction of the forum (which was not completed until the 2 nd or even early 3 rd century) 44 seems not to have had a positive impact on the functioning of the city: in spatial terms, the forum closed the city off and, as a result, its function as a com- munication and meeting place was paradoxically diminished. 45 The completion of the forum was certainly one of the factors that reversed the city’s fortunes, leading to the fragmentation of public spaces and playing a part in the city’s decline in the 2 nd and 3 rd centuries. 46 It is possible that this occurred in synergy with the rise of Christianity, though this was probably coincidental, if so. The rise of Christianity in Emona coincided with and perhaps even enhanced a period of prosperity in the 4 th century. It certainly had a profound infl uence on the urban development of the city. Space syntax tools have shown that the forum acted as a barrier to communi- cation, thereby giving rise to small secondary squares; and in fact, we know that the new Christian buildings were initially spread across the city, not appearing in the forum area until the second half of the 5 th century. In short, changes in the everyday lives and activities of Emonans gradually changed the city too, not only in terms of its appearance but also in its function, as it adapted to meet changing needs. We should stress that this process was both gradual and partial, as illustrated by the following example. In 376/377, when St Jerome wrote his letters to the virgines of Emona and to Antony the Monk, there must have been a strong early Christian community in the city. Members of this community were already burying their dead in the Christian section of Emona’s northern cemetery 47 , and were probably also performing their rituals in the structure 41 Bratož, Meništvo v rimskih provincah, 111. 42 Gaspari, Hvalec, Masaryk, Urankar, Stehlikova, Bekljanov Zidanšek, Žerjal, Bre či č, Verbi č, Leskovar, Kolar, Babi č, Plohl, Prvo strokovno poro čilo o predhodni arheološki raziskavi, 79–80. 43 Plesni čar Gec, Urbanizem Emone, 36–42. 44 Plesni čar Gec, Emonski forum, 47. 45 Mlekuž, Županek, Mesto kot stroj: analiza prostorske skladnje Emone, 104–107. 46 Mlekuž, Županek, Mesto kot stroj: analiza prostorske skladnje Emone, 107–108. 47 Gaspari, Hvalec, Masaryk, Urankar, Stehlikova, Bekljanov Zidanšek, Žerjal, Bre či č, V erbi č, Leskovar, Kolar, Babi č, Plohl, Prvo strokovno poro čilo o predhodni arheološki raziskavi, 80. B. ŽUPANEK: Late Roman Emona: Understanding the transformation of the city 38 built over the oldest grave in that section. The two assembly halls (aula primitiva) must have already been completed. Yet twelve years later, when Emperor Theo- dosius visited Emona in 388, the orator Latinus Pacatus Drepanius referred to two groups of priests, both pagan, in his welcoming address. 48 Moreover, in the second half of the 4 th century a signifi cant part of the northern cemetery was still being used for pagan burials using the Romani ritu, and these would continue until the middle of the 5 th century. 49 Conclusion Gradual Christianisation went hand in hand with changes to the social life of the city. Roman Emona was both a product of Roman society and a space where one part of that society lived and changed. Christianisation of the people occurred alongside the Christianisation of the space. The urban way of life and the urban landscape of Emona began to change in the 4 th century, just like the society that inhabited it. In this paper we have sought to show that the Christianisation of Emona was a slow and complex process that occurred at the same time as, and in conjunction with, other processes driving change in the cities of the western empire in the Late Roman period. It is therefore all the more relevant to ask what was happening in Emona in the long and dynamic 5 th century and – given the discovery of the rotunda and other fi nds – perhaps also in the 6 th , albeit to a smaller degree. The fall of the Ro- man Empire – and with it, Emona – was a slow and gradual process. From today’s perspective it seems inevitable, but in reality it was very complex, and periods of decline were often interspersed with periods of at least some growth. Such questions could be answered to some extent by an examination of the “dark earth” of the city. Dark earth deposits do not necessarily imply abandonment, either in Emona or in other cities where they have been documented; rather, given their dating, they point to changes in the use of urban spaces: new activities such as land cultivation or waste disposal (including human and/or animal remains). References Literature Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Bratož, Rajko. “Bischofssitze und Kirchenorganisation in Slowenien.” In Neue Ergebnisse zum frühen Kirchenbau im Alpenraum, edited by Karl Strobel and Heimo Dolenz, 173–196. Römisches Österreich 39, 2016. 48 Nixon, Saylor Rodgers, In praise of later Roman emperors, 504. 49 Cf. Miškec, Županek, Karo, Tica, Severno emonsko grobiš če – raziskave na najdiš ču Kozolec. 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Za vzpostavitev pravilnega rimskega življenja v mestu namre č ni bila dovolj prava arhitektura, oblika in okras prostorov, ampak ljudje s politi čno udeležbo in odgovornostjo, ki so skrbeli za skupne religiozne dogodke in javne spektakle, postavljali in vzdrževali javne spomenike in zgradbe, ki so pri čali o bogastvu skupnosti in lojalnosti imperiju, in drugo. Oboje, ustrezno arhitekturo in pravilen na čin življenja v mestu je zgodnjerimska Emona imela. V poznorimskem času pa se je emonski mestni prostor spremenil. Arheološka odkritja kažejo, da je bilo četrto stoletje za kolonijo Emono čas blagostanja, ki je prinesel prenovo dela infrastrukture in novogradnje v razli čnih delih mesta. Deli mestnega obzidja so bili v poznorimskem času oja čani, v drugi polovici 4. stoletja so bile izvedene številne investicije v zgodnjekrš čanske objekte, z gradnjo dveh molilnic, vsaj ene cerkve s krstilnico, sakralnim objektom na zgodnjekrš čanskem odseku severnega mestnega pokopališ ča in kasneje rotunde na forumu. Hkrati so bili nekateri deli infrastrukture, na primer deli kloak in obrambnih jarkov, pogosto slabo ali sploh ne vzdrževani. Vzroki za naštete spremembe mestne podobe so številni in kompleksni. Poznorimska Emona je bila mesto v vedno bolj razdrobljenem in nestabilnem imperiju, in zaradi vpadov ter groženj z vzhoda je njeno širše obmo čje postalo del vzhodnoalpskih zapor. Med drugimi, na tem mestu bolj izpostavljenimi dejavniki za spremembo, so dokazi za mo čno emonsko krš čansko skupnost, kar je pomenilo, med drugim, druga čen na čin življenja v mestu. Trdimo, da je transformacija videza Emone šla z roko v roki s spremembo v na činu življenja v mestu. Rimsko mesto ni bilo zgolj prostor za bivanje, zgolj fi zi čna struktura ali administrativna enota, ampak, kot smo že poudarili, simboli čno in ideološko nabit prostor, kjer je življenje teklo na pravi, rimski na čin. Ne samo podoba mesta, tudi – ali pa celo predvsem prakse vsakdanjega življenja v njem so izpri čevale in potrjevale romanitas mesta in njegovih prebivalcev. V zgodnje- Zgodovinski časopis | 75 | 2021 | 1-2 | (163) 41 rimski Emoni se je rimskost odslikavala in oja čevala v ritmu vsakdanjega življenja, v daritvah bogovom, sre čevanjih mestnega seta, obisku ludi, rimskemu na činu ve čerjanja itd. Poznorimska Emona je bila prostor za udeležbo pri krš čanskih obredih in dogodkih, kot so bile procesije, maše, krš čevanja, specifi čni obredi pokopavanja. V mestu so hitro zrasli za zgodnjekrš čanske aktivnosti nujno potrebni prostori in zgradbe, tiste ne ve č nujno potrebne pa so bile preuporabljene ali zanemarjene. Kot viri gradbenega materiala so služili tudi deli neko č po klasi čnem zgledu urejenih nagrobnih spomenikov. Odnos do sekularnih javnih zgradb se je spremenil. Spremenjene prakse vsakdanjega življenja, druga čne aktivnosti prebivalcev mesta so Emono po časi spremenile. Spremenile so ne zgolj njen videz, ampak tudi njene funkcije, pa č v skladu s potrebami. Pokristjanjenje ljudi je teklo hkrati s pokristjanjenjem prostora. Skratka, na čin urbanega življenja in urbana pokrajina Emone sta se v 4. stoletju spremenili, enako kot družba, ki je živela v njej.