98
ROUND ABOUT SPALATO
said to be sweeter than those of any other stream according to Constantine, in his treatise De thematibilS, ev o> eariv vScop 7roTifiov ical ’yXvKxnarov vTrèp iravTa rà vSara, <uç <f>aaiv oi yevcrafMevoi. It
meanders down through lush-green meadows, and trout rise in its deeper pools. The little osteria is set in the midst of fresh green grass under the shade of very stately plane-trees, through whose broad leaves the light comes soft and soothing to the eye, “ converting everything that’s made to a green thought in a green shade At the far end of the village is Archbishop Ugolino Malabranca’s castle, built in 1347, against Klissa, then held by the Serbs. The walls of most of the houses in the village are adorned with fragments of ancient Roman work from the neighbouring city of Salona; many of them rude and uncouth, like the wrestling group on a house opposite the inn. One doubts whether Salona, in spite of its great size and considerable importance, was ever a city from which one could expect fine monuments ot ancient art.
   We enter the ruins by the eastern end of the city near the Bishop’s Castle. So little ha' survived the ruin by the Avars (639) and the ravages of time that it is hard to believe that these