Description : Trieste (Slovene: Trst; German: Triest) is a city and a seaport in northeastern Italy. It is towards the end of a narrow strip of Italian territory lying between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia, approximately 10–15 km (6.2–9.3 mi) south and east of the city. Croatia is some 30 km (19 mi) to the south. Trieste was one of the oldest parts of the Habsburg Monarchy, belonging to it from 1382 until 1918. In the 19th century the monarchy was one of the Great Powers of Europe and Trieste was its most important seaport. As a prosperous seaport in the Mediterranean region, Trieste became the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (after Vienna, Budapest, and Prague). In the fin de siècle period at the end of the 19th century it emerged as an important hub for literature and music. Trieste underwent an economic revival during the 1930s, and the Free Territory of Trieste became a major site of the struggle between the Eastern and Western blocs after the Second World War. Since the second millennium BC, the location was an inhabited site. Originally an Illyrian settlement, the Veneti entered the region in the 10th–9th c. BC and seem to have given the town its name, Tergeste, since terg* is a Venetic word meaning market (q.v. Oderzo whose ancient name was Opitergium). Still later, the town was captured by the Carni, a tribe of the Eastern Alps, before becoming part of the Roman republic in 177 BC during the Second Istrian War. After being attacked from the interior in 52 BC, from then until 46 BC it was granted the status of Roman colony under Julius Caesar, who recorded its name as Tergeste in Commentarii de Bello Gallico (51 BC), his work which recounts events of the Gallic Wars. In imperial times the border of Roman Italy moved from the Timavo river to Formione (today Risano). Roman Tergeste flourished due to its position on the road from Aquileia, the main Roman city in the area, to Istria, and as a port, some ruins of which are still visible. Emperor Augustus built a line of walls around the city in 33–32 BC, while Trajan built a theatre in the 2nd century. At the same time, the citizens of the town were enrolled in the tribe Pupinia. In 27 BC, Trieste was incorporated in Regio X of Augustan Italia. In the early Christian era Trieste continued to flourish. Between AD 138 and 161, its territory was enlarged and nearby Carni and Catali were granted Roman citizenship by the Roman Senate and Emperor Antoninus Pius at the pleading of a leading Tergestine citizen, the quaestor urbanus, Fabius Severus. Already at the time of the Roman Empire there was a fishing village called Vallicula ("small valley") in the Barcola area. Remains of richly decorated Roman villas, including wellness facilities, piers and extensive gardens suggest that Barcola was already a place for relaxation and refinement among the Romans because of its favorable microclimate, as it was located directly on the sea and protected from the Bora. At that time, as Pliny the Elder mentioned, the vines of the wine Pulcino ("Vinum Pucinum" - today probably "Prosecco") were grown on the slopes.
See on map »