Days of Diocletian officially opened in Split on May 17, 2019, and will last until September 27, 2019.
The Days of Diocletian pilot project, which proved successful last year, will continue this year through the end of September, reports Splitski Dnevnik on May 17, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v=xHVP7s3p5uk
This year’s event started precisely at noon with a festive children’s program at Peristyle. Recall, the goal of the event is to revitalize history and enrich the antique content throughout the summer.
“Under the leadership of HNK Split, Emperor Diocletian will come to Perityle, where the ‘Changing of the Guard’ ceremony will be held, and as part of the program, we can expect the address of Emperor Diocletian, the Roman legion and numerous other surprises,” announced the Split Tourist Board
“As part of this event, we will see the traditional ‘Changing of the Guard’, a project under the leadership of HNK, as well as Roman Legions at the live museum. We are taking the good experiences from last year and are using them for the events throughout the summer,” added the director of the Split Tourist Board.
Head of the Roman Guard, Ivan Vatavuk, added that the ‘Changing of the Guard’ ceremony is expected every Friday at noon, and young actors of the Split Theater will play in the roles of Diocletian and Prisca. Vatavuk continued by saying that the Roman legion has walked through Peristyle for the last 14 years, but while they wore plastic armor in the beginning, they now carry 10-17 kilograms of heavy weight to give the tourists a real look into the past.
“This year, through the entire tourist season, we intend to introduce tourists to the Praetorians and the Legion, and with the help of scenery from HNK, we tried to isolate the 21st century from the Peristyle completely. We have created a total of four projects this year, and the first of them is the greeting and speech of Emperor Diocletian, to be held every Friday in Peristyle, with the formation of the legion and the gladiator fight. Another program called “Dare to Know” will be conducted by two actors Ivan Baranović and Marjan Nejašmić Banić, who will walk around the city and begin an interactive and educational relationship with tourists. The goal is to see how much tourists know about Split. We’ll call tourists in the alleyways, let them know about the history of the city. Everything will be recorded and used as promotional material for the Tourist Board,” Vatavuk said.
The third project is the Roman march, which was also launched as a pilot project last year, during which Diocletian walks Split by night.
“Then you see the Emperor stop in a crowd of 20 people drinking a glass of wine, and everyone stops, and then they want photos and it’s an interactive experience.”
The last project is a memorial to the Imperial Split, which will allow tourists to take photos with the Emperor, Empress, and the entire guard on Fridays and post the images on social networks with the hashtags #visitsplit, #croatiafulloflife, to further promote the city.
Diocletian’s legacy will also be displayed through the living museum project at the Cornaro rampart where every first Friday of the month, visitors can see the Roman legion formation, gladiator fights, and be able to shoot bows and arrows and try on the legionary equipment, said Lovre Ćakić, secretary of Association of Diocletian’s Legion.
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