Doclea, the Roman ruins on Podgorica's doorstep

I have a soft spot for Roman sites that never make the top-ten lists, and Doclea is one of them. It sits on the edge of Podgorica, on an open plateau where three rivers meet, and what you walk among are low walls, column bases and blocks of stone in the grass. It isn’t Pompeii, and nobody should sell it to you as such. But it was a proper city with temples, baths and a governor’s palace, and it gave its name to the first medieval state in what is now Montenegro.

A Roman town where three rivers meet

The Tourist Organisation of Podgorica places the remains four kilometres from the centre, on a broad plateau between the Morača, the Zeta and the Širijana, and dates the oldest of them to the first decade of the 1st century AD. The National Tourism Organisation talks about three kilometres and the meeting point of the Zeta and the Morača, and adds the story that the emperor Diocletian was born here. I’d file that under legend, a nice one, with nothing to back it up.

The same national body sketches the town you have to picture over the ruins. A prosperous market with good infrastructure, temples, baths, a triumphal arch put up to celebrate military victories, and a palace for the Roman governors. Walk the site with that list in your head and the scattered stones start to make sense.

Christians, a basilica and a famous glass cup

From the 4th century a Christian quarter grew up on the eastern side of the city, with churches and a large episcopal basilica. The cemeteries have produced pottery and glass vessels, jewellery, tools, weapons and coins, and some of that material forms part of the permanent display at the City Museum in Podgorica. The object that made Doclea famous, though, is the Podgorica Cup, a 4th-century glass vessel engraved with scenes from the Old and New Testaments, which the National Tourism Organisation calls a masterpiece of early Christian art. You’ll have to go to the Hermitage in St Petersburg to see it.

Digging started at the end of the 19th century and, the tourist board says, has carried on ever since. That’s one reason the site looks a little different from one visit to the next.

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Water from the Cijevna

Roman Doclea needed water, and it came from the east. The Tuzi tourist board describes an aqueduct that linked the Cijevna river with the city, with remains of the channel cut into solid rock still visible near the villages of Dinoša and Omerbožaj, a little over a metre high. If you’re heading out to the river and its waterfalls in Tuzi, it’s worth knowing that the same water once supplied these baths.

From Doclea to Duklja

The name has travelled further than the stones. Duklja is the local form of Doclea, and the National Tourism Organisation explains that in the late 10th century, under Prince Vladimir, the state of Duklja took shape, was renamed Zeta in the 11th century and became a kingdom under the Vojislavljević dynasty. If that thread interests you, pick it up in the history of Montenegro.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Doclea and pick one that fits your day.

Planning a visit

Doclea fits neatly into a morning on the outskirts of Podgorica. Neither the opening hours nor an entry fee appear on any official site, so I leave both blank rather than guess. What I can say is that the plateau has no shade and the valley gets very hot, with a July average of 30.9 °C in Podgorica in 2024 according to MONSTAT. Take water, closed shoes and go early or late.

To round off a day of Roman and medieval sites, I’d carry on north-east to Medun, the Illyrian town of Meteon about 12 km from the capital, or head back into the centre to see what’s left of the Ottoman town in Podgorica old town.

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