THE ANCIENT CITY OF EMONA.

Emona flourished from the 1st to the 5th CE. It was first a Roman military encampment on the territory of the present Ljublj'Ana, capital of Slovenia, around the year 50BC, and later (14CE) a permanent settlement called Iulia Aemona, built on the site of an old settlement where the navigable Ljublj'Anica River came closest to Castle Hill. The Roman occupation of the area is linked to the conquest of the Balkans by Augustus.
The Roman Empire at its height, in the 2nd CE comprised 60 million inhabitants living in an area covering 5 million sq km: from Hadrian's Wall in Northern England to the Euphrates River in Syria, from the Rhine-Danube River routes that linked Central Europe with the Black Sea to the North Africa coast and Egypt. During the Emona period, the area of modern-day Slovenia was incorporated into the Roman territory.
Emona's administrative territory stretched from Trojane along the Karawnaks (Southern Limestone Alps) mountains toward the North, near Vinsja Gora to the East, along the Kolpa River (natural border between North West Croatia and South East Slovenia) and bordered to the West with the territory of Aquileia at the village of Bevke.
As a result of archaeological research conducted in the centre of Ljublj'Ana, a great deal of information about the pre-Roman, ancient settlement was found. The beginnings of the ancient settlement can be traced back to the proto-urban settlement under the Castle Hill, in the area of modern-day district of Prule, which emerged in the 10th BC. The builders carefully planned their settlement. A proper grid of streets was adapted to the terrain and the streets were laid with gravel. Along them were lined wooden buildings, each with one or more rooms. The buildings were renovated and reconstructed several times, yet nevertheless the basic plan of the settlement did not change significantly. The cemetery for the inhabitants of this settlement lay on the other side of the Ljublj"Anica River. The settlement below the castle enjoyed renewed vigor from the 3rd BC on. In the 1st BC the inhabitants traded intensively with the Romans, and the Ljublj'Anica River played an important part as a transport and trade route. It linked the Northern Adriatic and the Danube region. The mass of findings from the bottom of the Ljubljanica that can be dated to the middle Stone Age and later, indicate that the site was also an important cult area  that had associations with the pre-Roman deities of Laburus and Aequorna.
Emona's geographical position meant it played an important part in the Roman's military defense system. As a strategic stronghold, it also played an important role in numerous wars.
Augustus and Tiberius ordered the fortification of the city with strong walls and the construction of large public buildings. The city's ground plan was laid out in a rectangle 430m x 540m, with a central square or forum and a system of rectangular intersecting streets, between which were sites for buildings. Under the streets, running West-East flowed the cloaca, a major drainage channel that carried waste water into the Ljublj'Anica River. The city was enclosed by walls, which were 6 to 8 meters high and 2.5 meters thick, and defended with 29 towers, which were built every 60 meters along the walls. And in places also by one or two ditches filled with water. Some areas beyond the walls were also settled; the potters' quarter behind the Northern wall is well known. Along the Northern, Western, and Eastern thorough-fares into the city-from the directions of Celeia, Aquileia and Neviodunum -cemeteries were established according to Roman custom. In the 1960, Northern cemetery in particular was thoroughly researched.
The city of Emona was settled by colonists from Northern Italy, mainly from the Po River Valley. The population of 5,000 to 6,000 people, were mostly farmers, land owners, merchants and craftsmen, including a number of government officials and war veterans. The city's streets were paved. The houses were brick built, centrally heated and connected to the public sewage system. Their walls were plastered and painted in different colors, and their floors covered in mosaics. Emona became an important centre of power and priviledge, culture and knowledge, with a flourishing trade. The setting displayed the power and magnificence of the Roman Empire to its subjects.
The city had its own goddess, Equrna, worshipped at the Ljublj'Ana Marshes.
From the late 4th to the late 6th CE, Emona was the seat of a bishopric. The intensive contacts pursued by early Christians community of Emona with the ecclesiastical circle of Milan are reflected in the architecture of early Christian complex along Erjavceva Street and in two preserved letters from Hiero-Nymus to the nuns of Emona and the monk Anthony. In the late Roman period, the image of the city gradually changed: some entrance ways through the walls were filled in, while the cleaning and maintenance of the cloaca and city ditches were neglected. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the only new constructions were ecclesiastical. Secular architecture and infrastructure declined in its importance. In cities throughout the empire, bishops were no longer just Church dignitaries, but were taking on administrative functions. The Roman Empire gradually fell apart.
In the winter of 408-9CE Visigoths camped by Emona. In 452CE Emona was torn down by the Huns led by Attila. In 568 CE the Langobards passed through on their way to Italy, and then came incursions by the Avars and Slavs.  The ancient cemetery in Dravlje indicates that the local inhabitants and invaders were able to live peacefully side by side for several decades. After the first half of the 6th century, there was no life left in Emona. Then Slovenians' Slav forefathers arrived in the territory of the present Ljublj'Ana at the end of the 6th CE and started building a settlement under the secure shelter of the present Castle Hill. The settlement gradually turned into a medieval town.
The early Slavs are the least documented group among the so called "barbarian" enemies of Rome so there is no scholarly consensus regarding their origin. Authors who wrote about them do not agree with the Slav's ancient background. In addition to these discrepancies, we must bear in mind that most of the accounts are filled with with the bias of the Romans, who saw all barbarian peoples as primitive, violent and uncivilized. Based on archaeological evidence, the Proto-Slavic people were an active and diverse group of tribal societies by 1500 BC within an area that stretched roughly from Western Poland to the Dnieper River in Belarus. Ancient Romans and Greek historical sources refer to them as "Veneti" in the 1st and 2nd CE and later in the 5th and 6th CE as Sporoi, Antes and Sclaveni.
In 1000 CE the first feudal lordship was formed with Ljublj'Ana as its center, by the local Breze-Seliski family. At the beginning of 12th CE, Ljublj'Ana, together with Carniola, came under the ownership of the Carinthian Dukes of Span'Heim. The city was walled with the first town hall, complete with a fountain, standing in the middle. It had only one bridge, the Butchers' Bridge. In the 13CE the city developed rapidly and became the capital of the province of Carniola. Three separately-walled suburbs, all of which still exist today, emerged: Stari trg, predominantly a suburb of craftsmen; Mestni trg which housed the secular and church governments; and Novi trg home to the nobility. In 1335 Ljublj'Ana, with the rest of Carniola, came under direct Haps'Burg rule, where it remained (with the exception of the Illyrian provinces) until the end of the World War I. The haps'Bugs granted Ljublj'Ana as many as 39 very important trade and other privileges, which attracted merchants and craftsmen from all over Europe to the city. Germans, Italians, the Spanish, and even the English and Swedes moved to the city and a Jewish quarter emerged next to Novi trg. In 1461CE a diocese was established and St Nicholas' Church became a cathedral. In 1511, after an earthquake, the city took on a Renaissance appearance.
Brick houses replaced wooden ones and the city was again walled in to protect it from Turkish siege.
When the Reformation arrived (Protestant period) the city had again a population of 5,000, of which
70% spoke Slovene. Ljublj'Ana developed again into an important trade centre and a centre of various forms of cultural creativity: from sculptors' and painters' workshops to a school of music.
Ljublj"Ana made significant spiritual progress and became the centre of Slovene Reformation.