From the Daily Star:

Serbia has discovered that 16 Roman emperors of the third and fourth centuries AD were born in what is now Serbia. Now Serbia wants tourists to discover that too.

"Those were the dynamic times preceding the final collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late fifth century," said historian Aleksandar Jovanovic. "Due to specific circumstances, the emperor's throne was not hereditary, but a matter of soldiers' leadership and bravery. In those times, simple but successful military leaders could become emperors.

"However, theirs was a short-lived glory, only a year or two. They were guardians of the borders of the Empire, and died in battles against 'barbarians,' fighting shoulder to shoulder with their soldiers."

These emperors liked to serve at the border towns where they were born, and to make them as glorious as they could, building typical pantheons, theaters and forums.

At its peak, the Roman Empire extended from modern Portugal and Spain in the west to North Africa in the south, across Europe to modern England in the north, and to Romania and Turkey in the east and southeast.

It ceased to exist as a single entity in the late fifth century, when its western part fell to Germanic tribes. The eastern part, in the form of the Byzantine Empire, lasted until 1453 - when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople, modern Istanbul.

One of the most prominent rulers of ancient Rome in the region of the Balkans was Constantine I (272-337 AD), who ended the persecution of Christians in 313 AD and made it a tolerated religion. He was born in Naissus, today's southeastern town of Nis in Serbia.

Modern Serbia wants visitors to step into that past. The first step in "ancient Roman tourism" was taken in Kostolac, 90 kilometers east of Belgrade, when the gates of Viminatium, a former military outpost, were opened to the public in 2006.

The enthusiasm of archaeology professor Miomir Korac, who worked at the site for six years with 40 assistants, paid off. More than 50,000 people visited the site in 2007.

"This is a unique project that can reveal ancient history, and popularise it among both our people and international tourists," Korac said. "It brings together the past and modern times."

Only 4 kilometers from the Danube, Viminatium boasts thermal baths, a water supply system that goes 10 kilometers up into nearby mountains, an amphitheater, and a necropolis.

Today tourist operators pile visitors into replicas of ancient Roman chariots and deliver them to taverns to eat meals made from 1,700-year-old recipes - bread with goat cheese and bay leaves, roasted pork in honey, or sesame dressed meatballs, deep fried in olive oil.

Another attraction is the recently unearthed mausoleum of Emperor Hostilian, who died in the town in 251 AD. It is uncertain whether Hostilian was assassinated, died of the plague or, perhaps, the diet.

... how would you say 'bandwagon' in Latin? Something -carri ...

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Richard Arnopp scripsit:

I was very interested by the reports on your site that an imperial mausoleum had been discovered, so I did some digging.

It seems that whatever the Serbian tourist authorities are claiming, the people in charge of the excavations in Viminacium are too honest to make any link between the structure discovered - undoubtedly a high-status mausoleum - and Hostilian,

See -

http://www.viminacium.org.yu/

and in particular

http://www.viminacium.org.yu/Architecture/Mausoleum/?language=english

and

http://www.viminacium.org.yu/Tourism/index.html?language=english

I assume that if there was any positive reason to connect Hostilian with this monument, the case would have been made on the website. The silence - apart from an embarassed-sounding reference to the "so called imperial mausoleum" strikes me as eloquent.

Respondeo:

It is mentioned in passing on one of the pages at the Viminacium website, but doesn't say what the identification is based on. On the Mausoleum page you mention, they do suggest the bones from the site have been sent for DNK (sic) analysis ... I wonder what the results were/are?