Serbinum, also known as Servitium or Servicium, was an ancient

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

city in the province of Pannonia. It was situated in the location of present-day Gradiška in northern

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...

Sources

*In Ptolemy’s Geography from the 2nd century, there is mention of (and it is also indicated on a map) a place named Serbinon or Serbinum (This place was located under mountains Biblia ore or Biblini montes or Beby m. which are actually

Kozara Kozara ( sr-cyrl, Козара) is a mountain in western Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the town of Kozarac and in the Bosanska Krajina region, bounded by the Sava River to the north, the Vrbas to the east, the Sana to the south, and the Una to the ...

and

Grmeč Grmeč ( sr-cyrl, Грмеч) is a mountain in north-western Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is more than 60 kilometres long, stretching between the city of Bihać and the town of Ključ. The highest peak of Grmeč is ''Crni vrh'' ("Black Peak") ...

, according to Hungarian scientists).History of Gradiška
/ref> *In the book Itinerarium Antonini from the 2nd and 3rd centuries, this name is written as Servitium. *In a map known as Tabula Peutingeriana from the 4th century, this name is written as Seruitio. *In the book Notitia Dignitatum from about 400 AD, this name is written as Servitii. *In the book Anonymi Ravennatis Cosmographia from the 7th and 8th centuries, this name is written as Serbitium. All mentioned forms of the name (including Serbinon, Serbinum, Servitium, Seruitio, Servitii, and Serbitium) refer to a single place, which is identified as present-day Gradiška. The settlement is primarily believed to have been located on the right bank of the river

Savus The Sava (; , ; sr-cyr, Сава, hu, Száva) is a river in Central and Southeast Europe, a right-bank and the longest tributary of the Danube. It flows through Slovenia, Croatia and along its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and finally t ...

, but there was also a corresponding settlement on the left bank, near today's

Stara Gradiška Stara Gradiška (, german: Altgradisch) is a village and a municipality in Slavonia, in the Brod-Posavina County of Croatia. It is located on the left bank of the river Sava, across from Gradiška in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Etymology The first w ...

that some modern-day local sources also identify as Servitium.

History

In Roman times, the Municipium Servicium was an important crossroad between the east and the south of the Balkans, i.e. a port for the Roman river fleet, which speaks for itself about the strategic importance of the settlement at the time. The city could possibly be named after

Serboi __NOTOC__ The Serboi ( grc, Σέρβοι, Sérboi) was a tribe mentioned in Greco-Roman geography as living in the North Caucasus, believed by scholars to have been Sarmatian. Etymology Moszyński derived the name from Indo-European ''*ser-'', '' ...

, ancient

Sarmatian The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th cen ...

tribe, which perhaps inhabited the Pannonian Plain together with

Iazyges The Iazyges (), singular Ἰάζυξ. were an ancient Sarmatian tribe that traveled westward in BC from Central Asia to the steppes of modern Ukraine. In BC, they moved into modern-day Hungary and Serbia near the Dacian steppe between th ...

.Aleksandar M. Petrovic, ''Александар М. Петровић, Кратка археографија Срба'' (Short Archeography of Serbs), Novi Sad, 1994, page 8

References

External links

Map of ancient Pannonia from a 19th-century atlas of the Roman world
{{coord, 45, 08, 45, N, 17, 15, 14, E, region:BA, display=title Roman towns and cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina Illyricum (Roman province) Pannonia Inferior Populated places in Pannonia