or ASSISIA, a town of Liburnia (Ptolemy, Antonine), now in ruins, but exhibiting many monuments of antiquity. It is the Asseria or Asseria of Pliny. This author, after having specified the Liburnian cities that were obliged to attend the congress or diet of Scardona, adds to the catalogue the free Asserians, immunesque Asseriates; and this people, who created their own magistrates, and were governed by their own municipal laws, were no doubt more rich and powerful than their neighbours.

The vestiges of the walls of Asseria that still remain, are a sufficient proof of this; for their circumference is clearly distinguishable above ground, and measures 3600 Roman feet. The space enclosed by them forms an oblong polygon, and they are built with common Dalmatian marble; but not taken from the hill on which they stand, for that furnishes only soft stone. The walls are invested, both inside and out, with this marble: some of the stones are ten feet long, and they are all of considerable dimensions. The thickness of these fortifications is commonly about eight feet; but at the narrowest extremity, which falls towards the foot of the hill, they are eleven feet thick; and, in some parts, their height still above ground reaches to near 30 feet. An antiquary, or even a simple lover of the fine arts, or of erudition, the abbe Fortis observes, cannot help wishing at Podgraje (the modern name of Asseria). Asseria), that some powerful hand quicquid sub terra est in apertum profert: and such a wish becomes stronger when he reflects, that since the destruction of that city no search has ever been made under ground, with a view to discover any thing curious; and yet these walls without doubt enclose a valuable deposite of antiquities, thrown down in heaps, who knows by what cause; perhaps naturally, by an earthquake, or perhaps by a sudden inundation of barbarians, which is still worse. The gate now demolished, the considerable height of the walls to be seen in several places from without, some pieces of thick walls that still appear levelled to the ground among the bushes, are circumstances which give ground to hope that many costly monuments might be recovered out of these ruins. The magnificence of the remaining wall, and the many pieces of well-cut stone and fine marbles scattered over the contiguous fields, afford sufficient proof that both good taste and grandeur once flourished in that country. In the midst of the rubbish which covers the remains of Asseria, the parish church of the little village stands insulated; it is built of broken pieces of ancient ruins, taken as they happened to be nearest, mixed with mutilated inscriptions and fragments of noble cornices.