How the fairies built the Arena
In ancient times, Istria was populated by fairies. They would dance by night in
the meadows and forest glades, sometimes they would reveal themselves to
ordinary people, but they never did anyone any harm. The fairies of Istrian
legend can bestow luck on a person, and they are also often builders.
The
stories tell that the fairies built the Arena in Pula. They carried stones all
night from the Učka mountains, lay them round and round in a circle and so row
by row their city, Divić-grad, came into being. But since fairies are creatures
of the night, they could only build until the first cock crowed.
Then the fairies would have to interrupt their work and flee so that people
would not see them. Their Divić-grad remained unfinished and that is why the
Arena is today without a roof. All over Istria, from Učka to the sea, huge
stones remained scattered, the stones that the fairies had been carrying to
build into the Arena before they were foiled by the cock's crow. The fairies had
to drop the stones on the spot where they were at that moment.
The construction of the Pula Arena, on the foundations of an older
amphitheatre from the time of Caesar Augustus, was actually ordered by Caesar
Vespasian in the second half of the first century. Vespasian's Arena was
dedicated to his great love, a woman from Pula, Antonia Cenida. Built in an
elliptical shape, 132 metres along its longer axis, 105 metres along the
shorter, more than 32 metres high, the Pula Arena probably provoked awe in
anyone visiting Istria. So it was too with the Slavs who, like others,
considered it a wonder. So the Arena got its common name, Divić-grad - ‘grad'
meaning ‘city', while ‘divić' means ‘wonder' and has no etymological connection
with ‘divice', fairies.
It is interesting to note that the Roman builders
managed to do what the fairies of legend had not: on the four towers, a device
was installed for tightening the velarius, a cloth roof which protected the
audience from the hot sun.