From here the future leaders headed towards Rome, in order to stop the decline of an empire which was slowly sinking into decadence. One of them, the emperor Constantine, who was born in Nis, made a civilizational shift by enacting the Milan edict in the year 313, by which the Christians were recognized as equal citizens of the Roman Empire.
Nineteen centuries later things are considerably different. World and regional leaders are coming here in order to bring some stability to it. Last meeting of that sort was held last week in the Viminacium, an ancient Roman city from the 1st century AD.
The heads of Eastern European states gathered at the UNESCO summit “The contemporary art and reconciliation in Southeastern Europe”. They curiously went into the underground world of that Roman city in order to take a look, from an unusual perspective, on the remains of the Roman treasures in necropolis.
They could see in the inside of the tunnels dug underneath the tombs, painted by frescoes, for which the archeologists claim are the most beautiful and best preserved of their kind. They liked it, and the people taking care of the archeological site of Viminacium believe it will have a positive effect on the care about the cultural heritage in Serbia.
(Read the entire text in our printed edition)