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At Risano are the remains of a building vaulted in two compartments, like an ancient tomb, and a few stones. Some thirty sarcophagi found there in 1870 raised hopes of the discovery of a necropolis, but these hopes were disappointed.

Cattaro appears as a Roman city under the name of Ascrivium or Acrivium, and it and Risano are the only two towns known at the fall of the Illyrian kingdom. The Romans made a road from Aquileia to Durazzo. It passed by Epidaurus and along the Sutorina Valley to Castelnuovo, where it turned along the coast to Risano, Perasto, Orohovac, Dobrota, and Ascrivium. Thence it went to Castel Trinit

Next year the Sardinian renegade, Hassan Barbarossa, put the whole garrison to the sword, and also conquered Risano. The Turks retained possession of Castelnuovo till 1687, when, by the assistance of the Knights of Malta, it again became Venetian.

The bay was known to the ancients as "Sinus Rhizonicus," Rhizon, from which it was then named, being the modern Risano at the extremity of the northern arm. The "Tavola Peutingeriana" gives the name "Resinum." The first mention of the "Rhizinitie" is about B.C. 229, at the period of the unfortunate wars waged by Teuta, widow of Agron, against the Romans.

Risano was Teuta's capital, and there she died in 220 B.C. Her husband Agron had conquered the country as far as Friuli. This decided the Romans to destroy her power, and treachery made the task easy. From 227 B.C. Corfu, Lesina, and Lissa were under Roman protection; the Illyrians were only allowed two ships, and were not permitted to pass the Issus.

There I learned that there was a great assemblage of refugees at Grahovo, a remote corner of the principality, which could best be reached from the Bocche; and enlisting the agent of the Austrian Lloyds as guide and interpreter, I went by way of Risano and the country of the Crivoscians, a Slavonic tribe who gave great trouble to the Romans in their day, and to their successors in that part of the world, the Austrians, whom they defeated disastrously in 1869.

A seal of the city of the fourteenth century bears three towers and the inscription: "Sistilianum · publica · Casiilir · mare · Certos · dat · michi · fines." Sistiana was on the north of Trieste; Castilir, the river Risano, was the southern boundary.

Above Risano are two strong fortresses, erected after the insurrection of the Crivoscians in 1881. The revolt of 500 men against conscription necessitated the mobilisation of a whole corps d'armée to subjugate them. They lived on the slopes of inaccessible mountains, and the troops had to make the mountain paths into roads practicable for artillery.

Away at the end of one fjord lies the village of Risano, an idyllic spot, whence a road is in the course of construction to Nikšić. All the worthy Bocchese are absolutely Montenegrin in sympathy, and Austria has had much trouble with these equally warlike Serbs. A curious conical hill rises out of the town, a high wall zigzags up to the fort above, showing Cattaro's strength of former days.

The result was great discontent, and at last, in 804, by the intervention of Fortunatus, Patriarch of Grado, an inquiry was held at Risano, the acts of which were embodied in the "placito" of Risano.