spent some time in Sirmium, including Marcus Aurelius, who might have written parts of his famous work Meditations in the city. Sirmium was, most likely, the site of the death of Marcus Aurelius, of smallpox, in March of 180 CE. Christian bishopric The city had a Christian community by the third century. By the end of the century, it had a bishop, who was probably the metropolitan of all the Pannonian bishops. The first known bishop was Irenaeus, who was martyred during the Diocletianic Persecution in 304. For the next century, the sequence of bishops is known, but in the fifth and sixth centuries the see falls into obscurity. An unnamed bishop is mentioned in 448. The last known bishop is mentioned in a papal letter of 594, after which the city itself is rarely mentioned and the see probably went into abeyance. From the time of the first synod of Tyre in 335, Sirmium became a stronghold of the Arian movement and site of much controversy. Between 347 and 358 there were four synods held in Sirmium. A fifth took plate in 375 or 378. All dealt with the Arian controversy. Archeological findings At Glac near Sirmium a palace is being excavated, indicated by the luxurious construction materials coming from all over the Mediterranean, such as red and green porphyry from Egypt and the Peloponnese, and marble from Tunisia, Greece and Italy. Some say it is that of Emperor Maximian and according to Aurelius Victor built on the place where his parents worked as labourers on the estate. During the construction of the hospital in 1971, more than eighty altars were found in a monumental sanctuary to Jupiter, which is the second largest in Europe. Sirmium had two bridges with which bridged the river Sava, Ad Basanti and Artemida's bridges according to historical sources. After 313 Sirmium became an important Christian centre. So far revealed are eight early Christian churches dedicated to St. Irenaeus, St. Demetrius and Sv. Sinenot. During work on the new Sremska Mitrovica trade centre in 1972, a worker accidentally broke into an old Roman pot, about 2m deep, over the site of an old Sirmium settlement. 33 gold Roman coins enclosed in a leather pouch were found inside a Roman house wall, probably the hidden savings of a wealthy Roman family stashed centuries ago. Of this extraordinary rare find of Sirmium minted coins were 4