Tauresium is located in
Zelenikovo Municipality, near the village
Taor, some southeast of Skopje. The site was discovered by British archaeologist
Arthur Evans in the late 19th century. In the book
De aedificiis,
Procopius states: The similarity in the names of Tauresium and Barderia as Taor () and Bader () was brought to attention by
Antun Mihanović, the First Austrian Konzul 1836–1858 and proposed to the writer Hun, who stopped on his journey to investigate the location, which is noted in the book . The stories from the local peasants and badly damaged
Cyrillic script were not sufficient to prove the theory initially, but later in the Monastery of St. John in
Veles, Cyrillic writings were presented to him after which he concluded that this was the same Byzantine City of Tauresium, birthplace of
Justinian I, who laid the foundation for
The First Golden Age of
The Byzantine Empire. Tauresium and the castle Baderiana were destroyed in an earthquake in 518; the epicenter of the earthquake was in the nearby city of
Skupi. As a gesture of gratitude to his birthplace, Justinian I rebuilt the city. According to the excavations that have been done so far, it is estimated that the oldest parts of Tauresium date from the 4th century, and this oldest part is a castle with four towers known as
Tetrapirgia. Regarding Baderiana, Procopius states that it "is a settled castle with oddments from the 4th to 6th century". ==References==