Before the Romans came, these territories had been inhabited by the Ilirians and then by the Celts. During the Halstat epoch the Ilirians used the ore from Rudnik which can be proved by the adornments and other objects found on Maljen-the spur of Rudnik. The Celts also extracted the ore and made metal tools and weapons.
The extended extraction of ore started with coming of the Romans. The ruins of Roman buildings on the mountain Rudnik are the testimony of it. According to Felix Kanic (the author of the book "Serbia - the Lands and the Population") the city of Rudnik originally was the Roman fortress, later reconstructed and rebuilt.

Thanks to numerous and copious traces of material culture it can be concluded that there was a big Roman colony on Rudnik. The remains of the Roman temple dedicated to Mother Goddess of Land - "TERA MATERTEA" were found near the mining shafts where the ore was extracted from. The temple had been destroyed earlier, so Roman Emperor Septimius Severus restored it in III century and he put the stone plague on it with the following reconstructed inscription. Translated, it says:

" Emperor, Caesar, Lucius Septimius Severus, Unremitting, Sublime, restored this temple of Mother of the Land, with the help of Cassius the Ligurian, the Imperial regent, and at the request of the colonists Publius Fundanietihetius and Publius Eliae Mucanius."

In 1865 the plague was found on Rudnik by Janko Safaric who gave it to the Museum in Belgrade. The statue of Goddess Gee and ceramic articles, lanterns and a perfume bottle discovered on Rudnik make the profusion of the objects belonging to the Roman epoch complete.

A hoard of the Roman silver crockery of about 18 kilos in weight was found in the village of Branetici. A few samples of Roman money were found in Majdan, Brdjani, and Vracevsnica villages. It is considered that the site Rosulje in Sarani village passed a number of cultural epochs.