Читать книгу The Islands of Croatia. 30 walks on 14 Adriatic islands онлайн

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Rome launched a series of campaigns across the Adriatic against the Illyrians, beginning in 229BC and leading to the establishment of the Roman province of Illyricum, with its capital at Salona on the edge of modern Split. The remains of Roman villas, palaces and other buildings are widespread on the coast and islands, including the incredibly well-preserved amphitheatre at Pula and the UNESCO-listed Diocletian’s Palace in Split.

Diocletian’s Palace, Split, a UNESCO World Heritage Site

After the fall of Rome in the fourth century AD the region witnessed a succession of invasions – Visigoths, Huns, Ostrogoths – until Byzantium gained control of the Croatian coast and islands, ushering in an a spell of relative peace and prosperity from the sixth century until the arrival of another horde, the Avars, at the beginning of the seventh century.

The Slavs arrived on the Adriatic some time in the seventh century, having crossed the Danube and gradually settled in the rest of Croatia over the preceding two centuries. Most of the Dalmatian coast and islands were ceded by Byzantium to the Franks in 812, although Byzantium regained its control of Dalmatia around half a century later, when it became one of a number of Byzantine ‘themes’, with its capital at Zadar.