gates at night, and take him the key. He received
the tolls paid for living in the village; and there was a kind of
_corvee_ of forced work. Moreover, he had the right to buy the houses of
those who sold them, at a third less than their real value, to sell
again to fresh inhabitants. The oil-mills belonged to him, and a fifth
of the produce was divided between him and the customs. If the olives
were taken elsewhere a tenth of the oil was paid to him all the same.
Wine-presses were also his property; the oven, too, and a proportion of
the wine made and bread baked went to him. Nothing could be bought or
sold without his license. He received all the tongues of oxen killed,
and the heads of pigs. He covered the cistern in time of drought, and
water could only be drawn when he took the cover off. The streets were
ordered to be kept clean, and slops taken to the sea, not thrown out of
the window! At Christmas and Easter the country people still bring
presents to their lords.

The proverb "Wine of the Castelli, honey of Solta, and milk of Bua" is
still justified; and agents for wine merchants, especially French,
bargain for the wines before the grapes are ripe. Enormous hogsheads are
shipped on the boats, and the transhipping them is often a dangerous
business, if we may judge from our own experiences. At Castel Vecchio we
were nearly spectators of a serious accident when a cord slipped, and we
observed that the men crossed themselves each time one was safely
lowered into the hold.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: The last king to visit it was Sigismund in 1387.]

XXI

SPALATO

Spalato appears for the first time in the "Tavola Peutingeriana" under
the name Aspalathos, as a station on the shore road which led from the
promontory Ad Dianam (at the end of Monte Marjan) to Epetium (Stobrec)
below Salona, but appears at that time to have been a place of no
importance. It, however, is thus proved to have existed before the end
of the third century, which makes the accepted derivation of the name
from "ad Palatium" plainly erroneous. Its great celebrity is due to the
palace which Diocletian began to build for himself there shortly before
300 A.D. and to which he retired after his abdication in 305. Within its
walls fugitives from Salona, who had returned from the islands to which
they had fled at the time of the destruction of the city in 639, found
shelter, and so the existing city began its mediaeval course. The palace
f