; the Order appears to have been
established in Dalmatia before the tenth century, and to them S.
Crisogono, Zara, was due. If so, according to the rule of his Order, he
would have inherited the manual of art which every Benedictine leaving
the mother monastery to found a new one carried with him, together with
the liturgical books.

After the death of Diocletian in 313 Salona inherited the palace. The
imperial apartments were reserved for illustrious guests, and the rest
appears to have been used as a cloth-factory. It is thought that it was
here that the dethroned Emperor Nepos was slain in Odoacer's time.
Towards the end of the fifth century Marcellinus, first king of
Dalmatia, lived here for a short time after his proclamation, when the
province had been taken from the Emperor Leo. The destruction of Salona
in 639 drove the inhabitants to take refuge in the islands where the
Avars could not follow them. When the Croats drove these away Severus
recalled some of them, and they inhabited the palace. The bishopric was
founded in 649 by John of Ravenna, legate of Pope Martin I. He it was
who converted the mausoleum into a cathedral, opening the door on the
south side which has the curious ornament round it, and dedicating it to
the Assumption, and also bringing the relics of S. Anastasitis and S.
Doimus from Salona, and placing them beneath the side altars. The
beginning of the Venetian dominion was brought about by the appeal
for help against Cresimir which the Spalatines made to Venice by advice
of Basil and Constantine, emperors of Byzantium. Pietro Orseolo received
the homage of the citizens in the cathedral, defeated Cresimir, and made
peace at Trau on the understanding that Zara and Spalato were to be
Venetian thenceforth; but the Croat kings assumed the title of King of
Dalmatia and obtained the assent of the Pope to their holding the
dignity till the Hungarian dynasty succeeded them. In 1401 all Dalmatia,
except the Bocche and Ragusa, became Neapolitan; and Ladislas was
crowned by a papal emissary king of Hungary and Dalmatia at Zara. His
viceroy built a palace at Spalato, of which remains exist between the
Marina and the Piazza dell' Erbe; to which the Venetians added the
octagonal tower for the defence of the port, so conspicuous from the
sea. Turkish raids were frequent. In 1570 the garrison of Clissa nearly
took the city; but twenty-six years later the Spalatines retaliated by
surprising and massacring the ga