By far the best-known town in Dalmatia is Spalato, famous by reason of the magnificent ruin of the palace of the Roman Emperor, Diocletian. This was built in 303 A.D., and a good deal of it is still standing. The little town is situated at the head of a bay backed up by a line of low hills, and the Emperor showed taste and judgment when he selected this site. His palace covered about eight acres of ground, and the south front facing the harbour was 521 feet in length. The palace was built in a quadrangular form, and each side faced one point of the compass. The building was more of a camp than what we are accustomed to associate with the word palace, and enclosed within its walls many buildings, divided by regular streets running from the four gates in the outer walls. Here the Emperor Diocletian retired in the full prime of life, for he was only fifty-nine, to cultivate his garden and live in peace. Few men nowadays can shake themselves free from the fetters of business, and many postpone the enviable day of freedom simply because they have run so long in harness, they fear to fall without it. Yet this vigorous man laid aside power and responsibility and grandeur with firm determination. His action was the more wonderful in that he was born of slave parents, and might therefore have been expected to cling more closely to the purple robe than those whose lives have always been lapped in it. In the town, compressed into a space at one time sufficient only for the palace of one man, the houses are high and jammed together, the streets mere alleys, the buildings are entirely irregular and placed anyhow, the sunshine hardly penetrates the long narrow slits between. The city is now the See of a Bishop, and has an extensive trade in wine and oil. In its best days it was one of the most important ports on the Adriatic. [Illustration: SPALATO: A DOOR IN DIOCLETIAN’S PALACE] That Spalato has a strong rival in Ragusa, the capital, is shown by Mr. Geoffrey Drage’s remarks: Ragusa, the Athens of Illyria, perhaps the most interesting, and certainly one of the most beautiful, towns in Austria. The ancient city is still surrounded by the massive walls and frowning towers and bastions which defended it in the days when Richard Cœur de Lion was so hospitably entertained there. A great trading centre in the Middle Ages, dating its origin to Roman times, Ragusa has not only a long vista of historical memories, but she has also long been eminent in the world of literature. One of Ragusa’s special glories was the right of asylum, and her humanitarian ideals were further shown by her ordinance, the first of the kind on the Continent, forbidding participation in the slave trade on pain of fine and imprisonment; furthermore she has the honour of being the first town in Europe to establish a foundling hospital.