The country of the Dalmatians (more correctly Dalmatans) extends from Illyricum, in the Greek sense of the term, as far as the frontier of the Liburnians, who inhabited the whole of the north of what was once Venetian Dalmatia. The name Dalmatia is unknown to the Greeks, and is applied to the country in which they place the Hyllians, Nestians, and Manians. The inhabitants were no doubt under the dominion of the Illyrian kings; after the reduction of the Illyrians by the Romans, Dalmatia, too, was unquestionably intended to come under the supremacy of Rome, and a few maritime towns actually seem to have done so, but the interior, if it did fall into the hands of the Romans, appears soon to have thrown off the yoke. It was not till the year 640, that Metullus permanently subdued those coast countries, after the Romans had waged war against them for a long time. Thenceforth the neighbouring country of the Liburnians was a distinct Roman province; the southern districts of Dalmatia being occasionally under the control of the proconsul or propraetor of Macedonia; the northern parts do not appear to have had a Roman _imperium_, except when legions were stationed there. This was frequently the case, until the Scordiscans were conquered: when after their destruction peace was established, and when, after the time of Sulla, the province of Gaul was formed, those countries belonged to the _imperium_ of the governor who had the administration of Gaul, as we see in the case of Julius Caesar. The most important town in Dalmatia was SALONA or SALONAE (_Salonae longae_, in Lucan, the place probably consisting of one long street along the coast); it was the seat of a Roman _conventus_, that is, the Roman citizens resident in the province formed a rustic community, which had its administration at Salona. This is the real meaning of a _conventus civium Romanorum_, which is left obscure in our manuals on Roman antiquities, though it is perfectly clear from Cicero’s speeches against Verres, from Caesar’s _Bellum Civile_ and _Africanum_, and also from the _Bellum Hispaniense_. Salona gradually became a genuine Roman city; but it owes its greatest celebrity to the fact that Diocletian, after resigning the imperial dignity, took up his abode there and built a palace, which extended into the modern town of Spalatro, and is an example of the decay of taste in the arts at that time, as much as the Thermae of Diocletian at Rome; the palace is not more beautiful than the edifices built in the time of Charlemagne; marble and costly materials of every kind were lavished on it, and such outward ornaments then constituted almost all that was left of art. The ruins of this palace have been described by Englishmen.