Thus by the eighth century we have a series of coast towns and a few islands peopled by Latins still under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire set in the midst of a country whose inhabitants, if we except the Latin or Latinised shepherds, were all Slaves. Imperial influence over these townships gradually declined, and at an early date they constituted themselves into city-states of the Italian type.[13] As they grew rich and powerful they acquired territory, developed their trade, both sea-borne and with the interior, until they were finally absorbed by the Venetian Republic. Their conditions are, therefore, in many respects similar to those prevailing in the maritime republics of Italy during this period. In Italy there was a Latin civilisation, overwhelmed by hordes of pagan or partly pagan barbarians. Italy, like Dalmatia, is reclaimed to Latin culture by Greek arms, and the Greeks rule over it, although constantly fighting the armies of the invaders with varying success. There, too, city-communities arise on or near the sites of Roman cities, modelling their institutions and their laws on those of Rome, with certain modifications due to barbarian influences. But here the parallel ends. In Italy the barbarian hordes never settled in such large numbers as wholly to absorb the Latins, whereas the Slaves in Dalmatia far outnumbered the colonists, and, save for the Latin fringe, the land soon became a Slavonic land. Whereas in Italy, Latins and barbarians soon amalgamated—in fact, one may say that the former absorbed the latter—in Dalmatia, Latins and Slaves have remained distinct and separate to this day, in language, character, and ideals. The Latin cities were like islands in a Slavonic sea. The relations between the Latins and the barbarians in Italy, even before they amalgamated, were different from what they were in Dalmatia. In Italy the feudal system arose among the Germanic peoples, and Germanic lords had Latin subjects and serfs, whereas the Slavonic chieftains of Dalmatia had no Latin dependents to speak of. The causes of this division of race and language, which exercised so deep an influence on the history and development of the Dalmatian _municipia_, are not very apparent. They are probably to be sought in the different proportions of barbarians to Latins in the two countries. In Italy the number of invaders who settled permanently in the country was never very great compared with that of the Latin inhabitants. The conquered were, therefore, soon able to absorb the conquerors, having civilisation as well as numbers on their side. But in Dalmatia the Slaves were, as we have said, far more numerous than the Latin burghers; and while the former could not absorb the communities of the coast, because they were more civilised, the latter, being so few in numbers, failed to absorb the Slaves. It should, moreover, be remembered that even the Latins were originally colonists from another land, and that the native