In the year 1071 the Normans from Apulia made their first appearance in Dalmatia; they crossed the Adriatic, and threatened the Eastern Empire. The Emperor Alexius Comnenus having implored the help of the Venetians, the Doge Selvo set sail for Dyrrhachium in command of a fleet. Alexius had also asked help of the Ragusans, who were now practically independent; but they feared the Normans more, and cast in their lot with them. The Græco-Venetian fleet encountered the Normans off Dyrrhachium; but in spite of the valour displayed by the allies they were defeated, and the town fell into the enemies’ hands. It is said that the Ragusan contingent distinguished itself by hurling clouds of arrows, which wrought much havoc among the Venetians.[55] As a reward they obtained important commercial privileges in Southern Italy. In 1085 the Venetians again attacked the Normans, and partially defeated them at Corfu, for which action Alexius granted the Doge Vitale Falier the Golden Bull, conferring upon him the title of Protosebastus, and created him Duke of Dalmatia and Croatia. Thus the Republic regained all its lost influence on the eastern shore of the Adriatic. Yet another Power now begins to interfere in the affairs of Dalmatia, a Power which was to play a most important part in its subsequent history. In 1091 Ladislas, King of Hungary, was summoned by the Slaves of inland Croatia, who as usual when quarrelling among themselves called in foreign aid, and they willingly recognised him as their king. He did not wait to be asked a second time, but at once entered the province and appointed his nephew, Almus, Count of Cismontane Croatia. On his death in 1094 he was succeeded by another nephew, Koloman, who in the following year crossed the Velebit mountains and invaded Maritime Croatia. He defeated and killed the Croatian king, Krešimir, at Petrovogora, became master of the littoral from Istria to the Narenta, and prepared to conquer the Serb states of Rascia and Tribunia. By marrying Busita, daughter of King Roger, he allied himself with the Normans, and enlisted their help for his schemes. At Beograd he crowned himself King of Dalmatia and Croatia. These conquests were not at all to the taste of the Ragusans, who had every interest in the maintenance of a number of weak but independent Slavonic buffer States at their back, whereas they dreaded the advance of a powerful military monarchy like Hungary. At first they tried to conciliate Koloman with gifts,[56] but as this availed them little they applied to their old enemies, the Venetians; the latter made a treaty with the Hungarian king, by which the Latin municipalities of Dalmatia were recognised as outside the Hungarian sphere. But it was not respected for long. The Emperor Alexius, annoyed with the Venetians for their action in the First Crusade and in the Levant generally, intrigued with Koloman, and induced him to violate his pledges. The Magyar king needed but