When the Nations possessed themselves of the Western Empire, Epidaurus and the Dalmatian cities still continued to be islands of pure _Romanity_; and besides their Roman municipal institutions and their ecclesiastical connection with Rome, these cities may also have preserved some record of these inland deposits of precious metals, and some knowledge of where to look for them. This, at least, is certain, that when the Epidauran republic lived again at Ragusa, her sons sought out the vestiges of the older Roman mines of Illyria, and opened them out anew, so that the former scenes of Roman industry became the chief commercial centres in these barbarous lands. Nor would Ragusa fail to play her allotted part of interpreter between Rome and the southern Sclaves. It is not to be wondered at that in these neighbourhoods Christianity of a purely Roman character should have taken root: and in the days of heresy this connection with Catholic Ragusa would perpetually keep alive influences favourable to the Church. We can well understand that the superior civilization and wealth of these mining districts would react on the indigenous nobility. Doubtless many noble families actually owed their position to wealth acquired from a mine opened on their lands by these enterprising traders. Many would naturally draw round these small civilised centres. To this Ragusan influence I would therefore refer, not only the peculiarly Roman Catholic character of the population of these mining districts, but also much of the Roman sympathies of the ruling caste. Thus it is not only the Roman Catholic monasteries that are found in connection with the scenes of old Ragusan activity, but also the favourite residences of the Bosnian kings; so that in the neighbourhood of the chief Ragusan castle and trading settlement—called Dubrovnik, after the Sclavonic name of the mother city—rose both the monastery of Sutiska, and the old town of Bobovac, where the Tvartkos once sate in majesty. They are over the hills, to the north-east of Foinica. Nor is this far-reaching concatenation of causes and effects without its bearings on the future as well. If in the course of time Bosnia should enter once more into the civilised system of Europe—if these now unused mines were to be opened out anew, it must be evident that such an industrial development would once more place the chief wealth, and therefore the chief influence, in the country in the hands of the Roman Catholic minority; in other words, in the hands of the only portion of the inhabitants who at the present day still treasure the memories[230] of the old Bosnian kingdom.