Editing History of Croatia (section)

== Roman expansion ==
{{Further|Pannonia (Roman province)|Dalmatia (Roman province)}}
Before the Roman expansion, the eastern Adriatic coast formed the northern part<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cheyne |first1=Thomas Kelly |last2=Black |first2=John Sutherland |title=Encyclopaedia Biblica: A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political and Religious History, the Archaeology, Geography, and Natural History of the Bible |date=1899}}</ref> of the [[Illyria]]n kingdom from the 4th century BC to the [[Illyrian Wars]] in the 220s BC. In 168 BC, the [[Roman Republic]] established its protectorate south of the [[Neretva]] river. The area north of the Neretva was slowly incorporated into Roman possession until the [[Illyricum (Roman province)|province of Illyricum]] was formally established {{circa}} 32–27 BC.

These lands then became part of the Roman province of [[Illyricum (Roman province)|Illyricum]]. Between 6 and 9 AD, tribes including the [[Dalmatae]], who gave name to these lands, rose up against the Romans in the [[Bellum Batonianum|Great Illyrian revolt]], but the uprising was crushed, and in 10 AD Illyricum was split into two provinces—[[Pannonia]] and Dalmatia. The [[province of Dalmatia]] spread inland to cover all of the [[Dinaric Alps]] and most of the eastern Adriatic coast. Dalmatia was the birthplace of the Roman Emperor [[Diocletian]], who, when he retired as Emperor in 305 AD, built a [[Diocletian's Palace|large palace]] near [[Salona]], from which the city of [[Split, Croatia|Split]] later developed.<ref>[http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=17691 C.Michael Hogan, "Diocletian's Palace", The Megalithic Portal, Andy Burnham ed., 6 October 2007]</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Edward Gibbon|author-link=Edward Gibbon|author2=John Bagnell Bury|author2-link=John Bagnell Bury|author3=Daniel J. Boorstin|author3-link=Daniel J. Boorstin|title=The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire|publisher=[[Modern Library]]|year=1995|location=New York|page=335|isbn=978-0-679-60148-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bdKLyie1M50C|access-date=27 October 2011}}</ref>
[[File:Tabula Peutingeriana - Istra.JPG|thumb|300x300px|left|A map of the Istrian peninsula from the Roman map ''[[Tabula Peutingeriana]]'', made sometime in the 4th century]]
Historians such as [[Theodore Mommsen]] and [[Bernard Bavant]] argue that all of Dalmatia was fully Romanized and [[Latin]]-speaking by the 4th century.<ref>''Dalmatia'' Dmitar J. Čulić (1962). p. 9</ref> Others, such as [[Aleksandar Stipčević]], argue that the process of [[Romanization]] was selective and involved mostly the urban centers but not the countryside, where previous Illyrian socio-political structures were adapted to Roman administration and political structure only where necessary.<ref>A. Stipčević, ''Iliri'', Školska knjiga Zagreb, 1974, page 70</ref> {{Interlanguage link|Stanko Guldescu|hr}} has argued that the [[Vlachs]], or Morlachs, were Latin-speaking, pastoral peoples who lived in the Balkan mountains since pre-Roman times. They are mentioned in the oldest Croatian chronicles.<ref>Stanko Guldescu, The Croatian-Slavonian Kingdom: 1526–1792, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 1970, p.67, {{ISBN|9783110881622}}</ref>

After the [[Western Roman Empire]] collapsed in 476, with the beginning of the [[Migration Period]], [[Julius Nepos]] briefly ruled his diminished domain from Diocletian's Palace after his 476 flight from Italy.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xw4fAAAAMAAJ|author=J. B. Bury|author-link=J. B. Bury|title=History of the later Roman empire from the death of Theodosius I. to the death of Justinian|page=408|publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers]]|year=1923|access-date=15 October 2011}}</ref> The region was then ruled by the [[Ostrogoths]] until 535 when [[Justinian I]] added the territory to the [[Byzantine Empire]]. Later, the Byzantines formed the [[Theme of Dalmatia]] in the same territory.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deliso |first1=Christopher |title=The History of Croatia and Slovenia |date=2020 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara, California |isbn=9781440873232 |page=30}}</ref>

=== Migration period ===
{{See also|Origin hypotheses of the Croats|White Croats|White Croatia}}
The Roman period ended with the [[Avars (Carpathians)|Avar]] and [[Croats|Croat]] invasions in the 6th and 7th centuries and the destruction of almost all Roman towns. Roman survivors retreated to more favorable sites on the coast, islands, and mountains.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.croatia-in-english.com/images/maps/3-5cen.jpg|title=Map of Roman Dalmatia area, with added actual croatian names}}</ref> The city of [[Dubrovnik|Ragusa]] was founded by survivors from [[Epidaurum]].<ref name="AAPatton">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E_NBAAAAYAAJ|title=Researches on the Danube and the Adriatic|author=Andrew Archibald Paton|year=1861|pages=218–219|publisher=Trübner|access-date=15 October 2011}}</ref> According to the work ''[[De Administrando Imperio]]'', written by the 10th-century Byzantine Emperor [[Constantine VII]], the Croats arrived in what is today Croatia from [[Lesser Poland|southern Poland]] and [[Western Ukraine]] in the early 7th century. However, that claim is disputed and competing hypotheses date the event between late the 6th-early 7th (mainstream) or the late 8th-early 9th (fringe) centuries.<ref name="Mužić-249-293">Mužić (2007), pp. 249–293</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Danijel |last=Dzino |year=2010 |title=Becoming Slav, Becoming Croat: Identity Transformations in Post-Roman and Early Medieval Dalmatia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6UbOtJcF8rQC |publisher=BRILL |pages=175, 179–182 |isbn=9789004186460}}</ref> Recent archaeological data established that the migration and settlement of the Slavs/Croats occurred in the late 6th and early 7th centuries.<ref name="Belos00">{{cite journal |last1=Belošević |first1=Janko |date=2000 |title=Razvoj i osnovne značajke starohrvatskih grobalja horizonta 7.-9. stoljeća na povijesnim prostorima Hrvata |url=https://morepress.unizd.hr/journals/index.php/pov/article/view/2231 |language=hr |journal=Radovi |volume=39 |issue=26 |pages=71–97 |doi=10.15291/radovipov.2231|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Fabijanić |first=Tomislav |date=2013 |chapter=14C date from early Christian basilica gemina in Podvršje (Croatia) in the context of Slavic settlement on the eastern Adriatic coast |title=The early Slavic settlement of Central Europe in the light of new dating evidence |location=Wroclaw |publisher=Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences |pages=251–260 |isbn=978-83-63760-10-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bekić |first1=Luka |date=2016 |title=Rani srednji vijek između Panonije i Jadrana: ranoslavenski keramički i ostali arheološki nalazi od 6. do 8. stoljeća |trans-title=Early medieval between Pannonia and the Adriatic: early Slavic ceramic and other archaeological finds from the sixth to eighth century |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348500715 |location=Pula |publisher=Arheološki muzej Istre |language=hr, en |pages=101, 119, 123, 138–140, 157–162, 173–174, 177–179 |isbn=978-953-8082-01-6}}</ref>