FOUNDATION AND HISTORY 21
  coast, for they were of the race of Epidaurum destroyed by the Saracens.” 1
      This obviously refers to the Latin colonists mentioned by the Imperial historian :—
     “ 743. Many people came from Bosna with much wealth, for the king, Radosav, was a tyrant, and lived according to his pleasure : Murlacchi from the Narenta also came, and Catunari,2 among whom there was a chief above all the others; they came with a great multitude of cattle of all sorts : to them was assigned the mountain of Saint Serge as a pasture, for it was so covered with trees that one could not see the sky, and so much timber was there that they made beams for their houses.”
      Of the first two centuries of Ragusan history little is known. The town, like the other Latin communities of Dalmatia, at first formed part of the Eastern Empire. Heraclius had abandoned all the rest of the country to the Slaves, and even in the coast towns Imperial authority was becoming ever more shadowy. Under Michael II Balbus they were granted what practically amounted to autonomy, and they constituted themselves, as we have said, into municipia of the Italian type, while inland Dalmatia became part of Charlemagne’s Empire (803), to whom also some of the coast towns, including Zara, owed allegiance.3 Ragusa, although still small, was
       1	In several early accounts it is said that the Saracens helped the Avars to destroy the city by attacking from the sea, but there is no satisfactory evidence on the subject.
       2	Head of a farm ; kalun in modern Croatian signifies dairy ; it is a neo-Latin word.
      3	Venice, whose connection with the Eastern Empire was somewhat I similar to that of the Dalmatian cities, now recognised Charlemagne’s