Page 38 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Croatia

36  INTRODUCING CRO A TIA

The ancient Roman ruins of the city of Salona, destroyed in 614

The Barbarian Invasions and the Constantinople, but they were defeated
Crisis of the Roman Empire by the Byzantines. Some of the troops
In 378, after a century of relative peace, returned to the Asiatic steppes, while
the Goths invaded Pannonia and then others settled between the Danube and
turned towards Italy. From that time, and Tisza rivers, leaving the field clear for the
for the entire 5th century, the Balkans were Slavs who occupied Moravia and Bohemia
attacked by the Huns, Vandals, Visigoths to push southwards and towards the
and Longobards, which finally caused the Adriatic, conquering all the Roman cities
fall of the Roman empire in 476. and destroying Salona (614). The Slavs
settled in the countryside or in what
The Avars and Slavs in the Balkans remained of the sacked cities. These people
The beginning of the 6th century saw cultivated the land and bred livestock and
invasion by the Avars, who were followed formed extended family groups (županija)
by other Slavic tribes. Those Roman with a župan at the head of each.
inhabitants who did not manage to flee
to the mountains or the islands were The Bulgars and the
captured and sold as slaves. In 582 the Byzantine Reconquest
Avars conquered and destroyed Sirmium The Slavs’ expansion to the south was halted
(Sremska Mitrovica), one of the ancient by the Bulgars, a people of Turkish origin,
capitals of the Roman Empire. Later they who settled along the final stretch of the
also subdued other nomadic tribes and Danube. After the fall of the Western Empire,
organized a powerful army to conquer Byzantium attempted to reconquer the

380 With the Edict
of Thessalonica,
Theodosius the Great 476 The Ostrogoths of Odoacer
divides the Roman depose Romulus Augustulus, the
Empire in four parts last Roman emperor
300 400 500
Roman bust 378 Ostrogoths 437 Dalmatia comes 500 The Slavs occupy
recovered conquer and under the rule of Pannonia, which would
from ancient destroy Mursa Constantinople; the become Slavonia
Mursa (Osijek) Huns invade and
conquer Pannonia

036-037_EW_Croatia.indd 36 20/10/16 12:31 pm
Eyewitness Travel LAYERS PRINTED:
History Portrait template “UK” LAYER
(Source v1.2)
Date 20th August 2012
Size 125mm x 217mm