Ragusa was thus originally Roman. Her necessities led her to ally with the Eastern Empire against the Saracen corsairs, and, however little real authority the Byzantine Emperors possessed within her walls, Constantine Porphyrogenitus places Rausium among the imperial cities on the Dalmatian coast. But this Roman coast-city, with her inheritance of ancient civilisation, was already consummating that alliance with the ruder energies of the Sclavonic mainland, to which her future eminence was so largely due.
The barren mountain which frowns so abruptly over Ragusa on the land-side, was once covered with an immemorial pinewood,[328] which stretched over a large part of what is now included in the mediæval walls of Ragusa. It was in this wood that a Sclavonic colony settled, outside the Roman rock stronghold, and as in process of time the two populations blended, Dubrava—which signifies ‘the wood,’ and had been the name given by the Sclaves to their colony outside the walls—was attached to the whole city, so that Ragusa is still known to the Sclavonic world as Dubrovnik—the forest town.
For long the new rock asylum is engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the Saracen corsairs, who desolated the Dalmatian and Albanian coasts. Generally, still Roman Ragusa turns to the Byzantine Empire as her natural protector; but for a moment we see dimly reflected in her saga the influence of the revived Empire of the West; and one may, perhaps, be allowed to see in it a witness to the authority which for a while the great Carl succeeded in extending over the Illyrian Sclaves. We were surprised to find in the more classic court of the Palazzo Rettorale here, a colossal statue such as one meets with often enough beneath the quaint gables of a North-German Rathhaus. It was, in fact, a Ragusan Rolandsäule. According to the Ragusan annalists, Orlando, or Rolando, the sister’s son of Carl the Great, and a brave Paladin, had heard in Bretagne, where he was governor, that Saracen corsairs were ravaging the Roman towns of the Adriatic. Orlando at once set out for Ragusa, embarked on board a Ragusan galley, won a sea-victory over the Saracen pirates off the island of Lacroma opposite, took their Emir Spucento captive, and cut off his head in Ragusa. Thereupon the grateful Ragusans set up then and there a marble statue of Orlando, which remains unto this day.[329]
Another time the treacherous Venetians prepare to surprise Ragusa under the pretence of provisioning their ships. But St. Blasius, of Armenia, appears to a priest in a dream and warns him of the danger to the city. The priest gave the alarm, the walls were manned in time, and Ragusa showed her gratitude to her preserver by choosing him as her patron saint. A church was reared to St. Blasius, his effigy was placed on the great seal, the banners, and coins of the Republic, and his miraculous interposition was commemorated every year at the feast of the Purification.
This is not the place to trace out all the ‘dim complicacities’ of Ragusa’s earlier history. Ragusa was by birthright a City of Refuge, and her rise was mainly due to the wise and heroic policy of defending at any cost her rights of hospitality. Whether it be the children of the rightful king of Serbia, or the widowed queen of Dalmatia, or the Bosnians who had fled from the wrath of their Ban, all alike obtain shelter from their pursuers within these hospitable walls. Again and again Ragusa consented to see her territory ravaged and her walls beleaguered for the protection which her Senate accorded to the unfortunate. When Bodin, the Grand Župan of Serbia, Rascia, and Bosnia, then at the height of his power, demanded the extradition of the sons of the Serbian prince whose dominion he had usurped,[330] and threatened in case of refusal ‘to fly his eagle to the destruction of Ragusa,’ the Senate nobly replied ‘that it was the custom of their city to refuse asylum to no man, but to protect everyone who fled to them in misfortune.’ On this occasion Ragusa underwent a seven years’ siege.
Even those who had been the bitterest enemies to the Republic were glad in less prosperous days to throw themselves on a hospitality that never failed. Bogoslave, the king of Dalmatia, had besieged Ragusa with 10,000 men for sheltering the widowed queen, Margarita; but when, on his death, his widowed queen and son were driven forth from their country, Ragusa did not hesitate to give them shelter, too. Stephen Némanja, the Grand Župan of Serbia and Rascia, who had twice laid siege to Ragusa, once with an army of 20,000 horse and 30,000 foot, seeing himself likely to be worsted in his struggle with the Byzantine Emperor, sent to ask the senate of Ragusa if he, too, should be allowed to claim their right of asylum, and obtained permission to retire here with his family if defeated; and that, though his adversary was allied to the republic.
A city strong enough and generous enough to shelter the unfortunate on either side could not fail to find many well-wishers among the neighbouring peoples and princes; and though Ragusa suffered much in defence of her privilege of asylum, she won more. Silvester, a king of Dalmatia, who had found shelter within her walls, on recovering power, testified his gratitude by presenting Ragusa with the islands of Calamotta, Mezzo, and Giupan. Stephen, a former king, in return for hospitality conferred on him as a voluntary guest, made over to the Republic the neighbouring coast-lands from the Val-di-noce to Epidaurus. The good relations which she cultivated with the Bosnians, and the gratitude of the Némanjas, enabled Ragusa to lay the foundations of her commercial eminence in the heart of Illyria; and in 1169 two Ragusan merchants built a factory on the site of what has since become the capital of Bosnia.
But Ragusa obtained one reward for hospitality to a royal stranger which must claim an especial interest from Englishmen. Richard Cœur-de-Lion, during his ill-fated voyage from the Holy Land, overtaken by a storm in the Adriatic, vowed that he would build a church at the spot where he should reach land in safety. He landed on the small rocky island of Lacroma, which lies opposite the old port of Ragusa. But he was conducted to the neighbouring city of Ragusa with great pomp by the Senate, and entertained with such profuse hospitality and magnificent shows, that he yielded to the prayers of the Ragusans, and obtained a dispensation from the Pope, to build the promised church in Ragusa itself, though it appears that his Holiness made him build a small church on Lacroma as well. The church which was now built with English money (though Richard had to borrow for the purpose), was the old cathedral of Ragusa. For beauty it was unrivalled in Illyria,[331] but unfortunately no trace of it now remains, as it was entirely destroyed by the earthquake of 1667.