Understanding the past is today not only limited to understanding and interpreting historical events, but also on the study of knowledge, understanding how and why we know what we know about the past. The ideas of Michel Foucault about the close relationship between discourse and power and, even more, Said’s Orientalism and the ways the cultural ‘Other’ is perceived in literature, represent the most significant foundation-stones of contemporary postcolonial discourse. Postcolonial readings of early modern and 19 th /early 20 th century Western literature related to Eastern and Southeastern Europe show very specific literary techniques used to describe and perceive these regions as European internal ‘Others’. Such accumulated ‘knowledge’ about Eastern Europe and the ‘Balkans’ significantly affected the ways these regions were perceived, not only in literature, but also in politics and historiography. Both books reviewed here are firmly rooted in bodies of works and ideas developing from these initial works. More specifically, they explore two distinct and attractive topics, which both belong in the wider context, famously called ‘Balkanist’ discourse by Todorova. Raspudic’s study focuses on the perception of the Croats in early modern and modern Italian literature, while Drapac deals with the origins and changing perceptions of Yugoslavia from outside perspectives, focusing on Anglophone and francophone writing. Nino Raspudic is lecturer of Italian studies at the University of Zagreb, and is

This paper discusses ancient Pannonian identity-narratives and their transformations until Late Antiquity. As far as we know, Pannonian identity first appears in the written sources as an outsider's depiction of the indigenous communities living in what will become Roman southern Pannonia and northern Dalmatia. After the Roman conquest, the narratives of Pannonianess become more complex and develop into what we can today see as a set of different outside labels, and internal self-perceptions relating to the Roman province(s) of Pannonia, their regions, and individual communities. The focal point is Pannonian narratives from the southern parts of the province. This is more an outline of the different identity-narratives rather than a full and thorough exploration of all available sources.

Abstract This paper re-examines the sources reporting on the campaigns of Asinius Pollio in 40/39 BC, and reviews the scholarly debate about the targets and aims of his campaigns. In the debate a new source is introduced, the passage on Pollio′s conquest of Salona, from the medieval Historia Salonitana of Thomas the Archdeacon of Spalatum (Split). The analysis shows that the passage from Thomas does not correspond with any known source and it suggests that he used a more substantial report on the siege and capture of Salona, probably from the textual tradition of the Vergilian scholia, which sprung from the lost commentary of Aelius Donatus. The existence of this textual tradition about Pollio′s campaign in central Dalmatia in the Vergilian scholia and the “Epitomes” of Florus, in conjunction with Horace′s mention of Pollio′ s Dalmatian triumph, makes it more certain that Pollio campaigned in central Dalmatia.

This paper is focusing on the use of motifs from Croatian early medieval history in Nazor’s topical collection of poetry entitled Hrvatski kraljevi (The Kings of the Croats). Hrvatski kraljevi functions perfectly within its Zeitgeist, as Nazor’s way to re-create Croatian historical memory and distribute it as ‘poetical knowledge’ to the readers. The metaphor of blut und boden, strongly showing throughout this topical collection of poetry, constructs and embodies continuity with the past, and boosts the sense of national unity in Nazor’s present(s). For Nazor’s generation of Croatians, medieval Croats were tremendously important symbols used to draw and develop a Croatian historical ‘genealogy’ in order to position the Croatians amongst European nations of the time.

C. Ravonius Celer was a sailor of the Misene fleet from Dalmatia. C. Ravonius Celer qui et Bato Scenobarbi (f.) from Naples (CIL 10.3618 = Dessau 2901): D(IS) M(ANIBUS) / C(AIUS) RAVONIUS CELER QUI ET BATO SCE / NOBARBI NATION(E) DAL[M(ATA)] / MANIP(U)L(ARIS) EX (TRIREME) ISID[E MIL(ITAVIT) ANN(IS)] XI VIXIT [ANN(IS) …] / P(UBLIUS) AELIUS V[…] I VENER[(E)…] This inscription from his tombstone provides important evidence about the process of construction of individual identities in the period of the early principate, for it reveals the parallel existence of Roman and indigenous identity in a funerary context, commemorating C. Ravonius Celer, who is also at the same time Bato, a son of Scenobarbus of the Dalmatian ‘nation’. This inscription records the two identities of C. Ravonius Celer/Bato, which were incorporated into his personality as an essential part of who he was, revealing both his private and public self.

Drawing on the new ways of reading and studying ancient and early medieval sources, this book explores the appearance of the Croat identity in early medieval Dalmatia.

1. Introduction, approaches, review of sources and secondary literature 2. Illyricum in Roman foreign affairs: historical outline, theoretical approaches and geography 3. Roman trans-Adriatic engagement (229-168 BC) 4. Rome across the Adriatic in the late Republic (167-59 BC) 5. The construction of Illyricum: Caesar in Illyricum and the civil war (59-44 BC) 6. Octavian in Illyricum 7. From senatorial to imperial Illyricum: Bellum Pannonicum 8. The failure of Greater Illyricum: the Bellum Batonianum 9. Iulio-Claudians in Illyricum: the tale of two provinces Conclusion. The construction of Illyricum in Roman political discourse Timeline Bibliography Index.