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Hello, welcome to The Rest Is History. For fans of the England football team, Tom,

the subject of today's podcast is something of a sore point, because four years ago, when

the World Cup was held in Russia, England went on a remarkable run to reach the semi-finals,

but were knocked out by the eventual runners-up Croatia. And Croatia is a wonderful country,

fascinating history. Tom, you've chosen a subject from Croatian history to focus on today,

and who or what are you talking about? Croatian-ish. The focus is a period longer before

the creation of the modern-stage Croatia. And the focus is a man called, he was born

Diocles in the third century AD, early 240s AD, at a place called Salona. And today,

if you've been to the city of Split, Solin is still there, it's a suburb of Split now.

But back in the third century AD, it belonged to a region called Dalmatia, which in turn was part

of a region of the empire called Illyricum. So Tom, just to jump in for one second, so those

people who don't know much about Croatian history, but maybe have been to Croatia. If they've been

through Split, they will have seen one of the most extraordinary Roman buildings, still standing,

which is Dioclesians Palace, which is basically the city center of Split. Yes, it is. And you may be

wondering what's the link between this chap Diocles and Dioclesian. Well, all will be revealed

in due course, because Diocles is a figure from a very, very obscure background. He's the son of

a scribe who may have been a freedman or may actually have been a slave. So Diocles may conceivably

have been born unfree. So he comes absolutely from the bottom of the pile. And yet amazingly,

...