Is Dalmatia often disregarded or largely overlooked when studying the history of the Roman Empire?

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This is a legitimate question regardless (despite some posted comments) of whether you are British. It is surely a fact that when people in any country study or read about the Roman Empire they normally learn less (if anything at all) about Roman Dalmatia than they do about, say, Roman Gaul, Roman Britain, Roman Egypt etc.

Most people who know much about the Romans probably know that Gaul was conquered for Rome by Julius Caesar, fighting against tribal leaders like Vercingetorix, and that Egypt was added to the Roman Empire by Octavian after he defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium. Far fewer people know when or how Dalmatia became part of the Roman Empire.

However, at least by the early 4th Century AD, the Emperor Diocletian presumably considered Dalmatia a sufficiently civilized place that he chose to retire there, building a palace at what is now Split in Croatia.

This will not be an complete list but I suspect reasons we do not hear more about Roman Dalmatia (and its predecessor Province out of which it was created, Illyria) include:

-While there is archaeology, much of our knowledge and understanding of the Roman world depends on what the relatively small number of Romans whose writings survive chose to record. Romans historians tend to be more interested in what we call events of political and military history than more gradual, general and harder to measure things like growth of population, trade and prosperity.

Extensive Roman remains in the area may indicate that it mostly prospered peacefully under Roman rule. However, unless, say, an Emperor or a general fought a major battle or was assassinated there, or for some reason a major Roman literary figure like Vergil wrote a poem or Cicero made a speech about it, Roman writers whose work survives will tell us little about it.

In late Roman times we also have Christian sources but, perhaps because Christianity began in Palestine so tended to reach places further south and east initially, there is no Letter of St Paul to the Illyrians/ Dalmatians. The recorded debates by which early Christians sorted out their doctrines, like the Arian controversy and the Council of Nicaea, tended to be in places closer to the birthplace of Christianity like Egypt and Asia Minor.

-Which parts of history receive most attention now can be shaped by modern concerns, including attempts to build national identity. The French were taught in schools for generations that 'our ancestors were the Gauls', and the French language is mostly derived from Latin. Consequently Roman Gaul is at least more likely to mean something to them, even if mainly through 'Asterix the Gaul' cartoons in some cases.

Dalmatia did once have its own Latin-based language (Google 'Dalmatian language') but it died out in the nineteenth century. Its pre-Roman language, presumably Illyrian, has long ago died out in the area even if, further south in the Balkans, Albanian may be descended from it. Others who know more may correct me but the now Slavic-speaking Croats may not feel as strong an identification with Roman Dalmatians as 'our ancestors' and tend to identify themselves as a Slavic rather than an Albanian or Latin people, the Slavs having invaded and conquered the area centuries later in Early Medieval times.

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