 The province of Dalmatia spread inland to cover all of the Dinaric Alps and most of the eastern Adriatic coast.Dalmatia was the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who, upon retirement from Emperor in AD 305, built a large palace near Salona, out of which the city of Split later developed.Historians such as Theodore Mommsen and Bernard Bavant argue that all Dalmatia was fully romanized and Latin speaking by the 4th century.