DALMATIA dăl mā’ shə (Δαλματία, G1237). Dalmatia (2 Tim 4:10) was a district in the southern part of Illyricum, a somewhat vaguely defined area of coast and mountain hinterland that lay E of the Adriatic Sea confronting Italy. Rome first compelled the warlike tribes of this area to acknowledge her sovereignty in the middle years of the 2nd cent. b.c. Subjugation was precarious and far from complete, and the Dalmatians remained a military problem until Octavian, the future emperor Augustus, brought the area more firmly under Rom. control. The Pax Romana was finally established by his successor, Tiberius. It was a vital area in the prosecution of Rome’s project of a Rhine-Danube frontier.

Paul’s brief and unexplained reference to Illyricum in writing to Rome (Rom 15:19) may mean that the apostle himself had founded Christian churches in the southern and more Hellenized parts of the region. He possibly visited the area from Macedonia after his Ephesian ministry (Acts 20:1).