[14] There are recent theories based on excavations that the city was established much earlier, at least in the 5th century and possibly during the Ancient Greek period (as per Antun Ničetić, in his book Povijest dubrovačke luke).

[11] The Saracens laid siege to the city in 866–867; it lasted for fifteen months and was raised due to the intervention of Byzantine Emperor Basil I, who sent a fleet under Niketas Ooryphas in relief.

[11] In 1050, Croatian king Stjepan I (Stephen) made a land grant along the coast that extended the boundaries of Ragusa to Zaton, 16 km (10 mi) north of the original city, giving the republic control of the abundant supply of fresh water that emerges from a spring at the head of the Ombla inlet.

On 22 January 1325, Serbian king Stefan Uroš III issued a document for the sale of his maritime possessions of the city of Ston and peninsula of Pelješac to Ragusa.

This trading activity culminated in the year 1428, on 9 August, when a group of Vlachs pledged to the lord of Ragusa, Tomo Bunić, that they would provide a delivery of 600 horses along with 1500 modius of salt.

The intended recipient of the delivery was Dobrašin Veseoković, and in exchange the Vlachs agreed to receive payment equal to half the amount of salt delivered.

[34] It could enter into relations with foreign powers and make treaties with them (as long as not conflicting with Ottoman interests), and its ships sailed under its own flag.

[citation needed] On 6 April 1667, a devastating earthquake struck and killed around 2,000 citizens, and up to 1,000 in the rest of the republic,[41] including many patricians and the Rector (Croatian: knez) Šišmundo Gundulić.

The Grand-Vizier, struck with the capacity Marin showed in the arts of persuasion and acquainted with his resources in active life, resolved to deprive his country of so able a diplomat, and on 13 December he was imprisoned, where he was to remain for several years.

In 1684, the emissaries renewed an agreement contracted in Visegrád in the year 1358 and accepted the sovereignty of Habsburg as Hungarian Kings over Ragusa, with an annual tax of 500 ducats.

In view of this danger and anticipating the defeat of the Ottomans in 1684 Ragusa sent emissaries to Emperor Leopold in Vienna, hoping that the Austrian Army would capture Bosnia.

Even though the emissaries managed to persuade General Molitor not to violate Ragusan territory, Napoleon was not content with the stalemate between France and Russia concerning Ragusa and the Bay of Kotor and soon decided to order the occupation of the Republic.

[46] Upon entering Ragusan territory and approaching the capital, the French General Jacques Lauriston demanded that his troops be allowed to rest and be provided with food and drink in the city before continuing on to Kotor.

M. Lauriston would have come off much better, if he had disdained making any excuse, and suffered the circumstance to stand upon its own unqualified foundations of state necessity and the right of the strongest.

Until that be effected, he will retain possession of Ragusa; but is there anyone who will believe, that if there was not a Russian flag or stand of colours to be seen in Albania, or on the Adriatic, that he would reestablish that Republic in its former independence?

The city was in the utmost straits; General Molitor, who had advanced within a few days' march of Ragusa, made an appeal to the Dalmatians to rise and expel the Russian–Montenegrin force, which met with a feeble response.

Seducing one of the temporary governors of the Republic, Biagio Bernardo Caboga, with promises of power and influence (which were later cut short and who died in ignominy, branded as a traitor by his people), they managed to convince him that the gate to the east was to be kept closed to the Ragusan forces and to let the Austrian forces enter the city from the west, without any Ragusan soldiers, once the French garrison of 500 troops under General Joseph de Montrichard had surrendered.

[56]: 141 The Flag of Saint Blaise was flown alongside the Austrian and British colors, but only for two days because, on 30 January, General Milutinović ordered Mayor Sabo Giorgi to lower it.

Overwhelmed by a feeling of deep patriotic pride, Giorgi, the last Rector of the Republic and a loyal francophile, refused to do so "for the masses had hoisted it".

Ragusan representative Miho Bona, elected at the last meeting of the Major Council, was denied participation in the Congress, while Milutinović, prior to the final agreement of the allies, assumed complete control of the city.

The Ragusan archives document, Speculum Maioris Consilii Rectores, lists all the persons that were involved in the Republic's government between September 1440 and January 1808.

Of 4397 rectors elected, 2764 (63%) were from "old patrician" families: Gozze, Bona, Caboga, Cerva, Ghetaldi, Giorgi, Gradi, Pozza, Saraca, Sorgo, and Zamanya.

These names alluded to a certain controversy arisen from the wars between Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and King Francis I of France, which happened some 250 years previously.

In the second half of the 15th century, due to Turkish expansion, Dubrovnik received a large number of Christian refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, offering them the less fertile land.

[62] The Dalmatian city-states were characterized by common Latin laws, Catholic religion, language, commerce, and political and administrative structures; however, their rural hinterland was controlled by the Slavic people who arrived in the 7th century.

[63] In the republic, only Roman Catholics and Jews had the right to profess religion, while Orthodox Christians were prohibited (and could not stay in the city during the night without special permission).

[66] Russian statesman and diplomat Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy, during his 1697–1699 visit of the eastern Adriatic coast, mentioned that the Republic of Ragusa was inhabited by Ragusans who are "sea captains, astronomers and sailors.

[68] The Serbian ethnic identity appeared only in the first half of the 19th century with the short-lived Serb-Catholic movement in Dubrovnik (inspired by the Orthodox priest Georgije Nikolajević), in the context of broader political circumstances and activity of Austria-Hungary and new Principality of Serbia.

[91] According to Marcus Tanner: During the Renaissance era, Venetian-ruled Dalmatia and Ragusa gave birth to influential intellectuals – mostly minor aristocrats and clergymen, Jesuits especially – who kept alive the memory of Croatia and the Croatian language when they composed or translated plays and books from Italian and Latin into the vernacular.

[93] Writers and lexicographers from the 16th to the 19th century that were explicit in declaring or identifying as Croats and their language as Croatian included Mavro Vetranović, Nikola Nalješković, Dinko Zlatarić, Vladislav Menčetić, Bernardin Pavlović, Junije Palmotić, Jakov Mikalja, Joakim Stulli, Marko Bruerović.