FROM THE TIME OF ITS CONQUEST BY THE ROMANS UNTIL THE EXTINCTION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST-B. C. 146, TO A. D. 717. In Octavo, price 16s. His work is therefore learned and profound. It throws a flood of light upon an impor- tant though obscure portion of Grecian history. and learning, Mr Finlay bears a favourable comparison with any historical writer of our day."North American Review. MEDIEVAL GREECE CHAPTER I. CHANGES OF THE POPULATION AFTER THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. A. D. 540-1460 SECT. I.-OBSERVATIONS ON THE EARLY POPULATION OF GREECE THE fate of the Greeks, after the loss of their liberty, continues to supply us with lessons of political experience that are to be found in no other portion of the annals of the human race. The Roman conquest first compressed the Hellenic race into a distinct nation. That union was effected by the destruction of the local patriotism that gives its greatest charm to ancient history. Fortunately, it had been fully accomplished before Greece was invaded by the northern nations; for though the Greeks repulsed the Goths and Huns, they could not prevent the Sclavonians from creeping silently into the most secluded valleys of their primeval scats. Two leading facts form the basis of Greek history at the commencement of the Byzantine empire: the diminution in the numbers of the Hellenic race, and the A § 1. CHAP. I. settlement of Sclavonian colonies throughout Greece. The Byzantine writers inform us, that for several centuries the Sclavonians formed the bulk of the population in ancient Hellas. The precise extent to which this Sclavonian colonisation was carried has been the subject of warm discussion. One party still maintains that the present inhabitants of Greece are Byzantinised Sclavonians; another upholds them to be the lineal descendants of the men who were conquered by the Romans. This latter party generally selects an earlier genealogical era, and talks only of a descent from the subjects of Leonidas and the fellow-citizens of Pericles. Both seem equally far from the truth. But nations affect antiquity of blood and nobility of race as much as individuals; and surely the Greeks, who have been so long deprived of glory in their immediate progenitors, may be pardoned for displaying a zealous eagerness to participate directly in the fame of a past world, with which they alone can claim any national connection. It is not, therefore, surprising that the work of Professor Fallmerayer, who attempted, with great ability, to prove that the Hellenic race in Europe was exterminated by the Sclavonians, deeply wounded both Greek patriotism and Philhellenic enthusiasm.1 Before reviewing the various immigrations into Greece during the middle ages, it is necessary to notice two questions connected with the population in earlier times which still admit of doubt and discussion. Their importance in determining the extent to which the bulk of the popula The principal work of Fallmerayer is entitled Geschichte der halbinsel Morea während des Mittelalters. A subsequent tract forms a necessary appendix. It is entitled Welchen Einfluss hatte die Besetzung Griechenlands durch die Slaven auf das Schicksal der Stadt Athen? oder die Entstehung der heutigen Griechen. In both these works, which contain much original matter, there is too much latitude in the use of authorities. The ablest opponent of Fallmerayer is Zinkeisen, but his Geschichte Griechenlands is far from a triumphant refutation. It has the merit of exact references to the original authoritics. Two Greeks at Athens have also attempted to reply to Fallmerayer, but their works contain nothing that has not been better stated in Germany. ELEMENTS OF THE POPULATION IN GREECE. 3 § 1. tion may have been of mixed race during the classic ages CHAP. I. is great. The one relates to the proportion in which the Pelasgi, or original inhabitants, combined with the agricultural classes of the Hellenic race; the other, to the numbers of the slave population, and to the manner in which slavery declined and disappeared. A doubt arises. whether the agricultural slaves were exterminated by the barbarian invaders of the Hellenic soil, or were absorbed into the mass of the Sclavonian or Byzantine population. These questions prove how uncertain all inquiries into the direct affiliation of whole nations must be. Of what value is the oldest genealogic tree, if a single generation be omitted in the middle? Whether the Greeks themselves were not a foreign tribe that intruded themselves on a race of which the Pelasgi were the principal branch, is a question that will probably always remain doubtful. Whether the Greeks exterminated this older race, as our own historians represent the Saxons to have exterminated the Britons, or mingled with them to form one people, like the Saxons and Normans, or whether the difference between the Greeks and Pelasgi was not so great as to exclude all consanguinity, are questions that belong to the realm of conjecture, not of history. As the two ablest modern historians of Greece, Grote and Thirlwal, adopt different views on the Pelasgic question, it may be considered as one that is not likely ever to be decided.1 The question concerning the numbers of the slave population hardly admits of a more satisfactory answer. Liberated slaves certainly engrafted themselves into the 1 Thirlwal, History of Greece, vol. i. chap. 2. Grote, History of Greece, vol. ii. 349. The subject is treated with learning and judgment by Mr Mure of Caldwell, in his Critical History of the Language and Literature of Greece, vol. i. 48. After all, we have nothing explicit on the language of the Pelasgians but the passage of Herodotus, i. 57; and his words would authorise us to infer that the languages of the ancient Greeks and the Pelasgians were as different as those of the modern Greeks and the Albanians. Yet it would perhaps be as applicable if the difference were no greater than that between high and low German, or between Dutch and English. CHAP. I. native blood of Greece, to some extent, in Roman times; § 1. but it is difficult to ascertain what proportion of the freedmen that filled Greece were of foreign origin. Slavery was for many ages the principal agent of productive industry in Greece; the soil was cultivated by slaves, and all manufactured articles were produced by their labour. Throughout the whole country, they formed at least onehalf of the population. Now, although the freedmen and descendants of liberated foreign slaves never formed as important an element in the higher classes of the population of Greece as they did of Rome, still they must have exerted a considerable influence on society. And here a question forces itself on the attention,-Whether the singular corruption which the Greek language has undergone, according to one unvarying type, in every land where it was spoken, from Syracuse to Trebizond, must not be, in great part, attributed to the infusion of foreign elements, which slavery introduced into Hellenic society in numberless streams, all flowing from a similar source? The Thracians and Sclavonians were for centuries to the slavetrade of the Greeks what the Georgians and Circassians have been for ages to the Mohammedan nations, and the Negroes of the African coast to the European colonies in America. Whatever may have been the operation of these causes in adulterating the purity of the Hellenic race and the Greek language, we know that they did not display any effect until about the middle of the sixth century of our era. At that time, the population of Greece presented all the external signs of a homogeneous people. In the third century, the Greek language was spoken by the rural population with as much purity as by the inhabi 1 For the best information on the numbers of the slave population, see Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. ii. 381. In comparing the numbers of the slaves in Greece with those in the slave states of North America, we must recollect that the proportion of adults would be greater in Greece, as the importation was free. |