SCLAVONIANS ATTACK PATRAS. 17 his chronology to have been drawn from Byzantine official documents, and not from any local records concerning the Sclavonian settlements in the Peloponnesus. The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who is an earlier authority, differs from the Patriarch Nikolaos, and places the completion of the colonisation of the Peloponnesus by the Sclavonians in the year 746.1 At all events these foreigners, who had invaded the peninsula at some period between the years 589 and 746, were sufficiently numerous to attempt the conquest of Patras, and to form the project of expelling the Greeks from the Peloponnesus in the year 807. Indeed, they came so near success in the first part of their plan that Patras appeared to have been saved only by a miracle, and it was deemed necessary for St Andrew to take the field in person, as the champion and saviour of the Hellenic race. The Sclavonians must undoubtedly have become dangerous enemies, both to the Greek population and the Byzantine government, before it was the general opinion that they could only be defeated by miraculous interpositions.2 Some considerable change took place in the state of the Peloponnesus about the end of the sixth century, though we are in the dark concerning the nature and extent of the revolution. During the reign of the Emperor Maurice, A.D. 582-602, the episcopal see of Monemvasia was separated from the diocese of Corinth, and raised to the rank of a metropolitan. Now, as the metropolitan bishops were at this period important agents of the central government for the civil administration of the provinces, this change indicates a necessity of furnishing the Greek population of the south-western part of the Peloponnesus with a resident chief of the highest administrative authority; and we may conjecture that this 1 Const. Porphyr., De Them. ii. p. 25. 2 Compare Fallinerayer, Geschichte des halbinsel Morea, i. 138, and Zinkeisen, Geschichte Griechenlands, 702. B A. D. 807. § 3. CHAP. I. became necessary in consequence of some new impediments having arisen, rendering the communications with Corinth rarer and more difficult than in preceding times.1 In the period between the reigns of Justinian I. and Heraclius, a considerable portion of Macedonia was entirely colonised by Sclavonians, who aspired at rendering themselves masters of the whole country, and repeatedly attacked the city of Thessalonica.2 In the reign of Heraclius other warlike tribes of Sclavonian race, from the Carpathian Mountains, were invited by the Emperor to settle in the countries between the Save and the Adriatic, on condition of defending these provinces against the Avars, and acknowledging the supremacy of the Byzantine government. By this treaty the last remains of the Illyrian race were either reduced to the condition of serfs, or forced southward into Epirus.3 This emigration of the free and warlike Sclavonians, within the limits of the empire, as allies of the government, is of importance in elucidating the history of the Greeks. Though it is impossible to trace any direct communication between these Sclavonians, and those settled in Greece and the Peloponnesus, it is evident, that the new political position which a kindred people had thus acquired must have exerted a considerable influence on the character and movements of all the Sclavonian colonists in the Byzantine empire. The country between the Hamus and the Danube was also conquered by the Bulgarians, under their chief Asparuch, about the year 678. The greater part of the territory subdued by the Bulgarians had already been 1 Compare Phrantzes, p. 398, edit. Bonn, and Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, ii. 216. The MS. chronicle of Monemvasia, in the library of Turin, mentioned by Fallmerayer, ought to throw some light on this subject. 2 See the learned exposition of all that relates to the Sclavonians in Macedonia in Tafel's work, De Thessalonicâ ejusque Agro. Poleg. civ. 3 Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, De Administ. Imp., cap. xxx., xxxi., xxxii. MACEDONIA AND THRACE BECOME SCLAVONIAN. 19 § 3. occupied by Sclavonian emigrants, who appear to have CHAP. I. exterminated the last remains of the old Thracian race. These Sclavonians were called the Seven Tribes ; and the Bulgarians, who conquered the country and became the dominant race, were so few in number that they were gradually absorbed into the mass of the Sclavonian population. Though they gave their name to the country and language, the present Bulgarians are of Sclavonian origin, and the language they speak is a dialect of the Sclavonian tongue.1 A few years after the loss of Mosia, the Emperor Justinian II. established numerous colonies of the Sclavonians who acknowledged the Byzantine sovereignty in the valley of Strymon, for the purpose of defending the possessions of the Greeks against the incursions of their independent countrymen on the frontiers.2 In the early part of the eighth century, it seems that the greater part of the Peloponnesus was occupied by Sclavonians, for the peninsula was then regarded by European navigators as Sclavonian land. In the account of St Willibald's pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 723, it is said that, after quitting Sicily and crossing the Adriatic sea, he touched at the city of Manafasia (Monemvasia) in the Sclavonian land.3 The name of Sclavinia at times obtained a widely extended, and at times a very confined, geographical application. We find it used in reference to particular districts and cantons in Macedonia and Thrace, but it does not appear to have been permanently applied to any considerable province within the territories. of ancient Greece. It is thus proved by sufficient authority that the Scla 1 Theophanes, 298. Schafarik's Slavische Alterthümer, ii. 170. * Const. Porphyr., De Thematibus, ii. p. 23. Falimerayer quotes this passage, Geschichte des halbinsel Morea, ii. 444, from Acta Sanctorum apud Bolland, ad 8 Jul., p. 504-"Et inde (e Sicilia) navigantes venerunt ultra mare Adriaticum ad urbem Manafasiam in Slavinicâ terrå." $ 3. CHAP. I. Vonians had settled in the Peloponnesus in numbers at the very commencement of the eighth century. The completion of the colonisation of the whole country of Greece and the Peloponnesus-for such is the phrase of the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus-is dated by the imperial writer from the time of the great pestilence that depopulated the East in the year 746.1 The events, if really synchronous, could not have been very immediately connected as cause and effect. The city population must have suffered with more severity from this calamity than the rural districts; and it is mentioned by the chronicles of the time, that Constantinople, Monemvasia, and the islands of the Archipelago, were principal sufferers; and, moreover, that the capital was repeopled by additional drafts from the population of Greece and the islands.2 Even in ordinary circumstances, it is well known that an uninterrupted stream of external population is always flowing into large cities, to replace the rapid consumption of human life caused by increased activity, forced celibacy, luxury and vice, in dense masses of mankind. According to the usual and regular operation of the laws of population, the effects of the plague ought to have been to stimulate an increase of the Greek population in the rural districts which they still retained; unless we are to conclude, from the words of Constantine, that after the time of the plague all the Greeks were in the habit of dwelling within the walls of fortified towns, and the country was thus entirely abandoned to the Sclavonians, whose colonies, already established in Greece, found by this means an opportunity of extending their settlements. The fact seems to be so stated by the imperial writer, who declares that at this time "all the country became Sclavonian, and was occupied by 1 Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, De Thematibus, lib. ii. p. 25, edit. Bund. Theophanes, 354. Cedrenus, ii. 462. Nicephorus Cpolitanus, p. 40. Theophanes, p. 354, 360. SCLAVONIAN COLONISATION OF GREECE COMPLETED. 21 foreigners."1 And in confirmation of the predominance of the Sclavonian population in the Peloponnesus, he mentions an anecdote which does not redound to the honour of his own family. A Peloponnesian noble named Niketas, the husband of a daughter of his own wife's brother, was extremely proud of his nobility, not to call it, as the emperor sarcastically observes, his ignoble blood. As he was evidently a Sclavonian in face and figure, he was ridiculed by a celebrated Byzantine grammarian in a popular verse which celebrated his wily Sclavonian visage.2 The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus dates the completion of the Sclavonian colonisation of Greece in the reign of Constantine V. (Copronymus ;) and yet it is evident, from Byzantine history, that a mighty social revolution in the Greek race had commenced during the reign of his father Leo III., (the Isaurian) and that the people then began to awake reinvigorated from a long lethargy. From this period all the Sclavonians within the bounds of the empire, who attempted to display any signs of political independence, not only began to meet with a determined resistance, but were repeatedly attacked in the districts they had occupied. Still, it required all the energy of the Iconoclast emperors, men in general of heroic mould and iron vigour, to break the Sclavonian power, which had formed itself an independent existence in the northern provinces of the empire. This, however, 1 Const. Porphyr., De Them., ii. 25. This passage is so important, from its official authority, that it must be transcribed in order that neither more nor less than it contains be attributed to it. Πᾶσα ἡ Ἑλλὰς τε καὶ ἡ Πελοπόννησος ὑπὸ τὴν τῶν Ῥωμαιων σαγήνην ἐγένετο, ὥστε δούλους ἀντ ̓ ἐλευθέρων γενέσθαι. Εσβλαβώδη δε πᾶσα ἡ χώρα καὶ γέγονε βάρβαρος ὅτε ὁ λοιμικὸς θάνατος πᾶσαν ἐξόσκετο τὴν οἰκουμένην, ὁπηνίκα Κωνσταντίνος ὁ τῆς κοπρίας ἐπώνυμος τὰ σκήπτρα τῆς τῶν ̔Ρωμαίων διείπεν ἀρχῆς. * The words are γαρασδοειδὴς ὄγις ἐσβλαβωμένη, and there has been much discussion concerning their signification. See Kopitar, Miscellanea Græcoslavica. De Imp., Const. Porphyr., loco Satyrico, p. 63. Niketas married Sophia the daughter of the son and colleague of the Emperor Romanos I., the father-inlaw of Constantine. Niketas was a favourite Sclavonian name at this time. The Greek church had a Sclavonian patriarch Niketas from A.D. 766 to 780. A. D. 746. |