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triumph and the victory were the work of the apostle." A particular duty was imposed upon these Slavs, a duty which hitherto had probably been a burden upon the town. They were obliged to provide and defray the board and entertainment of all Imperial officials who visited Patrae, and also of all foreign ambassadors who halted there on their way to and from Italy and Constantinople. For this purpose they had to maintain in the city a staff of servants and cooks.1 The Emperor also made the bishopric of Patrae a Metropolis, and submitted to its control the sees of Methone, Lacedaemon, and Korone. It is possible that he sent military colonists from other parts of the Empire to the Peloponnesus, as well as to the regions of the Strymon and other Slavonic territories,3 and if so, these may have been the Mardaites, whom we find at a later period of the ninth century playing an important part among the naval contingents of the Empire. We may also conjecture with some probability that this settlement was immediately followed by the separation of the Peloponnesus from Hellas as a separate Theme.5

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It would be too much to infer from this narrative that the Slavonic communities of Achaia and Elis, which were doubtless concerned in the attack on Patrae, were permanently reduced to submission and orderly life on this occasion, and that the later devastations which vexed the peninsula in the

1 ἔχοντες ἰδίους καὶ τραπεζοποιοὺς καὶ μαγείρους κτλ. The Slavs defrayed the expense ἀπὸ διανομῆς καὶ συνδοσίας τῆς ὁμάδος αὐτῶν. The passage is interesting, as it shows incidentally that, as we should expect, the ordinary route of travel from Italy to Constantinople was by Patrae and Corinth.

2 Nicolaus, Synodal Letter, cit. supra. 3 Theoph. 486 τὰ στρατεύματα πάντῃ ταπεινῶσαι σκεψάμενος Χριστιανοὺς ἀποικίσας ἐκ παντὸς θέματος ἐπὶ τὰς Σκλαυινίας γενέσθαι προσέταξεν (A.D. 809-10); 496 οἱ τὸν Στρυμῶνα οἰκοῦντες μέτοικοι προφάσεως δραξάμενοι ἐν τοῖς ἰδίοις φεύγοντες ἐπανῆλθον. (Cp. Hopf, 98, 126.) See next note.

4 The western Mardaites (oi M. Tŷs dúoews) took part in the Cretan expedition of A.D. 902, and numbered with their officers 4087 men (Const. Porph. Cer. ii. 44. p. 655). They had fought against the Saracens in Sicily in the reign of Basil I.; Cont. Th. 304

τῶν κατὰ Πελοπόννησον στρατιωτῶν καὶ Μαρδαιτῶν, 311 τῶν κατὰ Πελ. Μαρδαιτῶν καὶ Ταξατῶν. As they belonged to the marine establishment, they were probably settled in the coast towns. See Bury, Naval Policy, 29, where their settlement in Greece is connected with the later subjugation by Theoktistos, and this seems to me rather more probable.

5 See above, p. 224. Michael I. ap-
pointed Leo Sklêros stratêgos of Pelo-
ponnesus, Scr. Inc. 336.
We may
probably attribute to Leo V. the erec-
tion of a watch-tower somewhere in
the Peloponnesus, to warn the city of
the approach of enemies, doubtless the
Saracens, recorded in the inscription
(Corp. Inser. Gr. iv. No. 8620):

ἄναξ Λέων ἔστησε πύργον ἐνθάδε
λύχνῳ προφαίνειν τοὺς λόχους τῶν
βαρβάρων.

Cp. Hopf, 105.

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reigns of Theophilus and Michael III. were wrought by the Slavs of Laconia and Arcadia. It is more probable that the attack on Patrae was not confined to the inhabitants of a particular district; and that all the Slavs in the peninsula united in another effort to assert their independence before the death of Theophilus. Their rebellion, which meant the resumption of their predatory habits, was not put down till the reign of his son, and we do not know how soon. We may, however, conjecture that it was the Empress Theodora who appointed Theoktistos Bryennios-the first recorded member of a family which was long afterwards to play a notable part in history-to be stratêgos of the Peloponnesian Theme, and placed under his command large detachments from the Themes of Thrace and Macedonia, to put an end to the rapine and brigandage of the barbarians. Theoktistos performed efficiently the work which was entrusted to him. He thoroughly subjugated the Slavs throughout the length and breadth of the land, and reduced them to the condition of provincial subjects.2 There were only two tribes with whom he deemed it convenient to make special and extraordinary terms. These were the Milings, perched in places difficult of access on the slopes of Mount Taygetos, and the Ezerites in the south of Laconia. On these he was content to impose a tribute, of 60 nomismata (about £35) on the Milings, and 300 (about £180) on the Ezerites. They paid these annual dues so long at least as Theoktistos was in charge of the province, but afterwards they defied the governors, and a hundred years later their independence was a public scandal.

The reduction of the Peloponnesian Slavs in the reign of Michael prepared the way for their conversion to Christianity and their hellenization.3 The process of civilization and

1 The sole source is Constantine, op. cit. 220-221. The narrative, not suggesting that the revolt lasted long, is in favour of supposing that the Slavs were reduced early in the reign of Theodora and Michael. We cannot go further than this. The date (c. 849) given by Muralt and Hopf (Geschichte, 127) rests on the false identification of Theoktistos Bryennios with Theoktistos the Logothete (cp. Hirsch, 220); but there is another consideration which renders the approximate

dating 847-850 plausible; see above, p. 373.

2 They retained their lands and customs, but their social organization under župans seems to have come to an end. (Cp. Hopf, 127.) The word župan survives in Modern Greek, TSOUTάvis, in the sense of "herd."

3 The foundation of monasteries and churches was one of the principal means by which the change was effected. The christianization progressed rapidly under Basil I. and his successors.

blending required for its completion four or five centuries, and the rate of progress varied in different parts of the peninsula. The Milings maintained their separate identity longest, perhaps till the eve of the Ottoman conquest; but even in the thirteenth century Slavonic tribes still lived apart from the Greeks and preserved their old customs in the region of Skorta in the mountainous districts of Elis and Arcadia.1 We may say that by the fifteenth century the Slavs had ceased to be a distinct nationality; they had become part of a new mixed Greek-speaking race, destined to be still further regenerated or corrupted under Turkish rule by the absorption of the Albanians who began to pour into the Peloponnesus in the fourteenth the fourteenth century. That the blending of Slavonic with Greek blood had begun in the ninth century is suggested by the anecdote related of a Peloponnesian magnate, Nicetas Rentakios, whose daughter had the honour of marrying a son of the Emperor Romanus I. He was fond of boasting of his noble Hellenic descent, and drew upon himself the sharp tongue of a distinguished grammarian, who satirized in iambics his Slavonic cast of features.2 But the process of hellenization, was slow, and in the tenth century the Peloponnesus and northern Greece were still regarded, like Macedonia, as mainly Slavonic.3

1 See Finlay, iv. 21, 22. It is remarkable that in the Chronicle of Morea it is only in connexion with Slavonic regions that the word dpóyyos,

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as

defle,” is used : ὁ δ. τῶν Σκλαβῶν 4605, ὁ δ. τοῦ Μελιγγοῦ 4531, cp. 2993, ὁ δ. τῶν Σκορτών 5026. But notwithstanding, the etymology is not the Slavonic dragu, "wood," as G. Meyer would have it (op. cit. 135); Spóyyos is the same word δροῦγγος, drungus, the Byzantine military term, which is derived from Germanic (Eng. throng). See J. Schmitt's ed. of Chronicle of Morea, p. 605. There are very few Slavonic words in Modern Greek. Miklosich has counted 129 ("Die slavischen Elemente im Neugriechischen," S.B. of Vienna Acad. Ixiii., 1869).

2 Const. Porph. Them. 53 Evýμov ἐκεῖνον τὸν περιβόητον γραμματικὸν ἀποσκώψαι εἰς αὐτὸν τουτοὶ τὸ θρυλούμενον ἰαμβεῖον

γαρασδοειδὴς ὄψις ἐσθλαβωμένη

evidently one verse of an epigram on Nicetas. The meaning of γαρασδοειδής is a well-known puzzle. Finlay's proposal, γαδαροειδής (from γάϊδαρος, an ass), is unlikely, and the explanation of Sathas (see Gregorovius, op. cit. 150), "with the countenance of a Zoroastrian" (Zapáodas), is extremely far-fetched. I suggested that the Slavonic proper name Gorazd may underlie yapaodo (Gorazd, e.g., was the name of one of the pupils of the apostle Methodius); this would suit the context (English Historical Review, vi., Jan. 1891, p. 152).

3 See the tenth-century scholiast on Strabo 7. p. 1251 (ed. Amsterdam, 1707), and, for Elis, 8. p. 1261 (äπavтa γὰρ ταῦτα Σκύθαι νέμονται). The complicated question of race-blending in Greece requires still a thoroughgoing investigation, as Krumbacher observes

We can designate one part of the Peloponnesus into which the Slavonic element did not penetrate, the border-region between Laconia and Argolis. Here the old population seems to have continued unchanged, and the ancient Doric tongue developed into the Tzakonian dialect, which is still spoken in the modern province of Kynuria.1

It is interesting to note that on the promontory of Taenaron in Laconia a small Hellenic community survived, little touched by the political and social changes which had transformed the Hellenistic into the Byzantine world. Surrounded by Slavs, these Hellenes lived in the fortress of Maina, and in the days of Theophilus and his son still worshipped the old gods of Greece. But the days of this pagan immunity were numbered; the Olympians were soon to be driven from their last recess. Before the end of the century the Mainotes were baptized.2

§ 2. The Conversion of Bulgaria

Christianity had made some progress within the Bulgarian kingdom before the accession of Boris. It is not likely that the Roman natives of Moesia, who had become the subjects of the Bulgarian kings, did much to propagate their faith; but we can hardly doubt that some of the Slavs had been converted, and Christian prisoners of war seem to have improved the season of their captivity by attempting to proselytize their masters. The introduction of Christianity by captives is a phenomenon which meets us in other cases,3 and we are

(B.Z. 10. 368). Meanwhile consult A. Philippson, "Zur Ethnographie des Peloponnes," i. and ii., in Petermanns Mitteilungen aus Justus Perthes' geographischer Anstalt, vol. Xxxvi., 1890.

1 The Tzakonian dialect perplexed philologists and was variously taken for Slavonic (Kopitar, Hopf, Philippson) and Albanian (Sathas). But the studies of Deffner (cp. his Zakonische Grammatik, 1881) and Thumb ("Die ethnographische Stellung der Zakonen," in Indogermanische Forschungen, iv. 195 sqq., 1894) have demonstrated that the Tzakones and their language are Greek. The name

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presents difficulties. Thumb holds that the loss of 7 was a rule in the Tzakonian dialect, and suggests the etymology : εἰς Λακωνίαν, 'ς Ακωνία(ν), Σακωνία, Τσακωνία (comparing σέρβουλον : τσέρβουλε). The chief town in the Tzakonian district is Leonidi. Its extent is exhibited in the ethnographical map in Philippson, op. cit. The Téкwves are mentioned in Constantine, Cer. 696.

2 In the reign of Basil I. See Constantine, De adm. imp. 224; Hopf,

129.

3 E.g. the Goths (Wulfilas) and the Iberians.

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not surprised to learn that some of the numerous prisoners who were carried away by Krum made efforts to spread their religion among the Bulgarians, not without success. Omurtag was deeply displeased and alarmed when he was informed of these proceedings, and when threats failed to recall the perverts to their ancestral cult, he persecuted both those who had fallen away and those who had corrupted them.1 Amongst the martyrs was Manuel, the archbishop of Hadrianople. The most illustrious proselyte is said to have been the eldest son of Omurtag himself, who on account of his perversion was put to death by his brother Malamir.

The adoption of Christianity by pagan rulers has generally been prompted by political considerations, and has invariably a political aspect. This was eminently the case in the conversion of Bulgaria. She was entangled in the complexities of a political situation, in which the interests of both the Western and the Eastern Empire were involved. The disturbing fact was the policy of the Franks, which aimed at the extension of their power over the Slavonic states on their south-eastern frontier. Their collision with Bulgaria on the Middle Danube in the reign of Omurtag had been followed by years of peace, and a treaty of alliance was concluded in A.D. 845. The efforts of King Lewis the German were at

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1 Theodore Stud. (Parva Cat. lxiii. pp. 220 sqq.) relates that the Bulgarian ruler, whose name, unfortunately, he does not mention (and the date of this catechesis is unknown), issued a decree that all Christians should eat meat in Lent on pain of death. Fourteen resisted the order. One was put to death, and his wife and children given as slaves to Bulgarian masters, as an example; but the others held out, and were also executed. The khan has been supposed to be Krum; cf. Auvray's note, p. 647. Theophylactus (Hist. mart. 192) relates that one of Krum's captives, Kinamon, was assigned to Omurtag, who became greatly attached to him, and tried to induce him to apostatize. As he was obstinate, he was thrown into a foul prison, where he remained till after Omurtag's death.

2 Cont. Th. 217. Menologion Basilii, Migne, P.G. 117,

According to the
Pars ii., Jan. 22,
276, Krum put

Manuel to death, cutting off his arms
from his shoulders, then cleaving him
in twain with a sword, and throwing
the remains to wild beasts. It is
added that Krum's act caused such
disgust among the Bulgarians that
they strangled him with ropes. All
this is evidently a sensational and
impudent invention. For the persecu-
tion of Tŝok, see above, p. 359.

3 Theophyl. op. cit. 193 sqq. Malamir released the captive Kinamon from prison at the request of his brother Enravôtas. Kinamon converted Enravôtas, who was put to death by Malamir as an apostate. Malamir, according to this narrative (197), died three years later; this would give 848-849 for the death of Enravôtas. We have an earlier instance of apostasy on the part of a royal Bulgarian in Telerig, the refugee who accepted baptism at the court of Leo IV. (Theoph. 451).

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