546 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



as a colonial domain for the Slavs, receiving the overflow of their 

 population from the Sarmatian lowlands 1 ." Their presence is 

 betrayed in numerous geographical terms, such as Varsova in 

 Arcadia, Glogova, Tsilikhova etc. Nevertheless, since the revival 

 of the Hellenic sentiment there has been a steady flow of Greek 

 immigration from the Archipelago and Anatolia; and the Alba- 

 nian, Slav, Italian, Turkish, Rumanian, and Norman elements 

 have in modern Greece already become almost completely Hel- 

 lenised, at least in speech. Of the old dialects Doric alone 

 appears to have survived in the Tsaconic of the Laconian hills. 

 The Greek language has, however, disappeared from Southern 

 Italy, Sicily, Syria, and the greater part of Egypt and Asia Minor, 

 where it was long dominant. 



To understand the appearance of SLAVS in the Peloponnesus 

 we must go back to the Eurasian steppe, the pro- 



The Slavs. . 



bable cradle of these multitudinous populations. 

 Here they are generally identified with the ancient Sarmatse, who 

 already before the dawn of history were in possession of the South 

 Russian plains between the Scythians towards the east and the 

 proto-Germanic tribes before their migration to the Baltic lands. 

 But even at that time, before the close of the Neolithic Age, there 

 must have been interminglings, if not with the western Teutons, 

 almost certainly with the eastern Scythians, which helps to explain 

 the generally vague character of the references made by classical 

 writers both to the Sarmatians and the Scythians, who sometimes 

 seem to be indistinguishable from savage Mongol hordes, and at 

 others are represented as semi-cultured peoples, such as the Aryans 

 of the Bronze period might have been round about the district of 

 Olbia and the other early Miletian settlements on the northern 

 shores of the Euxine. 



Owing to these early crossings Andre Lefevre goes so far as to 

 say that "there is no Slav race 2 ," but only nations of divers more 

 or less pure types, more or less crossed, speaking dialects of the 

 same language, who later received the name of Slavs, borne by a 

 prehistoric tribe of Sarmatians, and meaning "renowned," 



1 Romdnische Studien. 



2 Bui. Soc. d'Anthrop. 1896, p. 351 sq. 



