THE PEOPLES OF THE BALKAN PENLNSULA. 619 



every analogy with the neighboring populations leads us to the con- 

 clusion that the classical Hellenes were distinctly of the Mediterranean 

 racial types, little different from the Phoenicians, the Romans, or the 

 Iberians. 



Since the Christian era, as we have said, a successive downpour of 

 foreigners from the north into Greece has ensued.* In the sixth 

 century came the Avars and the Slavs, bringing death and disaster. 

 A more potent and lasting influence upon the country was probably 

 produced by the slower and more peaceful infiltration of the Slavs 

 into Thessaly and Epirus from the end of the seventh century onward. 

 A result of this is that Slavic place names to-day occur all over the 

 Peloponnesus in the open country where settlements could readily 

 be made. The most important immigration of all is probably that of 

 the Albanians, who, from the thirteenth century until the advent of 

 the Turks, incessantly penetrated the land. As a result the Albanian 

 language is spoken to-day over a considerable part of the Pelopon- 

 nesus, especially in its northeastern corner, where it attaches to the 

 mainland. Only one little district has preserved, it may be added, 

 anything like the original classical Greek speech. The Tzakons, in a 

 little isolated and very rugged district on the eastern coast, include 

 a number of classical idioms in their language. Everywhere else, 

 either in the names of rivers, mountains, and towns, or in borrowed 

 words, evidence of the powerful influence of the Slavic infiltration 

 occurs. This has induced Eallmerayer, Philippson, and others to 

 assert that the Slavs have in fact submerged the original Greeks en- 

 tirely, f Explicit rebuttal of this is offered by Hopf, Hertzberg, and 

 Tozer, who admit the Slavic element, but still declare the Greeks to be 

 Greek. This is a matter concerning which neither philologist nor 

 geographer has a right to speak ; the anthropological testimony is the 

 only competent one. To this we turn. 



The modern Greeks are a very mixed people. There can be no 

 doubt of this fact from a review of their history. In despite of this, 

 they still remain distinctly true to their original Mediterranean an- 

 cestry. This has been most convincingly proved in respect of their 

 head form.:}: The cephalic index of modern living Greeks ranges with 

 great constancy about 81. This, it should be observed, betokens an 

 appreciably broader head than in the case of the ancient Hellenes. 

 Stephanos, who has measured several hundred recruits, finds dolicho- 



* Philippson, Zur Etbnographie des Peloponnes. Petermann, xxxvi, 1890, pp. 1-1 1, 

 33-41, with map, gives a good outline of these. Consult also Stephanos, 1884, pp. 422 

 et scq. 



I Cf. Couvreur, 1890, p. 514 ; and Freeman, 18*77 d, p. 401. 



% Weisbach, 1882; Nicolucci, 186*7; Apostolides in Bull. Soc. d'Anth., 1883, p. 614; 

 Stephanos, 1884 ; Neophytos, 1891 ; Lapouge, 1896 a, p. 419. Von Luschan, 1889, p. 209, 

 illustrates the similarity between the Greek and the Bedouin skull. 



