306 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



It appears, then, that when the Slavs entered Greece, in the eighth 

 century, there were Greeks enough left to absorb the Slavic element, 

 and to serve as a nucleus for the new race, — the Greeks of the later 

 empire, and the progenitors of the modern Greeks. Of course, the 

 pi-oportion of the Slavs to the Greeks cannot be determined with any 

 degree of certainty. 



It may be well to mention here the curious fact that the French, who 

 held possession of Peloponnesus in the thirteenth century, had no doubt 

 that those who spoke Greek were the descendants of the ancient Greeks. 

 " A great while ago," said one of them, " these Romans were called 

 "EWrjvfs. Tiiey were an arrogant nation, and still are so. Their pres- 

 ent name comes from Rome. And because of their arrogance and su- 

 perciliousness, they have abandoned the ritual of the Church of Rome, 

 and pride themselves upon being schismatics."* The speaker, how- 

 ever, was a better fighter than historian or theologian. He was not 

 aware of the fact that the Greeks had lost their national consciousness, 

 together with their ancient religion, in the seventh century, after which 

 time they regarded themselves not as Hellenes and heathens, but as 

 Romans and Christians. And as to their ancient appellation CEWrjves), 

 it was usually employed as a terra of obloquy. To infor from lan- 

 guage the identity of a modern with an ancient nation, it is necessary 

 to prove historically that that nation never had any other language 

 since its first appearance on earth. 



"When the Emperor Basil is said to have Romanized, Christianized, 

 and Grecized his Slavic subjects, in the ninth century, we are not to 

 suppose that he interdicted the Slavic tongue, and thus forced those 

 whose vernacular it was to use the Greek. We are only to remember 

 that the Slavic, when it came in contact with the Greek, was a barbar- 

 ous language, an unwritten language, an uncultivated language, and, 

 under ordinary circumstances, incapable of resisting the encroachments 

 of its powerful neighbor, which, in addition to its full development and 

 rich literature, had the advantage of being the language of the Emperor 

 and of the imperial city, of the clergy, of the provincial governors, mil- 



* Conquest, Prolog. 794 Aia^dvTfs yap xpovoi ttoXXoi avr^voi ol Pco/xaiot 

 "EWrjvfS (ixav to ovofMa (avaient du noni) ovrais tovs uvo/Jid^av. IloXXa rjcrav 

 oKa^oviKoi, aKOfiT] to KpaTovcriv. 'Atto ttjv Pafirjv €7Tr]pacn,v to ovofia Tap Pco- 

 fiaicov. 'Att' avTT]S Ttjs oKa^oveias ttjv eiraptriv onov el)(av 'A(f)f]Ka(nv tov ophivav 

 TTjs fKKKrjaias ttjs PwyLti/s, Kai arfKovv ws IcrfiaTiKoc, fj-vfoi to /caCp^o (xovv- 



