OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 307 



itary commanders, judges, lawyers, physicians, schoolmasters (such as 

 they were), merchants, and, above all, of the ritual of the Greek Church. 

 The disappearance of the Slavic from Greece is by no means a singular 

 phenomenon. The Latin forced itself upon the Dacians, and upon the 

 greater part of the Celtic race ; the Egyptians and Syrians adopted the 

 language of the Koran, the sacred book of their conquerors, the Sara- 

 cens. And it may be added here, that the Tzakones and Albanians of 

 Greece will probably, in less than two generations, speak good Modern 

 Greek as their native tongue, if education in that country continues to 

 advance at its present rate. It would seem further, that the Slavs began 

 to learn Greek before the time of Basil. Thus, in the reign of Copro- 

 nymus (in the eighth century) we find a Sclavonian eunuch filling the 

 oecumenical see of Constantinople. This dignitary, however, was not 

 remarkable for his scholarship, his forte being eating and drinking, ac- 

 cording to Glycas.* 



• An anecdote preserved by Porphyrogenitus seems to imply that the 

 Graeco-Slavs of Peloponnesus prided themselves upon their lineal de- 

 scent from the ancient Greeks, because they spoke Greek and went to 

 the Greek Church, although their features sufficiently showed the pre- 

 dominance of the Slavic element.! 



If we now suppose that, from some cause or other, the barbarians 

 who occupied Cynuria after the disappearance of the oi'iginal popula- 

 tion, found it easier to lose their original tongue than to learn Greek 

 as spoken by the Greeks, we have a plausible or probable solution of 



i _^__ 



* Theophanes, p. 680, 7 'I'jjc^a) tov ^aaiKicos x^i-poTovelrai NtKijras 6 diro 

 S/cXajScov evvovxos a6i(TfX(x)s TraTpi,dpxr]sK<ovcrTavTivovTr6X€a>s- Glycas, p. 527, 

 13 Kal Tore NtKjjras tis evvovxos ra nprnra (f)€p(i)v Trapa t» KoTrpcovvfjici) ixrjbev 

 aXko eldas t] luB'ieiv Kal TTLveiv ;:^eipoToi/errat TraTpidpxrjS- Ovtos rrore to 

 evayyeXiov dvajLvaxTKav iv rw KeXXt'o) avTov dvTi rov elndv 'Ek tov KaTo. 

 MaTdalov, 'Eac tov naTa Mar^di'oi' e^e(f>d)vr]cr€V. 'Ecpi' a Kai tis Tmu na- 

 pL(TTap€V(i3v elne, Mtj biaipei Trjv AI 8i(f)doyyov. Upos ov eKelvos e(f)r] fiera 

 6vp.ov, f^Xvapels ' to. yap 8i(pdoyya Kal TpL(f)6oyya TroXXa pia-el rj 'v/'i'X'? H'OV. 

 The full form of the sentence preceding the gospel of the day, when it is 

 found in Matthew, is 'Ek tov KaTo. MuTdalop ayiov evayyeXiov to dvdyvaxrfia, SC. 

 ia-Ti. If the gospel is found in Mark, we have 'Ek tov kuto. MdpKov, and so 

 on. The words 8i(pdoyya and rpi'^^oyya are used by the author of the anec- 

 dote in allusion to the patriarch's being eKrer/xTj/ieVos. 



t See above, p. 300. 



