22O THE RACES OF THE DANUBE. [xi. 



Thrace, Illyricum, and Macedonia. Overcoming, and, 

 to some extent, crowding out, the Gothic inhabitants, 

 they were within a century firmly established through- 

 out the area between the Black Sea and the Adriatic, 

 which they have ever since continued to occupy. 

 But, far from attempting to set themselves up as an 

 independent political power in this territory, they 

 were readily brought to acknowledge the sovereignty 

 of the Empire. They no more thought of overthrow- 

 ing the dominion of Rome than the Germans did : 

 what they were after was a good share of its material 

 advantages. To have set up a rival imperium would 

 have been quite beyond their slender political capa- 

 city, and their imagination did not reach so far as to 

 conceive the idea. So long as they were allowed to 

 retain their forcibly-acquired possessions of land and 

 cattle, they were quite ready to help to defend the 

 Empire against Tataric Avars and other marauders. 

 The relations thus knit between the Slavs and the 

 government at Constantinople were similar to those 

 established between the Germans and the imperial 

 authorities in the West. Slavonic troops came to 

 form a large and redoubtable element in the eastern 

 armies, and to the infusion of new life thus received 

 we may no doubt partly attribute the prolonged 

 maintenance of the Byzantine Empire. It is, 



