M O R E A. 



715 



Mom, city in the vicinity of the ancient one, and revived 

 *"~V"~ throughout Greece the reign of science and the arts. 

 Under the Antonines the schools of Athens -were re- 

 stored to their former splendour; and the city swarm- 

 ed with a multitude of philosophers, and their re- 

 spective disciple*. Sparta had fallen into obscurity, 

 except that the Emperor Caracalla chose a band of her 

 citizens as his body-guard. In the year 2til, the Heru- 

 li pillaged the greater part of the Morea, and eight 

 years afterwards, Athens was taken by the Goths, but 

 rescued from their hands by one of its citizens named 

 Cleodemus. In Sy5, the whole of Peloponnesus fell 

 under the successive ravages of the barbarians ; and 

 its devastation was completed by the troops under Sti- 

 lico, who marched to its deliverance. Justinian made 

 some attempts to repair its ruins ; and, when the east- 

 ern empire was divided into governments called The- 

 mala. Lacedsemon became a domain of the brothers, 

 or eldest sons of the Emperor, who assumed the title 

 of Despots. From this period, A. D. 527, there are 

 few historical records of this renowned region, tor the 

 long space of 700 years. In 8K>, Greece was over- 

 run by the Sclavonians, who are supposed to be the 

 ancestor* of the modem Mainottes; and, in 1081, the 

 western coasts were ravaged by the Turks. About 

 the beginning of the l-'tli century, the Venetians and 

 other western nations invaded the Peloponnesus, .which 

 appears, about this time, to have changed its name for 

 that of the Morca, in consequence (as i conjectured) 

 of it- abounding in mulberry trees, which then began 

 to be extensively cultivated in the growing manufac- 

 ture of ilk in the country. In the commencement of 

 the 13th century, Boniface, Marquis of Montserrat, 

 joined by other band* of Crusaders, reduced the whole 

 of the Morea, which was soon after given up to the 

 Venetians by the terms of a general treaty concluded 

 at Constantinople. Occasionally possessed by different 

 chief*, called princes of the Morea, it was for 57 years 

 the subject ot contention tetween the I.atin emperors 

 ic East, and the Greek emperors who had retired 

 into Asia. Occupied at different times, for short pe- 

 riods, by variousadTenturers.it fell at length, in the be- 

 ffimiintr of the 15th century, under the power of the 

 Mussulmans. It was reconquered by the Venetian-* in 

 1688, and retained by them till 1715, when it reverted 

 again to the Ottoman empire. In 1770, a last and un- 

 availing attempt was made by its inhabitant.*, at the in- 

 tig. itherine II. of Russia, to throw off the 



Mahometan yoke; but the Turkish oppressions have 

 Miice that period increased in severity, and nothing can 

 exceed the present wretched degradation of the once 

 celebrated people who inhabited the plains of Pclo- 



But modem Greece, so long forgotten in history, and 

 obliterated from the list of nations, has attained, in 

 these later ages, a new species of renown ; and 1 

 -ire the resort of the learned and ingenious from every 

 . by the mere attraction of its monumental remains. 

 As soon as the nations of Europe were roused from their 

 barbarism, their attention was directed to the cities of 

 the Morea, as the repository of all that survived of an- 

 liect art and ornament So early as the year 1 Hi."., 

 Francesco Gambietti made drawings on vellum of many 

 of these Grecian monuments, which were deposited in 

 the Barberini library at Rome, and which are the more 

 curious and valuable, as they were taken when these 

 structures were still entire. In 1550, Nicholas Gerbel 

 published at Basil a description of Greece. In 1581, 

 Martin Crusius, profeuor of Greek and Latin in the 



university of TubiHgen, in a work entitled Turco-Grte- Mores. 

 cia, gave an account of Greece from the year 1444 to T"" Y ~""* 

 the time in which he wrote. About the beginning of Hlslor 5 r - 

 the l~th century, the establishment of French consuls 

 in Attica, and about 50 years afterwards, the arrival of 

 the Jesuit missionaries from the same ccuntry, contri- 

 buted to enlarge the knowledge of Grecian monurrjents 

 in the Morea. De Monceaux, who visited Greece in 

 1668, described antiquities, of which not a vestige now 

 remains; and Father Babin, published, in 1672, the 

 most complete and circumstantial account of the city 

 of Athens which had then appeared. But the travels 

 of Ipion and Wheeler, in 16'78, presented the ablest 

 view that had been given, in modern times, of Grecian 

 arts and antiquities. At the same time, the Earl of 

 Winchelsea conveyed several fragments of Grecian 

 sculpture to England ; and Vernon, an English travel- 

 ler, published a rapid sketch of his travels in Greece in 

 the Philosophical Transactions. From this date the tra- 

 vellers in Greece found only the ruins of many of the 

 finest monuments hitherto described by their predeces- 

 sors, in consequence of the ravages committed by the 

 Venetians in their reconquest of the Morea. In 1728, 

 the Abbe Fmirrnont was sent to the Levant in quest 

 of inscriptions and monuments, but his work was never 

 published; and Pococke, in 1739, gave one of the 

 most accurate descriptions that had yet been made of 

 Grecian ruins. In 1758, the picturesque tour of 

 Greece by Leroi, a French artist; and, in 17fll, the 

 more correct views published in Stuart's Antiquities of 

 Athens, made great additions to the topography of 

 modern Greece ; but the work of Chandler, a few 

 years afterwards, rendered almost every other account 

 superfluous. During the Russian invasion in 1770, 

 many of the remaining monuments in the Morea were 

 demolished, and succeeding travellers began soon after 

 to carry away every portable fragment of Grecian art, 

 as the only mode of preserving them from more bar- 

 barous destroyers. Baron Reidesel in 1773, M. de 

 Choiseul in 1778, Foucherot and Fauvel in 1780, still 

 fc.und something new in addition to former descrip- 

 tions. The travels of M. Scrofani in 17SH, and the 

 works of Poucqueville, who describes however what 

 he did n/it vi.-it, have rendered modern Greece more 

 fully known in many points of considerable import- 

 ance ; but the numerous researches of English travel- 

 lers in every corner of Grecian territory, have fur- 

 nished a mass of intelligence, which cannot be brought 

 within the compos of an article like the present ; and 

 to which we must refer our readers for the fullest in- 

 formation on the subjects so briefly noticed in the fol- 

 lowing paragraphs. 



A few Greek families pretend to trace their descent Political 

 from the distinguished names who once stood at the State, 

 head of the Byzantine empire ; and are considered as 

 forming a clas* of Grecian nobility at the present day. 

 To these the Ottoman court has granted four dignities 

 or high offices, which are a perpetual object of ardent 

 competition among them, and in which they are in- 

 cessantly intriguing how to supplant one another. 

 These are, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the office 

 of Dragoman or chief interpreter to the Porte, and the 

 governments of Moldavia and Wallachia. The first 

 is always procured by simoniacal jmrchase; the second 

 generally in the same way. The person who enjoys 

 it, has the opportunity of recommending to various 

 posts of honour and profit, and receives a due remun- 

 eration for every, exertion of his influence. The two 

 last, which are commonly bestowed upon the Drag- 



