СПАР. І.

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their attention by the spectacle of desolate provinces and uninhabited cities, by forming colonies on a scale that excites our wonder even in this age of colonisation. We have seen that the Emperor Justinian II. transported nearly two hundred thousand Sclavonians to Asia on one occasion. His removal of the Mardaite population of Mount Lebanon was on the same extensive scale. Future emperors encouraged emigration to as great an extent. A colony of Persians was established on the banks of the Vardar (Axios) as early as the reign of Theophilus, (A.D. 829-842,) and it long continued to flourish and supply recruits for a cohort of the imperial guard, which bore the name of the Vardariots.1 Various colonies of the different Asiatic nations who penetrated into Europe from the north of the Black Sea in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, were also established in Macedonia and Thrace. In the year 1065 a colony of Uzes was settled in Macedonia; and this settlement acquired so much importance that some of its chiefs rose to the rank of senators, and filled high official situations at Constantinople.2 Anna Comnena mentions colonies. of Turks established in the neighbourhood of Achrida before the reign of her father, (A.D. 1081.3) A colony of Patzinaks was settled in the western part of Macedonia by John II. in the year 1123;4 and colonies of Romans were also established both in Macedonia and Thrace, after the empire had been depopulated by the Crusaders and Bulgarians, by John III. (Vatatzes) in the year 1243.5 All these different nations were often included under the general name of Turks; and, indeed, most of them were descended from Turkish tribes.

1 Codinus, De Officiis Aula Constantinopolitanæ, 66, 75, note. Tafel, De Thessalonica, 70.

2 Skylitzes, Ad Cal. Cedreni, 816. Zonaras, ii. 273. Anna Comnena, 195. 3 Anna Comnena, 109, 315.

• Nicetas, 11.

Nicephorus Gregoras, 21.

SECT. VI.-BULGARIANS AND VALLACHIANS IN GREECE.

The wars of the Byzantine emperors with the Bulgarian kings, from the time of the establishment of the monarchy, in the latter half of the seventh century, to its destruction by the Emperor Basil II. in the early part of the eleventh, form an important and bloody portion of the annals of the Byzantine empire. The wars of the Bulgarians with the Carlovingian monarchs give them also some degree of importance in Frank history. After they had adopted the language of their Sclavonian subjects, and embraced Christianity, they extended their dominion southward over the Sclavonian tribes settled in Mount Pindus, and encroached far within the limits of the Byzantine empire. In the year 933, the Bulgarians first formed permanent settlements to the south of Macedonia, and intruded into the territories occupied by those Sclavonians who had settled in Greece. In that year they rendered themselves masters of Nicopolis, and colonised the fertile plains on the Ambracian Gulf. After this they more than once ravaged Greece, and penetrated into the Peloponnesus.1 Their colonies, scattered about in southern Epirus, continued to exist after the conquest of the Bulgarian kingdom by Basil II., and the defeat of a body of Byzantine troops sent against them in the year 1040 by Petros Deleanos, enabled them to assume a temporary independence. The city of Nicopolis was soon reconquered by the Byzantine armies; but the Bulgarians long continued to form a distinct class of the population of southern Epirus, though the similarity of their language to that of the Sclavonians led ultimately to their becoming confounded with the mass of the Sclavonian colonists.2

The second Bulgarian kingdom, formed by the rebellion

1 Cedrenus, 702.

C

2 Ibid. 745.

CHAP. I. § 6.

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CHAP. I. of the Bulgarians and Vallachians south of the Danube against the Emperor Isaac II., in 1116, took place after the complete extinction of the old Bulgarian language, and this kingdom seems really more of a Vallachian than a Bulgarian or Sclavonian state. The court language, at least, appears to have been Vallachian, and the monarchs to have affected to regard themselves as descendants of the Romans. 1

Amidst the innumerable emigrations of different races, which characterise the history of Eastern Europe from the decline of the Roman empire to the conquest of Constantinople by the Othoman Turks, the Vallachians formed to themselves a national existence and a peculiar language, in the seats they still occupy, by amalgamating a portion of the Dacian, Roman, and Sclavonian population of the country into one people. That they grew out of the Roman colonies, which spread the language and civilisation of Italy in these regions, is generally admitted. They make their appearance in Byzantine history as inhabiting an immense tract of country, stretching in an irregular form from the banks of the Theis, in Hungary, to those of the Dneister, and from the Carpathian Mountains to the southern counterforts of the chain of Pindus, bordering the Thessalian plain.2 But in this great extent of country, they were mingled with other races in a manner that makes it extremely difficult for us to know which was the most numerous portion of the population at different epochs.

As early as the eleventh century, the Vallachian race had descended into the plains of Thessaly, and dwelt in

Epistolarum Innocentii III., lib. ii. epist. 266, tom. i. p. 513, edit. Baluze. Colonel Leake mentions that the Bulgarian language-that is, the Sclavonian dialect now spoken in Bulgaria-is still the language of some villages in the mountains to the south of Achrida. - Travels in Northern Greece, i. 341, 347.

Chalcocondylas, 16, 40. Nicetas, 236, speaks of the Vlachoi as inhabitants of Mount Hæmus; but the Greeks of his time, as now, probably used the word, indiscriminately of race, to indicate nomade shepherds.

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several towns.1 In the twelfth, they had become the CHAP. I. masters of a considerable part of the country, which had already acquired from their occupancy the name of Great Vallachia.2 The close affinity of their language to Latin is observed at this period by the Byzantine historian, John Kinnamos.3 Benjamin of Tudela, the famous Jew traveller, who visited Greece about the year 1161, records the great extent of their territorial possessions in Thessaly, and the independent position they held with regard to the imperial authorities. 4 These Vallachians may have been descendants of a population introduced by the Emperor Basil II., to repeople the country which had been depopulated by his bloody war with the BulgaroSclavonian monarchy of Achrida, recruited by new colonies from beyond the Danube, or increased by a natural augmentation arising out of the favourable circumstances in which they were placed in this peculiar locality. They seem, at all events, to have completely expelled the original Greek inhabitants within the limits of their dominions. Benjamin places the southern limit of Great Vallachia near Zeitouni. "Here are the confines of Vallachia, a country the inhabitants of which are called Vlachi. They are as nimble as deer, and descend from the mountains into the plains of Greece, committing robberies and making booty. Nobody ventures to make war upon them, nor can any king bring them to submission; and they do not profess the Christian faith. Their names are of Jewish origin,5 and some even say they have been Jews, which nation they call brethren. Whenever they meet an Israelite, they rob, but never kill him as they do the Greeks. They profess no religious creed." This account is evidently not to be

1 Anna Comnena, 138.

3 Cinnami Hist. 152; and Ducange's note, 483.

2 Nicetas, 410.

4 The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, translated by A. Asher, i. 48. The frequency of the names of Samuel, Simeon, Daniel, Gabriel, and Moses, in Vallachian history, is marked on every page.

CHAP. I. relied on as authentic information, for the Vallachians § 7. were undoubtedly Christians; and Benjamin felt naturally very little desire to form a personal acquaintance with people who were in the habit of robbing Jews, even though they murdered Greeks, and were named Daniel. He only reports the information he had picked up in the neighbouring Greek towns from Jews, who may have suffered from the plundering propensities of these nimblefooted brethren of Israel. This district long continued to bear the name of Vallachia or Vlakia, both among the Greeks and the Frank conquerors of Greece.1

A body of Vallachian population still exists in the mountains of southern Epirus and Thessaly. They are found in the upper valley of the Aspropotamos (Achelous) about Malakasa, Metzovo, and Zagora, in the districts of Neopatras and Karpenisi, and in the country about Moskopolis, twelve hours' journey to the east of Berat. Their whole number, however, in all these districts, does not appear to exceed 50,000 souls.2

SECT. VII.-ALBANIAN COLONIES IN GREECE.

The Albanian or Skipetar race, which at present occupies more than one quarter of the surface of the recently constituted kingdom of Greece, first makes its appearance in Byzantine history in the year 1079, as forming part of the army of the rebel Nicephorus Vasilakes, when he assumed the imperial title. The Albanians were then, as now, the inhabitants of the mountains near Dyrrachium. The existence of the Albanian name in these regions dates from a far earlier period. Albanopolis, which is the principal town of the northern district,

1 Acropolita, 23, 33. Pachymeres, i. 49. Chronicle of the Conquest, (French,)

414.

2 Pouqueville in his Voyage de la Grèce, ii. 394, estimates their numbers at 74,470. He affects exactitude in his exaggerations.

3 Skylitza Hist. ad calcem Cedreni, 865.