e of the same benefit ennobled
them with the title of Eleuthero, or Free-Laconians. [16] In the time
of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, they had acquired the name of Mainotes,
under which they dishonor the claim of liberty by the inhuman pillage of
all that is shipwrecked on their rocky shores. Their territory, barren
of corn, but fruitful of olives, extended to the Cape of Malea: they
accepted a chief or prince from the Byzantine praetor, and a light
tribute of four hundred pieces of gold was the badge of their immunity,
rather than of their dependence. The freemen of Laconia assumed the
character of Romans, and long adhered to the religion of the Greeks.
By the zeal of the emperor Basil, they were baptized in the faith of
Christ: but the altars of Venus and Neptune had been crowned by these
rustic votaries five hundred years after they were proscribed in the
Roman world. In the theme of Peloponnesus, [17] forty cities were still
numbered, and the declining state of Sparta, Argos, and Corinth, may be
suspended in the tenth century, at an equal distance, perhaps, between
their antique splendor and their present desolation. The duty of
military service, either in person or by substitute, was imposed on the
lands or benefices of the province; a sum of five pieces of gold was
assessed on each of the substantial tenants; and the same capitation was
shared among several heads of inferior value. On the proclamation of
an Italian war, the Peloponnesians excused themselves by a voluntary
oblation of one hundred pounds of gold, (four thousand pounds sterling,)
and a thousand horses with their arms and trappings. The churches
and monasteries furnished their contingent; a sacrilegious profit was
extorted from the sale of ecclesiastical honors; and the indigent bishop
of Leucadia [18] was made responsible for a pension of one hundred
pieces of gold. [19]

[Footnote 15: Says Constantine, (Thematibus, l. ii. c. vi. p. 25,) in
a style as barbarous as the idea, which he confirms, as usual, by a
foolish epigram. The epitomizer of Strabo likewise observes, (l. vii. p.
98, edit. Hudson. edit. Casaub. 1251;) a passage which leads Dodwell
a weary dance (Geograph, Minor. tom. ii. dissert. vi. p. 170-191) to
enumerate the inroads of the Sclavi, and to fix the date (A.D. 980) of
this petty geographer.]

[Footnote 16: Strabon. Geograph. l. viii. p. 562. Pausanius, Graec.
Descriptio, l. c 21, p. 264, 265. Pliny, Hist. Natur. l. iv. c. 8.]

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