third of the villages, rivers, and
mountains in European Greece, and are found in the most remote as well as
in the most accessible quarters of the land.[1]

[Footnote 1: For example: Tsimova and Panitsa in the Tainaron peninsula
(Maina); Tsoupana and Khrysapha in Lakonia; Dhimitzana, Karytena, and
Andhritsena in the centre of Peloponnesos, and Vostitsa on its north coast;
Dobrena and Kaprena in Boiotia; Vonitza on the Gulf of Arta; Kardhitsa in
the Thessalian plain.]

With the coming of the Slavs darkness descends like a curtain upon Greek
history. We catch glimpses of Arab hosts ranging across Anatolia at will
and gazing at Slavonic hordes across the narrow Bosphorus. But always the
Imperial fleet patrols the waters between, and always the triple defences
of Constantinople defy the assailant. Then after about two centuries the
floods subside, the gloom disperses, and the Greek world emerges into view
once more. But the spectacle before us is unfamiliar, and most of the old
landmarks have been swept away.

By the middle of the ninth century A.D., the Imperial Government had
reduced the Peloponnesos to order again, and found itself in the presence
of three peoples. The greater part of the land was occupied by 'Romaioi'--
normal, loyal, Christian subjects of the empire--but in the hilly country
between Eurotas, Taygetos, and the sea, two Slavonic tribes still
maintained themselves in defiant savagery and worshipped their Slavonic
gods, while beyond them the peninsula of Tainaron, now known as Maina,
sheltered communities which still clung to the pagan name of Hellene and
knew no other gods but Zeus, Athena, and Apollo. Hellene and Slav need not
concern us. They were a vanishing minority, and the Imperial Government
was more successful in obliterating their individuality than in making
them contribute to its exchequer. The future lay with the Romaioi.

The speech of these Romaioi was not the speech of Rome. 'Romaika,' as it
is still called popularly in the country-side, is a development of the
'koine' or 'current' dialect of Ancient Greek, in which the Septuagint and
the New Testament are written. The vogue of these books after the triumph
of Christianity and the oncoming of the Dark Age, when they were the sole
intellectual sustenance of the people, gave the idiom in which they were
composed an exclusive prevalence. Except in Tzakonia--the iron-bound coast
between Cape Malea and Nauplia Bay--all other dialects of Anci