fourteenth century, Athens, as a government or an appanage, was successively bestowed by the kings of Sicily. After the French and Catalans, the third dynasty was that of the Accaioli, a family, plebeian at Florence, potent at Naples, and sovereign in Greece. Athens, which they embellished with new buildings, became the capital of a state, that extended over Thebes, Argos, Corinth, Delphi, and a part of Thessaly; and their reign was finally determined by Mahomet the Second, who strangled the last duke, and educated his sons in the discipline and religion of the seraglio. 51 (return) [ See the laborious history of Ducange, whose accurate table of the French dynasties recapitulates the thirty-five passages, in which he mentions the dukes of Athens.] 52 (return) [ He is twice mentioned by Villehardouin with honor, (No. 151, 235;) and under the first passage, Ducange observes all that can be known of his person and family.] 53 (return) [ From these Latin princes of the xivth century, Boccace, Chaucer. and Shakspeare, have borrowed their Theseus _duke_ of Athens. An ignorant age transfers its own language and manners to the most distant times.] 54 (return) [ The same Constantine gave to Sicily a king, to Russia the _magnus dapifer_ of the empire, to Thebes the _primicerius_; and these absurd fables are properly lashed by Ducange, (ad Nicephor. Greg. l. vii. c. 5.) By the Latins, the lord of Thebes was styled, by corruption, the Megas Kurios, or Grand Sire!] 55 (return) [ _Quodam miraculo_, says Alberic. He was probably received by Michael Choniates, the archbishop who had defended Athens against the tyrant Leo Sgurus, (Nicetas urbs capta, p. 805, ed. Bek.) Michael was the brother of the historian Nicetas; and his encomium of Athens is still extant in MS. in the Bodleian library, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc tom. vi. p. 405.) * Note: Nicetas says expressly that Michael surrendered the Acropolis to the marquis.—M.]