The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—TurkeyHogarth, D. G. (David George)
History
The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey
Hogarth, D. G. (David George)
Balkan Peninsula -- History; Eastern question (Balkan)
lake of Scutari in the south to the river Drinus (the modern Drina),
whose course it followed till the Save was reached in the north.
An event of far-reaching importance in the following century was the
elevation by Constantine the Great of the Greek colony of Byzantium
into the imperial city of Constantinople in 325. This century also
witnessed the arrival of the Huns in Europe from Asia. They overwhelmed
the Ostrogoths, between the Dnieper and the Dniester, in 375, and the
Visigoths, settled in Transylvania and the modern Rumania, moved
southwards in sympathy with this event. The Emperor Valens lost his
life fighting against these Goths in 378 at the great battle of
Adrianople (a city established in Thrace by the Emperor Hadrian in the
second century). His successor, the Emperor Theodosius, placated them
with gifts and made them guardians of the northern frontier, but at his
death, in 395, they overran and devastated the entire peninsula, after
which they proceeded to Italy. After the death of the Emperor
Theodosius the empire was divided, never to be joined into one whole
again. The dividing line followed that, already mentioned, which
separated the prefecture of Italy from those of Illyria and the Orient,
that is to say, it began in the south, on the shore of the Adriatic
near the Bocche di Cattaro, and went due north along the valley of the
Drina till the confluence of that river with the Save. It will be seen
that this division had consequences which have lasted to the present
day. Generally speaking, the Western Empire was Latin in language and
character, while the Eastern was Greek, though owing to the importance
of the Danubian provinces to Rome from the military point of view, and
the lively intercourse maintained between them, Latin influence in them
was for a long time stronger than Greek. Its extent is proved by the
fact that the people of modern Rumania are partly, and their language
very largely, defended from those of the legions and colonies of the
Emperor Trajan.
Latin influence, shipping, colonization, and art were always supreme on
the eastern shores of the Adriatic, just as were those of Greece on the
shores of the Black Sea. The Albanians even, descendants of the ancient
Illyrians, were affected by the supremacy of the Latin language, from
which no less than a quarter of their own meagre vocabulary is derived;
though driven southwards by the Romans and northwards by the Greeks,
they have remained in their mountain fastnesses to this day, impervious
to any of the civilizations to which they have been exposed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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