The Latin states in the southern parts of the Balkan Peninsula fared somewhat better. William of Champlitte had contrived to hew out for himself a principality in the western parts of the Peloponnesus, and had organized there a small state with twelve baronies and 136 knights fees. The resistance of the natives in this district was particularly weak, and one battle sufficed to give William all the coast-plain of Elis and Messenia. Yet he did not succeed in subduing the mountaineers of the peninsula of Maina, or the coast towns of Argolis and Laconia, so that the Greeks still had some foothold in the peninsula. Another small Latin state was set up by Otho de la Roche in Central Greece, where as “Duke of Athens” he ruled Attica and Boeotia. He treated his Greek subjects with more consideration than any of his fellow Crusaders, and was rewarded by obtaining a degree of respect and deference which was not found in any other Latin state. Though the smallest, the duchy of Athens was undoubtedly the most prosperous of the new creations of the conquest of 1204. Meanwhile it is time to speak of the fortunes of those parts of the Eastern Empire which the Franks did not succeed in seizing when Constantinople fell. The provinces had hitherto been accustomed to accept without a murmur the ruler whom the capital obeyed. But in 1204 it was found that the centralization of the Byzantine Empire, great as it was, had not so thoroughly crushed the individuality of the provinces as to make them submit without resistance to the Latin yoke. Wherever the provincials found a leader, whether a member of one of the ex-imperial houses, or an energetic governor, or a landholder of local influence, they stood up to defend themselves. The Byzantine Empire, like some creature of low organism, showed every sign of life in its limbs, though its head had been shorn off. Wherever a centre of resistance could be found the people refused to submit to the piratical Frank, and to his yet more hated companions the priests of the Roman Church.