As early as the last quarter of the sixth century (A.D. 582), the movements set in towards Greece; Thrace and Macedon being overrun by Slavonians. The details here, however, are obscure, and there is an occasional confusion of the Slaves with the Avars. The latter nation, however, seems to have made no notable settlement in Southern Greece at least. In the latter half of the seventh century, Thessaly, Epirus, several of the islands, and parts of Asia Minor were overrun. In the ninth, Macedon is called Slavonia (Σκλαβἱνια). In the eleventh, Athens is sacked, and the inhabitants driven to take refuge in the isle of Salamis. Under Constantine Porphyrogeneta, the presence of an Hellenic population is an exception. “In Macedon,” he writes, “the Scythians dwell, instead of the Macedonians.” Again, “the whole country is Slavonized.” But the most remarkable passage is the following, which shows that a Slavonic population is so far the rule that where an approach to the ancient population is found it is dealt with as a remarkable phenomenon; and that by a Greek writer:--“It must be known that the inhabitants of the settlement (κἁστρον) Maina, are not of the race of the aforesaid Slaves, but of the old Romans, and even till the present time, they are called by their neighbours _Hellenes_, from having been originally Pagans and idolatrers like the old Hellenes.”--De Adm. Imp. I. 50. Latin writers, equally with the Greek, considered Greece to be Slavonic:--“Inde (_i.e._, Sicilia) navigantes venerunt ultra mare Adrium ad urbem _Manafasiam_ in Sclavinica terra.”--From a Journal of St. Willibald, the writer of which, by Manafasia, means Napoli di _Malvasia_ in the Morea. More than this. The details of some of these Slavonic populations are given; so that we know that there were Ezeritæ and Milengi in the Morea, with Dragovitæ, Sagudatæ, Velegezetæ, Verzetæ, and others in Northern Greece. In diminished numbers, the representatives of the old Laconians exist at the present time. A.D. 1573, they had fourteen, they have now but three, villages--Prasto, or the ancient Prasiæ, Kastanitza, and Silina. With the exception of their dialect, the Romaic of modern Hellas is said to be spoken with considerable uniformity over the whole of Greece. Without investigating the difficult question as to the proportion of Slavonic elements, it may fairly be said that Ancient Greece is the area of a greatly, and Modern Greece that of an inordinately, mixed stock. To this mixture, Italians, Albanians, and other populations of modern Europe have added. CHAPTER VI.