The next important event in the history of Greece was the great plague, which broke out at Monemvasia in 746 and spread all over the Empire. The political consequences of this visitation were far-reaching. For not only was the population of Greece diminished by the increased mortality there, but it was further lessened by emigration to Constantinople, where there were openings for plasterers and other skilled workmen, and where great numbers had died of the epidemic. The place of these emigrants in the Peloponnese was taken by Slav colonists, and this is the true explanation of the Slavonic colonisation, which Fallmerayer placed so much earlier. In the celebrated words of the Imperial author, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, “All the open country was Slavonised and became barbarous, when the plague was devouring the whole world[35].” It seems from the phrase “open country,” that such Greeks as remained behind crowded into the towns, and that the rural districts were thus left free for the Slavs to occupy. And this is confirmed by the _Epitome of Strabo’s Geography_, compiled apparently about the end of the tenth century, which states that at that time “All Epeiros and a large part of Hellas and the Peloponnese and Macedonia were inhabited by Scythian Slavs.” The memory of this Slavonic occupation has been preserved by the Slavonic names of places, which Colonel Leake was the first to notice. That the Slavs excited the alarm of the Byzantine government is clear from the fact that in 783 Staurakios was despatched by the Empress Irene to crush their efforts at independence. The Empress was actuated by love of Greece as well as by motives of policy, for she was a native of Athens, like her predecessor, Eudokia. At the age of seventeen she had been selected by the Emperor Constantine Copronymos as the wife of his son, Leo IV, and the premature death of her husband left her the real mistress of the Empire, which she governed, first as Regent for her son and then as sole ruler, for over twenty years. One of the earliest acts of her Regency was to send the expedition against the Slavs. Those in Thessaly and Central Greece were forced to pay tribute; those in the Peloponnese yielded a rich booty to the Byzantine commander. But the Slavs were not permanently subdued, as was soon evident. Irene, for the greater security of her throne, had banished her five brothers-in-law to Athens, which was, of course, devoted to her, and was at that time governed by one of her kinsmen. But the five prisoners managed to communicate with Akamir, a Slav chieftain who lived at Velestino, and a plot was formed for the elevation of them to the throne. The plans of the conspirators fell into the hands of Irene’s friends, and the prisoners were removed to a safer place. Irene, however, was dethroned a little later by Nikephoros I, and banished to Mitylene, where she died. In spite of her appalling treatment of her son, whom she had dethroned and blinded