of the approach of the praetor of Corinth revived the courage of the citizens. Their sally was bold and successful; the strangers embarked, the rebels submitted, and the glory of the day was ascribed to a phantom or a stranger, who fought in the foremost ranks under the character of St. Andrew the Apostle. The shrine which contained his relics was decorated with the trophies of victory, and the captive race was forever devoted to the service and vassalage of the metropolitan church of Patras. By the revolt of two Sclavonian tribes, in the neighborhood of Helos and Lacedaemon, the peace of the peninsula was often disturbed. They sometimes insulted the weakness, and sometimes resisted the oppression, of the Byzantine government, till at length the approach of their hostile brethren extorted a golden bull to define the rites and obligations of the Ezzerites and Milengi, whose annual tribute was defined at twelve hundred pieces of gold. From these strangers the Imperial geographer has accurately distinguished a domestic, and perhaps original, race, who, in some degree, might derive their blood from the much-injured Helots. The liberality of the Romans, and especially of Augustus, had enfranchised the maritime cities from the dominion of Sparta; and the continuance of the same benefit ennobled them with the title of Eleuthero, or Free-Laconians. ^16 In the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, they had acquired the name of Mainotes, under which they dishonor the claim of liberty by the inhuman pillage of all that is shipwrecked on their rocky shores. Their territory, barren of corn, but fruitful of olives, extended to the Cape of Malea: they accepted a chief or prince from the Byzantine praetor, and a light tribute of four hundred pieces of gold was the badge of their immunity, rather than of their dependence. The freemen of Laconia assumed the character of Romans, and long adhered to the religion of the Greeks. By the zeal of the emperor Basil, they were baptized in the faith of Christ: but the altars of Venus and Neptune had been crowned by these rustic votaries five hundred years after they were proscribed in the Roman world. In the theme of Peloponnesus, ^17 forty cities were still numbered, and the declining state of Sparta, Argos, and Corinth, may be suspended in the tenth century, at an equal distance, perhaps, between their antique splendor and their present desolation. The duty of military service, either in person or by substitute, was imposed on the lands or benefices of the province; a sum of five pieces of gold was assessed on each of the substantial tenants; and the same capitation was shared among several heads of inferior value. On the proclamation of an Italian war, the Peloponnesians excused themselves by a voluntary oblation of one hundred pounds of gold, (four thousand pounds sterling,) and a thousand horses with their arms and trappings. The churches and monasteries furnished their contingent; a sacrilegious profit was extorted from the sale of ecclesiastical honors; and the indigent bishop of Leucadia ^18 was made responsible for a pension of one hundred pieces of gold. ^19
[Footnote 15: Says Constantine, (Thematibus, l. ii. c. vi. p. 25,) in a style as barbarous as the idea, which he confirms, as usual, by a foolish epigram. The epitomizer of Strabo likewise observes, (l. vii. p. 98, edit. Hudson. edit. Casaub. 1251;) a passage which leads Dodwell a weary dance (Geograph, Minor. tom. ii. dissert. vi. p. 170 - 191) to enumerate the inroads of the Sclavi, and to fix the date (A.D. 980) of this petty geographer.]
[Footnote 16: Strabon. Geograph. l. viii. p. 562. Pausanius, Graec. Descriptio, l. c 21, p. 264, 265. Pliny, Hist. Natur. l. iv. c. 8.]
[Footnote 17: Constantin. de Administrando Imperio, l. ii. c. 50, 51, 52.]
[Footnote 18: The rock of Leucate was the southern promontory of his island and diocese. Had he been the exclusive guardian of the Lover's Leap so well known to the readers of Ovid (Epist. Sappho) and the Spectator, he might have been the richest prelate of the Greek church.]