The Modern Greeks, and the Opinions concerning Them [pp. 143-165]

THE MODERN GREEKS, AND
such an abode, not only of natural beauty, but of civilization
and refinement
SUPPOSED CORRUPTION OF THE RACE.
And, pray, what right have we thus summarily to dispose of
the whole Greek people of ourL day as an ignoble and degraded
race? Whlere is the evidence, powerful, irresistible, which compels a verdic- sc daranatolyv? We shall astonish most of our
readers, prokbably, when we afi-lem that tile evidence in the casethe evideinco of facts as opposed to hypothesis and prejudice -
is, by immenrse preponderance, towardi an opposite conclusion.
The harsh judgment of the matter is, no doubt, founded in part
on the assunmption, already referired to, that the modern Greeks,
owing to the supposed admcixture and adulteration of their blood
with that of foreign conquerors and immigirants, are hardly now
any longer a true Hellenic stock. Prof. Fallmerayer of Munich
has elaborated the qu,est;ion in a learned treatise, and it is one
of the most remarkable instances in all history of the illusory
conclusions to which preconceived hypotheses may lead even
learned men, that the professor has come to the conclusion that
the barbarian races exterminated the Hellenic ages ago, and
that there is no true ancestral blood at all now flowing in socalled Gr,ek veins!
THE QUESTION OF MIXED BLOOD.
WhIere so much has been written and said to the effect just
spoken of, it is hard to remove the impression of it. And yet
wre venture to affirm that there never was a hypothesis held by
intellig,ent men that had much less of real foundation. The
only shadow of support that it has is found in the fact that
GrIeece has actually been overrun, at varaio-s times, by conquest
and occupation, on the parw of Turks, Albanians, FranlDs and
Venetians, beside any thing of the sort of higher date. But
even conquest does not always andi necessarily infer the assimilation of the conquered people in blood or other essential particulars. The Mlaceldonians of the period of Phlilip's reign,
though thley were themselves mainly of the Hellenistic stock,
-et, as a nationality, were separate. Their contact with- the
Greeks of Greece proper, in the subjection of the latter, probably affected them more than those subjected; and when the
RPomans took their place as masters, instead of the Greeks being
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