10. Gennaio 1829.
[4433,3]
Ib. p. 50 - 1. We may observe a magical
power exercised by the Greek language and national character over
foreign races that came in contact with them. Τhe inhabitants of
Asia Minor hellenized themselves from the
time of the Macedonian conquest, almost without any settlements among
them of genuine Greeks: Antioch, though the common people spoke a
barbarous language, became altogether a Greek city; and the entire
transformation of the Syrians was averted only by their Oriental
inflexibility. Even the Albanians, who have settled as colonies in
modern
4434
Greece, have adopted the Romaic by the
side of their own language, and in several places have forgotten the
latter: it was in this way only that the immortal Suli was Greek; and
the noble Hydra itself, the destructions of which we shall perhaps have
to deplore before the publication of this volume, is an Albanian
settlement. ... Calabria, like
Sicily, continued a Grecian land, though
Roman colonies were planted in the coasts: the Greek language only began
to give way there in the 14th century; and it is not three hundred years
since it prevailed
*
(dominava) at
Rossano, and no doubt much more extensively;
for our knowledge of the fact as to that little town is merely
accidental: indeed even at this day there is remaining in the district
of Locri a population that speaks Greek. (not.
163. For the assurance of this fact, which is stated in several books of
travels in a questionable manner, I am indebted to the Minister Count
Zurlo; whose learning precludes the possibility of his having
confounded the natives with the Albanian colonies.)
*
(10. Gennaio 1829.).
