appears to have been systematically re-hellenized. Then in the ninth century, when the Moslems conquered Sicily, another wave of Greeks poured over Southern Italy; enormous numbers of them, notably crowds of monks, came from Sicily to Calabria, and so made that land again a "Greater Greece," again a centre of Greek ideas and language, Greek piety, Byzantine rite, Greek monasticism.
We may then date, as it were, a second Greek conquest of Sicily and Lower Italy from the seventh to the ninth centuries. It forms part of the great revival of power of the Roman Empire in the East, roughly from Justinian I to Basil I (527-886). It accounts for the easy ecclesiastical conquest of these dioceses by the See of Constantinople in the eighth century (pp. 80 ff).[1]
The administration of the Imperial lands in Italy and Sicily naturally varied with the fortune of war. The Greek element had been fortified by the invasion of Belisarius and Narses against the Goths. Then the Empire kept whatever the Lombards had not conquered. The Greek element was strongest in the extreme South of Italy, around the gulf of Terentos,[2] and in the heel of the peninsula (South of the original Calabria, now Apulia); it was almost indisputed throughout Sicily till the Saracens came. The height of Greek power in Italy was under the Emperor Basil II (976–1025); it reached then to the gates of Rome.
The Empire was divided into Themes (θέματα). There was a Theme of Italy and a Theme of Sicily. The original Theme of Italy went up to the River Aufidus (now the Ofanto). About the year 1000 the Romans conquered back the land north of the Aufidus as far as the Fertorius (Fortore). This became a separate province, the Capitanata. At one time, just after the formation of the Lombard Duchy of Beneventum, the Empire in Italy was reduced to the mere peninsula of Tarenton. Then it got back a fairly large tract of the country, up to the Aufidus and eventually to the Fertorius. So after the Moslems had been expelled, Apulia and Calabria were again Imperial lands.
There is a curious point to notice about the name Calabria. Originally Calabria had been the heel of Italy, as any classical
- ↑ For this political hellenization, closely involved with the ecclesiastical movement, to which we shall come, see especially G. Schlumberger, "L'Épopée byzantine" (Paris, 2 vols., 1896-1900); J. Gay, "L'Italie méridionale et L'Empire byzantin" (Paris, 1904); P. Batiffol, "L'Abbaye de Rossano" (Paris, 1901); L. di Brolo, "Storia della Chiesa in Sicilia," ii, 16-23.
- ↑ Tarentum, Taranto.
