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 THE BYZANTINES. II3 ^ have been refuted. The publications of this man of learning have produced some good re suits : they have caused one of the most obscure periods in the history of the Middle Ages to be thoroughly investigated by eminent scholars. These investigations have shown that the Greeks of to-day are the direct descendants of the an- cient Greeks; and their war for independence from 1 82 1 to 1828 is evidence that they are also the heirs of the immortal glory which lives in they' annals of history of their ancestors. Bikelas says in regard to the Fallmerayer theory : " Moreover, whether the Slavs over- spread Greece or not, no one who has any knowledge of the actual phenomena could testify to anything but that their absorption has been complete. The entirely and exclusively Hel- lenic character of all the features, physical and intellectual, manifested by the present inhabi- tants of the country is a most striking fact, al- most unique in history, a glorious mark of our race, and a wondrous proof of the intensity of our national vitality." The Russians appear on the stage of history in the ninth century. Four times in two cen- turies did they set sail toward Constantinople, but their attempts failed.