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558 APPENDIX Lauxias at their head, supported this arrangement. But the barons of Achaia, headed by Nerio Acciajoli, pretended that the Prince of Achaia as feudal suzerain of Athens was entitled to dispose of the hand of the countess. Nerio was deter- mined to bestow the young countess, with all her immense possessions, on a relative of the Acciajoli family named Peter Sarrasin.2 The war concerning the countess of Salona and her heritage appears to have commenced about the year 1386 [1385]. The Catalans were defeated ; and Nerio gained possession of Athens, Thebes, and Livadea." " About the commencement of the year 1394 Ladislas, king of Naples, conferred on him by patent the title of Duke of Athens — Athens forming, as the king pretended, part of the principality of Achaia." Nerio died in 1394. His illegitimate son Antonio inherited Thebes and Livadia, and wrested to himself the government of Athens, which Nerio's will had placed under the protection of Venice on behalf of his daughter (the wife of Count Tocco of Cephalonia). Under Antonio "Athens enjo-ed uninterrupted tranquillity for forty years. The republic of Florence deemed it an object worthy of its especial attention to obtain a commercial treaty with the duchy, for the purpose of secur- ing to the citizens of the republic all the privileges enjoyed by the Venetians, Catalans, and Genoese." The conclusion of this treaty is almost the only event recorded concerning the external relations of Athens during the long reign of Antonio. The Athenians appear to have lived happily under his government ; and he himself seems to have spent his time in a joyous manner, inviting his Florentine relations to Greece, and entertaining them with festivals and hunting parties. Yet he was neither a spendthrift nor a t3-rant ; for Chalcocondylas, whose father lived at his court, records that, while he accumulated great wealth with prudent economy, he at the same time adorned the city of Athens with many new buildings. He died in 1435, and was succeeded by Nerio II., grandson of Donato, the brother of Nerio I. [Buchon, Nouvelles Reclierches, vols. i. and ii. ; L. Tanfani, Niccolo Acciajoli, 1863 ; Hopf, Hist. Due. Att. Foutes ; Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Athen im Mittelalter, vol. ii.] 18. THE ISLAND DYNASTIES AFTER THE LATIN CONQUEST— (P. 483) The facts about the history of the Greek islands during the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries were enveloped in obscurity, and fictions and false hypotheses were current, xuitil the industry of Professor C. Hopf drew the material from the archives of Vienna and Venice. His publications rendered the work of Buchon and Finlay obsolete so far as the islands are concerned. He won the right of referring with contempt to Buchon's schonrednerische Fabeleien und Finlays geistreich-unkritischer Hypothesenwust. The following list of the island-lord- ships is taken from his Urkunden und Zusatze zur Geschichte der Insel Andros und ihrer Beherrscher in dem Zeitraume von 1207 to 1566, published in the Sitzungsberichte of the Vienna Academy, 1856, vol. 21, p. 521 sqq.

2 [His own brother-in-law; for he was married to Agnes Saraceno.]