Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/367

 1920 THE VENETIAN REVIVAL IN GREECE 359 Venetian occupation the old Venetian dress. The Arkadians were ' rustics and truly Arkadian, but full of wiles ', and there was considerable polish at Kalamata. The Cretans were an exception ; brought up under Venetian rule for centuries, they were very industrious. The lonians were restless, but more cultured than the Moreotes, of whom the most civilized were the townsfolk of Mistra, who ' dressed and lived with more splendour than the others, boasting to be the remnant of the true Spartan blood '. All the people of the country round Mistra were pure Greeks, but the town contained over 400 Jews, whose descendants Chateaubriand^ found there in 1806, and whose compatriots' funeral inscriptions I noticed in the museum there. The Jewish element in the Morea was, however, small — it was a poor country — and the only other Hebrew colonies were at Nauplia and Patras. Truth was not the strong point of the Naupliotes, but they were loyal to Venice, as were from the first the Mainates, who abhorred the very name of the Turks, instead of fearing them like the other Greeks. The Mainates, however, had a rooted objection to paying taxes, always went armed, and ' professed to observe still the institutes of Lykourgos ', of which the chief was apparently the blood-feud. Besides the Greeks and the Jews, both chiefly occupied with trade, there were the Albanians, mostly agriculturists and specially numerous in the province of Romania, men of fine physique but hating war. In- deed, with the exception of the Mainates and some of the emi- grants from northern Greece, the population was essentially pacific and relied upon its foreign rulers to defend it. It was, however, litigious, and this natural tendency was increased by a ' hungry crowd of small lawyers, partly from the Ionian Islands, partly, from the Venetian bar who became the curse of the Morea. The Venetians divided the peninsula at first into six provinces and seven fiscal districts, but the number of the provinces was reduced to four, viz. Romania (capital Nauplia), Lakonia (capital Monemvasia), Messenia (capital Navarino Nuovo), and Achaia (capital Patras). Each province had a provveditore for its administration and defence, a judicial official known as rettore, and a treasurer, or camerlengo. There were also provvC' ditori in seven places which were not provincial capitals, viz. Mistra, Kalavryta, Phanari, Gastouni, Coron, Modon, and Zarnata. Above them all stood the provveditore generate. None of these officials, as we see from Hopf 's lists,^ held office for more than two or three years, according to the usual Venetian system j but they were not new to the task of governing Greeks. The government was, therefore, experienced, but still wholly in » Itineraire (ed. 1826), i. 80-2 ; Lampros, p. 209.
 * Chroniques greco-romanes, pp. 385-90.