Note 8 — Chapter V

While I was revising this chapter, I became acquainted with C. J. Jireček’s Geschichte der Bulgaren (Prag, 1876), the third chapter of which is devoted to an examination of the early settlements of the Slaves in the Eastern peninsula. He makes it probable that they were there earlier than is generally thought. They seem, exactly like the Teutons, to have first entered the Empire as captives and colonists, a process which may have begun as early as the second and third centuries. He shows also that the march of Theodoric into Italy had the effect of laying a large region open to their settlements. But he leaves my general propositions untouched. It is not till the sixth century that those Slavonic movements began which are of real importance to historical geography.