ge for themselves, and of admittance into the corps for the sons of
their wedlock. The next century completed their transformation from a
standing army into a hereditary urban militia--an armed and privileged
_bourgeoisie_, rapidly increasing in numbers and correspondingly jealous
of extraneous candidates for the coveted vacancies in their ranks. They
gradually succeeded in abolishing the enrolment of Christian recruits
altogether, and the last regular levy of children for that purpose was
made in 1676. Vested interests at Constantinople had freed the helpless
peasant from the most crushing burden of all.

At the same moment the contemporary tendency in western Europe towards
bureaucratic centralization began to extend itself to the Ottoman Empire.
Its exponents were the brothers Achmet and Mustapha Koeprili, who held the
grand-vizierate in succession. They laid the foundations of a centralized
administration, and, since the unadaptable Turk offered no promising
material for their policy, they sought their instruments in the subject
race. The continental Greeks were too effectively crushed to aspire beyond
the preservation of their own existence; but the islands had been less
sorely tried, and Khios, which had enjoyed over two centuries[1] of
prosperity under the rule of a Genoese chartered company, and exchanged it
for Ottoman sovereignty under peculiarly lenient conditions, could still
supply Achmet a century later with officials of the intelligence and
education he required, Khiots were the first to fill the new offices of
'Dragoman of the Porte' (secretary of state) and 'Dragoman of the Fleet'
(civil complement of the Turkish capitan-pasha); and they took care in
their turn to staff the subordinate posts of their administration with a
host of pushing friends and dependants. The Dragoman of the Fleet wielded
the fiscal, and thereby in effect the political, authority over the Greek
islands in the Aegean; but this was not the highest power to which the new
Greek bureaucracy attained. Towards the beginning of the eighteenth
century Moldavia and Wallachia--the two 'Danubian Provinces' now united in
the kingdom of Rumania--were placed in charge of Greek officials with the
rank of voivode or prince, and with practically sovereign power within
their delegated dominions. A Danubian principality became the reward of a
successful dragoman's career, and these high posts were rapidly
monopolized by a close ring of official familie