Eighty years the Catalans governed these lands." And he pointed out on the horizon the place where the red haze of distant promontories and mountains outlined the Grecian land.
Such a duchy was in reality a republic.

Athens and Thebes were administered in accordance with the laws of Aragon and its code was "The book of Usages and Customs of the City of Barcelona." The Catalan tongue ruled as the official language in the country of Demosthenes, and the rude Almogavars married with the highest ladies of the country.
The Parthenon was still intact as in the glorious times of ancient Athens.

The august monument of Minerva converted into a Christian church, had not undergone any other modification than that of seeing a new goddess on its altars, _La Virgen Santisima_.
And in this thousand-year-old temple of sovereign beauty the _Te Deum_ was sung for eighty years in honor of the Aragonese dukes, and the clergy preached in the Catalan tongue.
The republic of adventurers did not bother with constructing nor creating.

There does not remain on the Grecian land any trace of their dominion,--edifices, seals, nor coins.

Only a few noble families, especially in the islands, took the Catalan patronym.
"Although they yet remember us confusedly, they do remember us," said Ferragut.