 The latter also helped preserve a heroic image of Vladimirescu, which was later also borrowed by agrarianists and left-wing activists.From the beginning of the 18th-century, Wallachia and Moldavia (the Danubian Principalities) had been placed by the Sublime Porte under a regime of indirect rule through Phanariotes.This cluster of Greek and Hellenized families, and the associated Greek diaspora, were conspicuously present at all levels of government.