The leading men of the Morea

Detail, Klontzas, Passion

The earliest documentary evidence for Krokodylos Kladas seems to be a letter from Jacopo Barbarigo of 25 July 1465. It is true that Sphrantzes wrote about him in terms of 1460, but Sphrantzes was writing after 1472 when he became a monk.

Barbarigo was provveditor general of the Italian troops in the Morea for a year of the Ottoman-Venetian war. Eighty-seven of his letters survive, written betwen 5 June 1465 and mid-March 1466, and they can be found starting on page 1 of volume 6 of Sathas here.

Twice Barbarigo gives distinct lists of the men who he says are the leading men of the Morea – homini da conto, zentilhomini, i molti principali, le persone de i condition. Combining the two lists, in their spelling, we get:

Petro Bua

Alexio Bua

Gini Bua Protostrator, Isaac Paraspondylos

Michali Rallis “principal homo de questa Amorea”

Michali Rallis Drimi dal Granzas [Graitzes]

Peregrino Busichi & his brother

Matheo Sfranzi [Sphrantzes]

Epiphani & Corcondilo Clada

A few other names can be collected from various Barbarigo letters:

Comes Glava

Comes Comnino

Comes Megara

Nikolaos Boccali and brother

Manoli Clada

5 Manessi kapetanioi

Silas and Zorzi Busichi, principali de Busichi

Ioannis Menaia

 The three counts are not from the Morea,  Komninos and Glava are brothers, from the north side of the gulf of Corinth, and I suppose the Count of Megara is from Megara. They all seem to disappear from the records.

 

Barbarigo calls the men on his lists stratioti, and says that their support will guarantee general Moreote support for the Venetian effort.  He also calls all the Albanian and Greek horsemen stratioti: stratioti was the general Venetian term for the non-Italian soldiers with horses.  In his first letter he says, "Isti paesani sint potentiores gentibus Italicis" -- "These peasants are more effective than the Italians."  The stratioti had certain advantages: their dress and horses were better suited to the climate and the terrain, they already knew the mountain routes, and their numbers had not been debilitated by plague.

Within two months of Sigismondo Malatesta's arrival in the Morea in August 1464 as commander of "crusade" forces against the Turks, 1500 of his 7000 soldiers were dead of the plague, peste, they had brought from Ancona, and by the end of the year only 2,500 remained. He and many of the living were ill. Between October and December, they had walked from Methoni to Mistra to Nauplion, then back across Laconia to Messenia, a formidable mechanism for transmitting plague, and famine, across the heart of the Morea. Plague not only kills, but it leaves survivors physically debilitated and depressed, and sometimes blinded. A number of Barbarigo's letters describe Malatesta's profound depression, as well as his physical weakness.  Barbarigo reported massive losses in the Italian companies – more than 200 dead out of a company of 500, 200 out of 400. The Ottoman army was also severely affected, and whatever original number Omar-Bey was supposed to have had – 3,000 or 8,000 – it was down to 1500 in June 1465.  

Stratioti were auxiliary forces in 1463, and the provveditor of 1464 was directed not to hire them, but  the losses to plague made them essential.  We see Barbarigo trying to persuade the Venetian senate to allow him to give provisioni - pronias -- to the leading men so they would be available.  These provisioni were, for the most part, in cash rather than land, although landholdings can be tracked in the letters. A number of these are the landholdings that were later lost in the Kladas revolt. There was a problem with the cash provisioni, however, in that Venice had not sent out any actual cash for two years, and we find most of these men paying their own soldiers and financing the Venetian effort themselves.

One of the things we see in Barbarigo with Kladas, Rallis, Bua, and the others is the change of the archon class to a military class, from a landholding and sometimes-fighting culture, to a culture of mercenary soldiers.  In the next generation -- Petro Bua's nephew Mercurio is the most famous example -- some of them become condottieri.   In the five years since the final surrenders of 1460, nearly a whole class, with the exception of those on Barbarigo's lists, essentially disappears from the records. Some of those on Barbarigo's list had gone to Corfu with Thomas in 1460, and had returned for the war.  Some were killed in the fighting of 1460.  Two or three were executed.  Quite a few were exported, as Doukas says:   

After taking all of the Peloponnesos, the tyrant installed his own administrators and governors. Returning to Adrianople, he took with him Demetrios and his entire household, the palace officials and wealthy nobles from Achaia and Lakedaimonia and the remaining provinces. 

Certainly some were assimilated into the Ottoman system: Kladas nearly was, except that the "crusade" against the Turks was said to be going to put Thomas Palaiologos on the throne of the Eastern Empire, and that would be centered at Mistra.  Kladas had been loyal to Thomas till the end, and after he escaped from Mani and his failed revolt, he joined Thomas' son.  

Hiring stratioti made language problems for Barbarigo, and he needed to find people to serve as paymasters and record-keepers who could write and speak Greek.  And he had to persuade Venice to provide salaries for them.  He  found a Venetian, an Andrea Corner, who had served his predecessor as an interpreter and secretary, and a Zuane da Ponte.  He thought he should pay Andrea 5-6 ducats a month (there were 10 months in the pay-year) but there was no documentation authorizing pay.  So he found a boy who could stay in his tent, and decided to pay him by skimming the stratioti pay, but since the stratioti were not getting any pay, it was all theoretical.

More on Barbarigo's stratioti here.

Bessarion calls for a crusade

Cardinal Bessarion, detail from manuscript.

In 1458, Mehmed entered the Morea to obtain surrender of the territories formerly held by Constantine.  Corinth, Kalavryta, and Patras were surrendered to him.  He left the Morea ostensibly under the control of Thomas and Demetrios Palaiologos who were to pay him tribute.  Their incoherent administrations were fighting among themselves with adherents changing sides while Thomas clawed for the ascendency.  In 1459 in Italy, the newly-elected Pius II called a congress at Mantua for the purpose of forming an alliance of Christian princes against the Ottomans.  Cardinal Bessarion was given heavy assignments toward this goal.  In May of that year he wrote a letter about the proposed crusade to Fra Jacopo de Marchia, a Franciscan professor. It took four and a half more years before the crusade sailed in August 1464.

Bessarion decribed the Morea as a land flowing with milk and honey, but he had not been there for 25 years. Some of his numbers are extraordinary, though the Isthmus is all right, and they should be taken not as untruthfulness but as a measure of his desire for its recreation as the heart of a restored Eastern Empire. I am not convinced of his view of Thomas, but he was trying to rally the troops.****

This is my draft translation of part of the letter:

 * * * * *

In Greece there is also this large province, commonly called Morea, about 800 miles in circumference, with most the most fruitful, fertile fields and a great abundance of everything, not only providing that which is necessary for human use, but also for producing bread, wine, meat, cheese, wool, cotton, linen, silk, kermes, cochineal, small berries for making dye. Everything is found in abundance.  Grain is two stera for one ducat .  . . wine costs nothing, eight castrones a ducat.** Hay and straw for horses without number so that, in addition to the inhabitants and locals of the place, the country can feed 50,000*** horsemen without having to get food from any other source. Last year the Turks came in with 80,000 mounted soldiers, and innumerable foot and wagons, and they stayed five months and still had an abundance of food, and even after they left everything was very cheap, so abundant is everything.

Further, it is almost an island, its shape is round and large and full, surrounded by the sea, with a narrow branch by which is it connected to the mainland, a width of six miles, by which protection the whole country is secure.  Also, the cities which it has, are almost 300, walled, very strong and very well fortified; also, innumerable animals, and a generous supply of men. Also, it is well situated, for Italy, Sicily, Crete and the other islands, Turkey, Albania, and Macedonia, and other parts of Christendom, so that, if it is in Christian hands, it could be the means of major attacks on the Turks and a great use to Christians: if it is in Turkish hands, it would threaten great danger to Christians.  


Such, therefore is the land which the Turkish infidels almost completely occupy. Last year they entered it with a great force, in a betrayal by evil men, except for a few places, in which the lords of those places, who are both brothers of the lord, the emperor of the Greeks, the brother dead in the Constantinople war, received him.  But this year, in January last, God resuscitated the spirit of one of those lords, Thomas Palaiologos, despot of the Morea, and he took up arms against the infidels for his own liberty and that of his people, and within two months he recovered all the lost places.  Blessed be God!  The thing is great and wondrous, and was and is a miracle, and it holds out to us great hope for future things, so long as we understand how to use it well!



* In 1480, Bartolomeo Minio expected Argolid grain to be 3 stera for a ducat.
**  Castrones: castrated goats.  
***The largest semi-reliable number we have for horsemen is 10,000 in 1417 under John Palaiologos against the Principality of Achaia.  It comes from a Venetian chronicle.  A more reliable number is a Venetian document of 1418 which gives 6000.  Neither Plethon nor the Cronicle of the Morea expected more than 6000 at any one time, and in 1444 John VIII said there were 6000.
**** In fact, when the crusade actually came off, the Venetians had to arrange for Thomas to be told that he was not going with them.

Determining the Dividing Line: 1480 & 1482

 

Aerial view of the (modern) Venetian Argolid.

Once the peace settlement for the Venetian-Ottoman war had been put in writing, it had to be worked out on the ground -- literally. The 14th provision of the settlement provided for lands taken by the Venetians to be returned to the Ottomans, and the 15th provided for lands taken by the Ottomans to be returned to the Venetians.  This meant that, in many cases, both sides had to determine what actually belonged to whom.  There were two main issues for the Argolid.

1. The Ottomans held Argos: Argos had not actually been taken in the war, but before the formal declaration of war, so it was not covered by the 15th provision. 

2. The Ottomans held the entire Argolid peninsula as the result of the surrender of Demetrios Palaiologos in 1460.  It had been agreed in correspondence between the Doge, Giovanni Mocenigo, and Mehmed, that the boundaries were to be those boundaries.  However, Demetrios had appropriated the territory in about 1449 (#3 here) despite the treaty made by his uncle Theodoros in 1394 which assigned this territory to Venice, and the matter had been in negotiation when the Morea disintegrated.

A third issue was that the sançak-bey of the Morea, Suleiman, had arbitrarily set Nauplion's boundary at the stream of Profitias Elias, on the road to Tiryns, and Nauplion was strangled for land for its food.  The governor, Bartolomeo Minio, had had two tense and unsatisfactory encounters with Suleiman on this matter.  Whatever the attitude of the sançak-bey, Minio's letters show that he was tense, legalistic, and hostile.

The official boundary commission arrived in Nauplion on 12 August, 1480. The Venetian representative was Giovanni Dario, and the Ottoman was Sinan Bey, protogero of Greece, the official over the sançak-beys of Greece. Minio was less than a week out of sickbed after nearly dying from an attack of malaria.  He was not ready for all this, but he found a house for Dario and another for Sinan -- "the best that I could manage, considering the condition of the place" -- making him a gift of 30-40 ducats "so that Your Lordship's affairs will prosper."

Sinan sent for the sançak-bey, and the cadis of Karitena and Kalavrita.  When the Turks arrived, Sinan, Minio, Dario, and their staffs met them at Argos where they were joined by the cadi.  They seated themselves in the sançak-bey's pavilion -- a great tent -- and went over the main issues to be settled, the castles of Kiveri (actually, Myloi), Kastri (Hermione), and Thermissi and the salt pans. 

Minio immediately said he had documents demonstrating Venetian ownership.  The Turks said they had documents demonstrating Turkish ownership: these territories were listed in Mehmed's cadaster of 1460 and had already been assigned.  

They spent two days arguing this.  The Venetians produced witnesses, beginning with the Greek bishop (possibly Demetrios Pigasi), and then the oldest citizens.  All the witnesses testified for the Venetian position, and the testimonies were written down in Greek and Turkish and compared for accuracy.  The Turks agreed with them and said that Mehmed made the final decision.

Then there was the boundary between the actual cities of Argos and Nauplion.  Minio said he had documents and witnesses: more important was the fact that Nauplion territory had 20,000 people and Argos fewer than 200 households (or about 800 people).  Nauplion needed a fair share of land.  This was fine with the Turks, but they wanted to leave the Albanians out of the population numbers, since they were foreigners. (This would have reduced the Nauplion population by at least 4000 people and possibly several thousand more.) There was an impasse.  Finally, they decided to ride the boundaries while the oldest citizens from both sides pointed out where the line had traditionally been.

They began across the bay from Nauplion, at the White Tower by the shore and "the river which is ours," went up to Kefalari, then started east across the plain. No problems were found and, coincidentally, Nauplion fiefholders in the area had made more gifts to Sinan and the sançak-bey.  As they went along, a secretary for each side noted descriptions, wells, trees, points of significance, drawing out a map. Once they encountered an Albanian settlement which had been paying taxes to both the Ottomans and the Venetians, in the hope of being left alone.  

A problem came up when they got to the monastery of Osios Theodosios (Minio called it San Theodosio).  

Osios Theodosios at the end of the road, quite isolated even now. 
Google maps (click to enlarge). 

Osios Theodosios was in Ottoman territory, but Minio argued for it to be given to Nauplion, as the Greeks thought it was a miraculous shrine. (They still do, and I have a bottle of holy water from the well on my iconostasis.)

Another problem came up when they got to the end of the bay of Drepanon, and the mountain pass giving access to the narrow coastal road to the plain of Candia.

Google's version of the enclosed bay of Drepanon (center)
and the triangular plain of Candia (right). (Click to enlarge.)

Nauplion's stratioti had been given the land at Candia to support themselves, and pasture their horses.  Further, this land gave access to Kastri and Thermissi. The Turks produced two witnesses "of the vilest sort" who testified that, on the contrary, this land had always been despotate territory.  Minio said he had documentary proof of possession.  The Venetians asked for their own witnesses to be heard on this matter.  Then Sinan said he had no authority to hear witnesses, and that this territory had not been mentioned in his commission. It may or may not be relevant that there were no fiefs in this area whose fief-holders could make gifts.

It was August.  It was hot. Minio was still weak, and Dario had chest pains.  We don't know how Sinan and Suleiman felt, but at this point they had spent 10 days on horseback and matters were not going well at all.  There was a great crowd of concerned citizens, potential witnesses, and the curious, trooping along with the dignitaries and their staffs.  No one seems to have noticed that the beach at Drepanon was lovely and that they could all do with a swim.  Instead they broke up and went home.  Dario, however, went back to Argos with the Turks.

Dario spoke Turkish, liked Turks, and he and Sinan were well-acquainted.  The next morning Dario sent Minio a note to say Sinan had agreed to Osios Theodosios, and to leaving a route to Thermissi.  Candia was still at issue.  Minio called in the citizens and showed them the proposal.  It was generally agreed to accept Sinan's proposal, but keep Candia open for discussion, and they offered a few modifications of the dividing line.  Minio sent a messenger to Dario.

Dario sent back the messenger with a note suggesting that representatives from both sides go look at the two sets of proposed boundaries one more time.  So six men from Nauplion met six men from Suleiman and they went out to look again.  They came back and reported that they all agreed with the Nauplion lines. Sinan said Nauplion could have Candia until further notice. 

It should be noted that these discussions had been primarily between the two governors involved, Suleiman and Minio, with Sinan and Dario mediating. So Dario acquired, without Minio, everything that Minio wanted.  The agreement had to be submitted for Mehmed's approval.  Mehmed sent a letter saying that, although Kiveri, Thermissi, and Kastri had been given as timars to his people, he was returning them to Nauplion for the sake of peace. 

Mehmed died three days later and it all had to be done again.  People from Beyazid's new sançak-bey met with Minio's people and went over the lines in April 1482, very quickly.  April in the Argolid is a delight -- yellow flags grow in the coastal streams, the fields are full of poppies, the nights are cool. There was a period of delay while various timar-holders argued against the former lines, and once again Minio started bringing out witnesses and documents,  but they were confirmed without too much difficulty.  Again, the agreement had to be submitted to Beyazid, and again, approval was given.

Both times, the details of the boundaries and the agreements were written down by the Turkish scribe and Minio's secretary, and two copies made in Greek which were compared for accuracy.  The documents for Constantinople were signed by the Venetian side, and the documents for Venice signed by the Turkish side.

Somewhere in Venetian archives is the boundary commission's map of the Argolid boundaries.  I have examined every unidentified map in the Archivio di Stato, trying to find it.  There are more archives, more papers to be discovered.

Read about the boundary commissions in more detail here.  

Minio's letters reporting the boundary commissions can be found here, particularly in letters 5, 21, 22, 74, 77.

The Mocenigo War: Part One

In 1470, after Nicolò da Canale helped lose Negroponte to Mehmed II, Venice replaced him as Captain General of the Fleet with Pietro Mocenigo.  In 1474, after a series of military and diplomatic successes along the coast of Asia Minio and Cyprus, Venice elected Mocenigo doge.  One of the sopracomiti -- ship commanders -- Coriolano Cippico, a Dalmatian in his 50s, wrote an account of these ventures for Marcantonio Morosini, Venetian ambassador to Burgundy,.  Burgundy was theoretically an ally of Venice in this war that Pius II had got going -- he called it a crusade against the infidel but he died before the ships sailed -- and this document was most likely intended to encourage Burgundian participation and financing by reassuring them about the Venetian leader.

The document is printed in the 7th volume of Konstantine Sathas' invaluable collection of Venetian documents for 15th-century Greece which you can download here. Cippico's description of the stratioti seems to be the basis of the famous description Sanudo gave later.  Cippico writes:

The Venetians, in all the cities of the Morea that are under their dominion, have hired many Albanians on horseback, who are called by the Greek name stratioti.  These with their swift raiding have so wasted the part of the Morea that is under the Turks that is is almost a desert and a solitude.  These people are by nature intensely rapacious, and more apt to raid than to give battle.  They use a shield, sword, and lance; few have breastplates; the others wear a bombazine cuirass as protection against the blows of an enemy.  The most valorous of all are those from Nauplion.

Mocenigo's tactics were exceptional for that time: he took took the stratioti with the fleet, and not in roundships and towed hulks, but on the war galleys, carrying ten horses on each galley.  Depending on how many allies were sailing with him, this allowed him 400 mounted stratioti.  Without heavy, slower ships, he was able to attack with exceptional speed, which was increased by his having the fleet sail to its target by night so the attack could begin dawn.  Cippico describes that over and over in this account.  Mocenigo had certain principles: he would not attack Greek islands held by the Turks, because the residents were Christians, but only sites on the Turkish mainland.

After a brief description of an attack on the mainland opposite Lesbos.  Cippico describes the division of the spoils, a few comments in parentheses:

The stratioti brought the General the heads of their dead enemies, to have a ducat each, as the General had promised them: this has always been their custom.  The General loaded the galleys with the spoils, and came to a deserted island with good landings, between Chios and the mainland, which is now called Panagia.  Here were put all the spoils. Three arbitrators were selected from the sopracomiti, two Venetians and the third a Dalmatian, which is the custom always used in such circumstances.  The arbitrators, according to ancient Venetian custom, gave one tenth of all the spoils to the Captain General. (1/10)  The stratioti for their part kept two-thirds (6/10), and the arbitrators one-third (3/10).  The General had promised them this.  All the prisoners were consigned to the arbitrators: these were sold at auction.  (It appears from various reports in Cippico that slave dealers followed the fleet.)  The money was divided in this way.  First, all the soldiers who had brought in an enemy prisoner were given three ducats.  Then, the sopracomiti were paid for the expense of the stratioti's horses. The rest was divided equally among the galleys.  The galley of the provveditori was given double what was given to the other galleys.  The sopracomiti kept one third, and distributed the rest among the soldiers and oarsmen, according to rank.

The next division of the spoils was made on Delos, where Cippico noted columns, statues, remains of temples, an amphitheater, and a colossus of 15 cubits with the inscription

                                  ΝΑΞΙΟΙ ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΙ

The people of Naxos to Apollo

The next island episode was on Samos, :

Samos at present is a deserted island and has always been celebrated for its fertility.  Now it is full only of all sorts of animals, an abundance of woodland honey which one can find all around in the forests, and springs of sweet and living water that rise in all parts.  The horsemen and soldiers were disembarked to drill and refresh themselves.  The soldiers and others went hunting and while they were taking various prey, a youth of the Dalmatian nation and language encountered a bear of marvelous size.  The bear avoided his blow, went behind the boy and knocked him to the ground.  The boy, without losing spirit, jammed his fingers into both the bear's eyes and held its head so that it would not lacerate him, long enough for another youth of the same nation to kill the bear from behind with a sword.  On all sides there was a great killing of animals, and the whole army was employed in the hunt.  Several days were spent  in festival, with a great deal to eat and drink.  More than anyone else, the Schiavoni, of whom there were a great many among the oarsmen, sang drinking songs.  After everyone was sated, they boasted about the great deeds they had done, and how they had prospered so successfully against such vile men.

More from Cippico in another entry.

The top image is a detail from a Genoese tapestry of the Battle of Lepanto; the bear is from a medieval bestiary, and is actually licking her cub into shape rather than eating something.

The Frogs

Video © Irene Connelly 18-4-2009.

The frogs here are the descendants of Aristophanes', and the "Brek-e-kek-kek coax coax" chirp is instantly, delightfully identifiable. These particular frogs were found in the open curve in the aerial photo, in the little river of Myloi, across the bay from Nauplion.

If you come to Myloi by the coast road, you will cross the railroad, which is that center line down the middle of the picture. The bare patch at upper left is the Myloi playground beside the main road, and the river flows from the Myloi pumping station into the sea. The famous archaological site of Lerna is at bottom left. When Nero and Pausanias made their visits, this area was a mysterious bottomless lake, but time and roadbuilding have left us a small, clear, rushing, green-glass river.

Following the river to the left in the video takes you past the orange grove in the upper right of the aerial photo, to the beach, and from across the river you see these ruins -- a 15th-century Venetian tower, and to its right, a double wall that leads to the remains of a small square tower.


The double wall is indicated on the aerial photograph. The space is wide enough for a man with weapons to get from one tower to the next. There is a double wall from the same period at Nauplion, running from the north side of the Toro bastion, the wall that once extended to the round tower at the shore. This double wall is now only visible at ground level for a short distance (below). Thirty years ago, I could walk through it from tower to tower.

The tower has been much aggravated by history, most recently in World War 2 when the Germans made use of the site. To the left of the tower in this picture is the large circular base of an anti-aircraft gun, and on the shore is a German pillbox. A 17th-century map shows a windmill on the shore.

This wall once indicated the border between Argos-Nauplion territory and the Despotate of the Morea of Theodoros and Demetrios Palaiologos. There are many Venetian complaints and diplomatic representations about raids from the Despotate up into Argos-Nauplion territory, and the occasional complaint of raids in the othe direction. The Anonymous Naupliote was brought to this borderline when he was returned from imprisonment at Mouchli in 1450.

Bartolomeo Minio used it for a starting point in 1480, when he and Giovanni Dario and the Ottoman representatives worked out the boundaries between Ottoman and Venetian territories in Greece after the long war. He wrote

Beginning from the White Tower by the shore, where it was shown by our elders and theirs in agreement, passing the river which is ours . . .

The boundaries had to be done all over again two years later, and Minio wrote:

They began at the White Tower on the shore, where the boundary of Nauplion begins . . .

Which makes one wonder: was the tower once painted white, so it could be identified from Nauplion, across the bay?

When I first came on the river and beach in 1978, it seemed the perfect image of the place where Odysseus came ashore, slept, and then encountered Nausikaa and her friends doing the laundry. It has changed very little in thirty years, and I introduced my grandchildren to it this past April when we met in Nauplion for Holy Week.

Should you visit, this is private property. The owners do not mind visitors, but they do mind the debris that visitors leave. At the top end of the wall is their house -- two-story, great verandas, four bedrooms, and a gazebo. You can see it in the aerial view. The house is for sale. The frogs are a bonus.