Product Code Database
The Mani Peninsula (), known historically as Maina or Maïna (), is a geographical and cultural region of southern Greece. The Mani is the central of three peninsulas that extend southward from the Peloponnese into the Mediterranean Sea. The Laconian Gulf and, across the gulf, the peninsula of Cape Maleas are to the east. The Messenian Gulf and peninsula of Messenia are to the west. The Mani Peninsula terminates at Cape Matapan (called Tainaron by the Ancient Greeks), the southernmost point of continental Greece.
Administration of the peninsula is now split between modern Laconia (East Mani) and Messenia (West Mani). In ancient times, all of Mani was considered part of Laconia, a region dominated by the powerful city-state, or polis, of Sparta.
The historical region and cultural area is frequently referred to in English-language sources as "the Mani", "the Mani Peninsula", or simply "Mani". These are long-used conventional names for the area that overlap with—but are semantically distinct from—the names of its two constituent municipalities of East Mani and West Mani; both municipalities were established in 2011 following a nationwide administrative reform.
The Mani Peninsula is the southern extension of the Taygetus mountain range. It is about 28 miles (45 km) long with a rocky, rugged, interior bordered by scenic coastlines. Cities of the Mani Peninsula include Areopoli in the northwest and Gytheio (ancient Gythion or Gythium) in the northeast.
The demonym for inhabitants of Mani is Maniots (). A Maniot tradition claims that they are descended from ancient and refugees of the early Roman period. They maintain a unique heritage among the regional subcultures of their fellow Greeks.
The Mani Peninsula was known as Maina Polypyrgos ("Many-Towered Maina") for its numerous tower-houses. From 1978 onwards, the Greek state successively decreed many settlements "traditional", setting restrictions on construction. In 2003, the whole peninsula was designated a "cultural complex of international importance". For an example of a decree designating specified settlements as traditional, see Notable sites in Mani include the ruins of the ancient Temple of Poseidon at Cape Matapan, and the Diros Caves with their prehistoric remains near Pyrgos Dirou outside Gytheio. The peninsula also played a key role in the Greek War of Independence that began in 1821.
The island of Cranae is located just off the coast of Gytheio in Lower Mani. A causeway linking the island to the mainland was built in 1898.
Profitis Ilias is the tallest mountain in the Peloponnese, with a summit of ;"Other map sources give the elevation as 2407m, but GPS readings seem to confirm the 2404m value on the Greek topographic maps." "Europe Ultra-Prominences" - Footnote#13. Peaklist.org. Retrieved 2014-05-25. it is likely the classical "Mount Taléton" mentioned by Pausanias.
The E4 European long distance walking path traverses the Taygetus to a land terminus in Gytheio, connecting the Peloponnese to the Spanish city of Tarifa. The path continues to Crete by ferry crossing.
The damaged city and docks were rebuilt; by the end of the war, Gytheio was the main shipyard for the new Spartan fleet.Xenophon. Hellenica, 1.4.11 . Spartan hegemony in the Peloponnese lasted until 371 BCE, when the Thebans under Epaminondas defeated Sparta at Leuctra.
Competition between rival powers resulted in a series of wars that eventually drew in the Kingdom of Macedon and the expanding Roman Republic: the Cleomenean War (229–222 BCE); the Social War (220–217 BCE); the Macedonian Wars (214–148 BCE); and the Laconian War (195 BCE). Gytheio, as a major port, remained an especially sought-after prize for all parties.
In 219–218 BCE, Philip V of Macedon invaded Mani as part of his campaign in Laconia. His forces besieged Gytheio and Las but failed to capture them..
Nabis ascended to the Spartan throne in 207 BCE; he expanded Gytheio, transforming it into a vital port and naval arsenal.. Rome, allied with the Achaean League—a confederation of Sparta's Greek rivals—captured Gytheio after a prolonged siege in 195 BCE; Sparta was the allies' next target. A peace treaty granted autonomy to Mani's coastal cities. These cities formed the League of Free Laconians, with Gytheio as its capital under the Achaean League's protection..
Determined to retake the vital port of Gytheio, Nabis advanced on the city in 192 BCE., Nabis . A Roman fleet soon recaptured Gytheio. Nabis was murdered, and the polis Sparta was absorbed by the Achaean League.Livy. Ab urbe condita libri The Spartans, still seeking access to a port, then seized Las, prompting the Achaeans to retaliate by seizing Sparta outright..
In 395 CE, mainland Greece and the Peloponnese became part of the Byzantine Empire (formally the East Roman Empire), bringing over 500 years of centralized rule from Rome to an end. Mani would nominally be administered by the new government in Constantinople for over a millennium, with periodic interruptions due to unrest and foreign invasions. Mani's remoteness would limit Constantinople's influence.
Over the subsequent centuries, Mani was fought over by the Byzantine Empire, the French, and the Saracens. In the wake of the Early Muslim conquests, Arabs captured the island of Crete in the 820s and established an emirate there. Arab raiders then began to attack Mani and the coastal cities of Peloponnese. The Byzantines retook Crete in 961.
The monk Nikon the Metanoeite () (c. 930 – 998) was commissioned by the Greek Orthodox Church to Christianize the areas of Mani and Tsakonia still practicing paganism. It was only after his efforts that most traces of the Ancient Greek religion and its traditions were eradicated from Mani. Nikon was canonized by the Greek Orthodox Church, and as St. Nikon became patron saint of Mani and Sparta.
Constantine VII in his De Administrando Imperio (c. 952) describes the Maniots thus:.
Patrick Leigh Fermor wrote of the Maniots and the tradition of their conversion:
The Slavic Melingoi tribe then began raiding Laconia from the west, while in the east native Tsakonians agitated against French rule. In 1249, the new prince of Achaea, William II of Villehardouin, invested on the fortress of Monemvasia to keep the Tsakonians at bay. To contain the Melingoi, he built a castle at Mystras, in the Taygetus, overlooking Sparta. And—according to the 14th-century Chronicle of Morea—he built the castle of Grand Magne to stop Maniot raids. The castle was described as "at a fearful cliff with a headland above", and has been associated with the name "Mani" and variations since its construction. Despite its notoriety, the site has never been positively located; one possibility is Tigani.
By the mid-13th century, the resurgence of the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty had shifted the balance of power in Greece. In the 1250s the Pope appointed a "Latin," i.e., Catholic Church, bishop to Mani, provoking resentment among the Orthodox Greeks, who soon removed him. In 1259, Byzantine forces captured Prince William at the Battle of Pelagonia. In 1262, William surrendered a number of fortresses to pay his own ransom; one of these was the castle of Grand Magne..
The Ottomans remained nominal rulers of Mani until the outbreak of the Greek revolution in 1821, with a brief interlude of Venetian control. Mani was first administered by the Ottoman Eyalet of the Archipelago and then by the Morea Eyalet. Due to its remoteness and isolation, Mani in particular retained a degree of autonomy not present in other regions of Ottoman Greece.
By 1460, with the Ottomans newly in control of the Morea, there were local Greek lords who cooperated with their new rulers.. Many others however, including Krokodeilos Kladas (1425–1490) and his brother Epifanisoon, organized bands of warriors called stratioti to fight the Ottoman Empire; Venice provided aid and support to the stratioti in their rebellion.
A significant shift in the balance of power occurred with the Treaty of Constantinople, the Venetian-Ottoman peace settlement of 1479. Despite the rebels' successes, the treaty limited their territorial boundaries to the pre-1463 status quo ante bellum. This meant that lands held by Greek rebels under Venetian protection returned to Ottoman control, which left the stratioti and their families in a precarious position. Many stratioti leaders moved to Venetian-held strongholds like Koroni in Messenia.
Tensions reignited in only a few years. By the early 1480s, Krokodeilos Kladas led stratioti from the Venetian territories in a revolt against the Ottomans in the Mani Peninsula. This rebellion caused a diplomatic crisis between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, as the Ottomans held Venice responsible for the damages caused by the Greek insurgents. Hoping to avoid another costly war, both the Venetians and the Ottomans sides put a bounty on Kladas.. The rebellion was initially successful, but an overwhelming Ottoman force eventually suppressed it, and Kladas was forced to flee to by sea.
By 1568, the Ottomans had built a castle called Porto Kagio on the site of the ancient harbor of Psamathus, the base for their galley patrols in the Kythira Strait between the Peloponnese and the island of Crete. The Venetians attacked Porto Kagio in 1570 and forced the Ottomans to surrender and abandon it.
Upon discovering Charles's plans and the Maniots' support, the Ottoman authorities launched a large-scale punitive expedition into the region. A force of 20,000 soldiers and 70 ships was deployed to invade Mani. The Ottomans devastated the peninsula and imposed punitive taxes on the Greeks. The Maniots' resistance remained a persistent challenge to Ottoman authority.
Charles's further attempts at his crusade failed and he later became Duke of Mantua and Montferrat. His failure left the Maniots to continue their struggle against the Ottomans without external support.
The first such bey was the Maniot Limberakis Gerakaris (c. 1644 – 1710), installed c. 1669. A former galley oarsman in the Venetian fleet who became a pirate, Limberakis was captured by the Ottomans and condemned to death. The grand vizier pardoned him on condition that he manage Mani as an Ottoman or client state.
Limberakis accepted the offer and used his new position to pursue his standing feud with the powerful Maniot Stephanopouloi family. His forces besieged the compound of the Stephanopouloi at Oitylo, captured 35 of them, and had them all executed. During his twenty-year reign, Limberakis shifted allegiances between the Republic of Venice and the Ottomans.
Limberakis eventually fell out of favor with the Turks for his piracy and he was captured by Ottoman forces in 1682.. With the Ottomans preoccupied with their wars against the Habsburgs, the Venetians saw an opportunity to seize Turkish-held territories in the Peloponnese, sparking the Morean War of 1684–1699..
The Battle of Kalamata in 1685 ended with a Venetian victory. Venice went on to conquer the Mani Peninsula, solidifying their foothold in the southern Morea. Venice's expansionist revival would be short-lived, as its gains were reversed by the Ottomans in 1718.
By the late 17th century, Russian influence had begun to spread among Maniots and other Christians under Ottoman rule. Prophecies began circulating in the 1690s, at the height of the third Russo–Turkish War, of a "blonde nation" that would destroy the Ottoman Empire. This hope was fueled by the war and by Greek Orthodox patriarchs who sought Russian support to regain privileges lost in an earlier Franco-Ottoman alliance. The presence of a Russian ambassador at the Ottoman court since 1700 allowed direct contacts between Russian officials and Ottoman Christians who began to seek refuge in Russia. These included Greek refugees who established communities in Russia.
Wishing to weaken the Ottoman Empire and establish a pro-Russian independent Greek state, Russia sent emissaries to Mani in the mid-1760s to enlist local military leaders; at the same time, notable Greeks approached various Russian agents to discuss plans for the liberation of Greece. Russian artillery captain Grigorios Papadopoulos (or Georgios Papasoğlu), a Greek, was dispatched to Mani. Georgios Papazolis, another Greek officer of the Russian army, cooperated with the brothers Grigory Orlov and Count Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov in preparations for a Greek insurrection in the Morea during the Russian military operations against the Ottoman Empire in 1769. The organization of the Greek rebellion was charged to the Orlov brothers, with Alexei as fleet commander.
With the onset of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 (the sixth conflict between the empires), Russia saw an opportunity to seize territory from its Ottoman rival.Shaw, S.J. (1976) History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Cambridge University Press. pp. 253–255. The Russians, aiming to weaken the Ottomans from within, planned to incite Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire to revolt, and sent agents to strategic points in the Balkans and Greece, including the Morea. Another brother, , was sent to coordinate rebels in Morea, deemed the most important strategic area of mainland Greece due to its ports (Russia's ambitions would become formulated in the "Greek Plan" of the 1780s). Greeks prepared to revolt with the expectation of massive Russian aid.
Russia assembled a war fleet under Alexei Orlov, which departed in August 1769 and arrived in Mani in February 1770. This expedition of four ships, a few hundred soldiers, and inadequate arms supplies, greatly disappointed the Greeks. Nevertheless, Orlov's arrival in Mani sparked a Maniot uprising, the Orlov revolt.
An initial force of 1,400 men was raised. The Maniot forces were organized into "legions" with the help of Russian officers. The Greek rebels were initially successful, defeating Ottoman forces in Laconia and eastern Messenia. They captured the fortress of Mystras and established a local government there, but the revolt failed to spread effectively.
The Ottomans responded with an invasion force, and by June 1770 the Orlov revolt was suppressed, three months after it had begun. The Ottomans unleashed Muslim Albanian mercenaries, termed "", who pillaged the Peloponnese and massacred Greek civilians. Ultimately, the limited Russian manpower and a lack of unified Maniot support led to the uprising's failure. The Orlov revolt was a major precursor to the Greek War of Independence, which erupted fifty years later, in 1821.
In 1803, the Ottomans discovered that Grigorakis had received a shipment of French weapons and resolved to eliminate him. In the Ottoman invasion of Mani in 1803, the Kapudan Pasha, a high-ranking Ottoman naval commander, led a large force of into Mani. The Ottoman army set up a base at Gytheio, directly across from Marathonisi.
With his sons and loyal followers, Grigorakis was well-equipped with the new French weapons and prepared for a siege. The Ottoman fleet blockaded the island, and their artillery inflicted significant damage. After a brief siege, Grigorakis and his men slipped out of the fort during the night and fled inland. With their target gone, the Ottomans abandoned the siege. Grigorakis continued to organize raids until his death in 1808.
During the 1803 invasion, the Ottomans removed bey Panagiotis Koumoundouros for allowing Zanetos Grigorakis to receive weapons from the French and replaced him with Antony Grigorakis, a cousin of Zanetos. A Turkish fleet was unable to capture Cranae and was soon forced to retreat.. The Ottomans attempted to invade Mani again in 1807 and in 1815, but were repulsed each time.
In 1810, bey Grigorakis resigned in favor of his son-in-law, Konstantis Zervakos. The Maniots were hostile to Zervakos and deposed him.. Maniot clans in Gytheio elected Theodoros Zanerakos, nephew of Zanetos Grigorakis, as their leader. In the midst of the 1815 Ottoman invasion of Mani, Theodoros Zanerakos was removed from power that year and replaced by Petros Mavromichalis, also known as "Petrobey".
Petros Mavromichalis was the first Maniot bey from Mesa Mani (Inner Mani). In 1819, Mavromichalis joined the Filiki Eteria, a 19th-century Greek secret society opposing Ottoman rule, which by 1821 was prepared to revolt.. As Istanbul's power had been weakening, the local klephts—bandits who fought the Ottomans—made their strongholds in the rugged mountains of Mani.
Ottoman control over Greece ended in 1821 with the start of the Greek War of Independence. The Mani Peninsula played a significant role in the war.
Ibrahim's forces launched a two-pronged attack on Mani in the joint Ottoman–Egyptian invasion of Mani in 1826. At the Battle of Verga, 2,000 Maniots and 500 Greek refugees successfully defended a fortified wall, repelling the Egyptian advance.... Simultaneously, a smaller Egyptian fleet attempted a surprise landing at Areopoli to disrupt Maniot communication lines, where they were met by 300 Maniot defenders. The Egyptians suffered heavy losses and were forced to retreat, ruining Ibrahim's invasion plan. The women who fought in this battle were later dubbed the "Amazons of Diros"..
On 27 September 1831, in retaliation for Petros's arrest, Petros's brother, Konstantinos Mavromichalis, and his brother's son, Georgios Mavromichalis, assassinated Kapodistrias as he was entering a church in Nafplio. Konstantinos was killed by Kapodistrias's bodyguard, and Georgios was later executed.
Fascist Italy invaded Greece in October 1940, starting the Greco-Italian War. The Italians soon encountered major difficulties and turned to Nazi Germany for assistance. Germany invaded Greece in April 1941. The Axis occupation of Greece lasted from 1941 to 1945.
In Mani, the British had begun to evacuate their troops from Porto Kagio ahead of the 1941 German invasion. Greek civilians from the mainland were forced to retreat south from the front lines, and Mani became a destination for these internal .. During the Axis occupation, Mani became a stronghold for the Security Battalions, Greek collaborationist paramilitary groups formed to support the German and Italian occupation troops. The Greek Civil War began in 1946 with the end of the occupation..
Mani's population declined and continued to fall as emigration continued beyond the post-war decades. Mani was considered a backwater until the 1970s, when the government started to build roads which made the peninsula more accessible by car. A tourist industry took hold, with ensuing population and economic growth.
There is little information on the economy of Mani during the early stages of Ottoman dominance of Greece, and what is known of the economy in the 17th and 18th centuries is from foreign observers. In Outer Mani, olives were grown in great numbers, but it was not until the 18th century that olives were widely spread in Inner Mani. Exports from Outer Mani also included pine for ships' masts, turpentine, animal hides, tanning agents, and prinokoki, a crimson-colored dye. The northwest of Inner Mani was rich in mulberry plants and honey.
Piracy was also an important part of the Maniot economy.
Maniot culture was based on clan or patrilineal kinship groups that valued traditional concepts of manhood and patriarchal family relations. This way of life stemmed from Mani's geographical isolation from the more populated regions of Greece, and was further influenced by its history of foreign invasions; it persisted until the social upheavals of World War II. The stronger clans, the , held better-quality land on which they built high towers; they dominated the weaker clans, the .
Regional linguistic peculiarities exist within Maniot Greek, particularly in surnames. Family names in Messenian Mani typically end in -éas, while those in Laconian Mani end in -ákos. There is also the -óggonas ending, a corruption of éggonos .
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Mani: A Guide and History (archived) by John Chapman (2011)
|
|
