The Peloponnese: History
Prehistoric times
The peninsula has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Its modern name derives from ancient Greek mythology, specifically the legend of the hero Pelops who was said to have conquered the entire region. The name Peloponnesos means "Island of Pelops". During the Middle Ages, the peninsula was known as the Morea. According to folk etymology, this is because the Crusaders found it densely planted with mulberry trees (Greek: moreai) used by the flourishing silk industry.
Ancient times
Mainland Greece's (and Europe's) first major civilization, the Aegean (or Mycenaean) civilization, dominated the Peloponnese in the Bronze Age from the stronghold at Mycenae in the north-east of the peninsula. During classical antiquity, the Peloponnese was at the heart of the affairs of ancient Greece, possessed some of its most powerful city-states and saw some of its bloodiest battles. It was the site of the cities of Sparta, Corinth, Argos and Megalopolis, and was the homeland of the Peloponnesian League. The peninsula was involved in the Persian Wars and was the scene of the Peloponnesian War of 431 BC-404 BC. It fell to the expanding Roman Republic in 146 BC and became the province of Achaea.
Middle Ages
The Peloponnese was subsequently ruled by the Byzantine Empire, until the Fourth Crusade in 1204, when it was lost to the Venetians and Franks. The Franks founded the Principality of Achaea in the northern half of the peninsula in 1205, while the Venetians occupied a number of ports around the coast such as Monemvasia (Benefşe for Ottomans), Pylos and Koroni, which they retained into the 15th century. The Byzantines regained control of the southeastern part of the peninsula, centred at the fortified hill town of Mystras near Sparta. From there, the Greek Despotate of Morea staged a revival from the mid-13th century through to the mid-15th century, until the Ottoman Turks overran the Peloponnese between 1458–1460. The Venetians occupied the peninsula between 1685–1715, after the successful Morean War (1684-1699) but Ottoman control was reestablished in 1715. Morea was a sanjak of Rumelia Province between 1458–1687. Morea was divided to 4 provinces: Romania (Centre: Anaboli), Laconia (Centre: Malvazya), Mezonia (Centre: Navarin) and Akhaia (Centre: Balyabarda) during Venetian rule. Ottoman established Province of Morea in 1715. The province divided to sanjaks of Gördes, Mizistre, Ayamavra, Karliili (Centre was Preveze and bounded to the province between 1715–1717 and 1800-1821), İnebahtı, Balyabarda and Manya. Centre of the Province at first Gördes, after Lontari and Anaboli, at last Trabliçe. Throughout the 18th century, Ottoman authority remained relatively solid and opposed only by rebellions in the Mani Peninsula, the southernmost part of the Peloponnese, and the activities of the bands of the klephts. The Russian-instigated Orlov Revolt of 1770 temporarily threatened Ottoman rule, but was quickly and brutally subdued.
Recent History
The Peloponnesians played a major role in the Greek War of Independence – the war actually began in the Peloponnese, when rebels took control of Kalamata on March 23, 1821. The decisive naval Battle of Navarino was fought off Pylos on the west coast of the Peloponnese, and the city of Napoli di Romania or Nafplioni on the east coast became the seat of independent Greece's first parliament. During the 19th and 20th century, the region became a relatively poor backwater and a significant part of its population emigrated to the larger cities of Greece, especially Athens, and other countries such as the United States and Australia. It was badly affected by the Second World War and Greek Civil War, experiencing some of the worst atrocities committed in Greece during those conflicts. Living standards have improved dramatically throughout Greece since then, especially after the country's accession to the European Union in 1981.
Peloponnese Food
Olive trees frame everything on the
peninsula-sea views, hillsides, architecture, vegetation. In the
Peloponnese as on Crete, therefore (to a lesser degree throughout
Greece), agriculture and gastronomy revolve around the olive and its
unctuous gold.
No meal in the Peloponnese is complete without a bowl full of olives,
and there are dozens of ways to cure, them. Kalamata, in Messinia, is
home to the tight, mahogany-black, almond shaped olives that are
perhaps the world's most famous. Those from Nafplio, in Argolida, are
cracked, slim and green.
Peloponnesians know their olive oil the way the French do their cheese,
and they use it liberally in everything from salads to sweets. The raw
green-gold soil is dribbled on to toasted bread, emulsified with lemon
as a dressing or served fried in all manner of dishes. In the southern
region of Mani, even plain bread is crisp-fried in olive oil as a local
meze (one of a selection of appetizers usually accompanied by ouzo).
Anevata koulourakia (floating biscuits) are made with one tumbler full
of oil per kilo of flour. The wood burning baker's oven at Areopolis
-praised by people all over the Peloponnese- uses the olive's thick
green juice to make crisp paximadia (rusks).
Olive oil is a vital ingredient in the peninsula's kourambiedes
(shortbread-style biscuits), and it helps make the compulsory wedding
'dessert of joy', called diples. Curled, finger-thick dough fritters
known as lalanghia are kneaded with, then fried in, olive oil and
served either hot with grated sfela cheese or cold like a pretzel. They
are traditionally made at Christmas but can now be had all year round.
Whether in tavernas, butchers' shops or homes throughout the
Peloponnese -especially in the sparse, almost lunar, setting of the
Mani -the wealth of cured pork dazzles. Pasta and singlino, two local
names for salted pork, are made with slight variations all over the
peninsula.
On the mountain plateau of Arcadia, only thigh meat is used. The pieces
are big. Salted, boiled in wine, browned in olive oil or lard and
seasoned with allspice, cinnamon and pepper, they are preserved in
rendered lard or olive oil.
In the Mani, preserved pork is salted, then smoked over sage or cypress
wood. Many butchers sell it at that stage but, to be considered edible,
the pasta must be boiled with oregano and orange peel. Almost every
kafeneio in the area serves pasta with a few green olives and strong
local firewater.
Peloponnesian sausages are made exclusively with pork. They are often
seasoned with orange, pepper and allspice. Garlic, nutmeg and wine (as
well as the ever-present orange peel) are added in Mani.
For about 20 days each year, between the end of May and the middle of
June, the monks of the Taxiarhon Monastery at Aighio, in the northern
Peloponnese, prepare their famous rodhozahari, or rose-petal jam. This
exotic, rare spoon sweet is made from the macerated petals of plump,
pink, highly-aromatic roses grown on some 80 acres around the
monastery. The factory is a makeshift shed a few hundred metres from
the monks' cells, and the jam is sold in plain, stout, yellow tins.
The monastery has made rose-petal jam for at least a hundred years, but
no one seems to know how or when the tradition began. According to one
Brother, the most likely story is that the roses and the secret recipe
for rose sugar were brought to the monastery by a Bulgarian monk during
the Turkish occupation. It is the custom in the Rodhopi Mountains
(along the border between Bulgaria and Greece) to grow roses and
distill rosewater and rose oil.
