Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/353

 1920 THE VENETIAN REVIVAL IN GREECE 345 it had been a dependency of the Venetian colony of Modon in the shape of two coats-of-arms, those of Morosini and Malipiero,^ the latter belonging to the governor of 1467 or to his namesake of 1489. Modon thereupon surrendered, and, although Monem- vasia, the Gibraltar of the Morea, held out, the season closed with the capture of Nauplia, at that time the Turkish capital»of the peninsula and residence of the tax-farmer, who collected the rents paid to the Sultan Valideh, or queen-mother, from that province. The Greek inhabitants expressed joy at returning, after near a century and a half, under Venetian rule, and Father Dambira, a Capuchin, arrived on a mission from the Athenians, offering to pay a ransom, if they might be spared the horrors of a siege. Morosini asked for 40,000 reals annually for the duration of the war ; but a second Athenian deputation, headed by the Metropolitan Jacob, and comprising the notables Stamati Gaspari, whose origin was Italian, IVIichael Demakes, George Dousmanes, and a resident alien named Damestre, succeeded in persuading him to accept 9,000. He sailed to the Piraeus, collected the first annual instal- ment, and returned to Nauplia. In view of the prominent part played by General Dousmanes during the late war, it is interesting to find a member of his family among the Athenian deputies. It was not, however, of Athenian origin. Dushman in Serbian means ' enemy ', and in 1404 the family is described as owning the Albanian district of Pulati, where a village, named Dushmani, still exists.^ The Turkish government compelled the oecumenical patriarch to depose the Metropolitan Jacob for his participation in this mission and his philo- Venetian sentiments. But the Athenians refused to accept his successor, Athanasios, whereupon the patriarch excommunicated them and their favoured metro- politan. The next year completed the conquest of the Morea, with the exception of Monemvasia. The Turks abandoned Patras ; the two castles at either side of the entrance to the gulf of Corinth and the former Venetian stronghold of Lepanto, on the north of it, were occupied. The Moslems burnt the lower town of Corinth, where the Venetians found ' the great statue of the god Janus, not, however, quite intact, and some architraves of fine stone '.* No attempt was made to defend the magnificent fortress of Akrocorinth, and Morosini was able to examine undisturbed the old wall across the isthmus and to consider the possibility, realized in 1893, of cutting a canal which should join the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs.* The surrender of Castel Tornese, the mint » LocateUi, i. 151, 161, 167, 174, 213. i. 263, 276. ' Ibid. i. 338. * Journal d'Anna Akerhjelm, apud Laborde, ii. 307.
 * Mateses apud Sathas, i. 210 ; JireCek, Oeschichte der Serben, ii. i. 139 ; Locatelli,