History
The ancient history of the Peloponnese is very much that of the Greek mainstream. During the Mycenaean period (around 2000-1100 BC), the peninsula hosted the semi-legendary kingdoms of Agamemnon at Mycenae, Nestor at Pylos and Menelaus at Sparta. In the Dorian and Classical eras, the region's principal city-state was Sparta, which, with its allies, brought down Athens in the ruinous Peloponnesian War. Under Roman rule, Corinth was the capital of the southern Greek province. From the decline of the Roman Empire, through to the Ottoman conquest, the Peloponnese pursued a more complex and individual course. A succession of occupations and conquests, with attendant outposts and castles, left an extraordinary legacy of medieval remains throughout the region. The Peloponnese retained a nominally Roman civilization, well after the colonial rule had dissipated, with Corinth at the fore until the city was destroyed by two major earthquakes in the fourth and sixth centuries. Around this time, too, came attacks from barbarian tribes of Avars and Slavs, who were to pose sporadic problems for the new rulers, the Byzantines , the eastern emperors of the now divided Roman Empire. The Byzantines established their courts, castles and towns from the ninth century onward; their control, however, was only partial, as large swaths of the Moreas fell under the control of the Franks and Venetians. The Venetians settled along the coast, founding trading ports at Monemvasia, Pylos and Koroni, which endured, for the most part, into the fifteenth century. The Franks , led by the Champlitte and Villehardouin clans, arrived in 1204, bloodied and eager from the sacking of Constantinople in the piratical Fourth Crusade. They swiftly conquered large tracts of the peninsula, and divided it into feudal baronies under a prince of the Moreas. Towards the middle of the thirteenth century, there was a remarkable Byzantine revival , which spread from the court at Mystra to reassert control over the peninsula. A last flicker of "Greek" rule, it was eventually extinguished by the Turkish conquest between 1458 and 1460, and was to lie dormant, save for sporadic rebellions in the perennially intransigent Mani, until the nineteenth-century War of Greek Independence . In this, the Peloponnese played a major part. The banner of rebellion was raised near Kalavryta on March 25, 1821, by Yermanos, Archbishop of Patra, and the Greek forces' two most successful leaders - the great, flawed heroes Petros Mavromihalis and Theodhoros Kolokotronis - were natives of, and carried out most of their actions in, the Peloponnese; as you journey around with all the benefits of a present-day transport infrastructure, you will be in the footsteps of Kolokotronis almost everywhere you go. The international naval battle that accidentally decided the war, Navarino Bay, was fought off the west coast at Pylos; and the first Greek parliament was convened at Nafplio. After independence however, power swiftly drained away from the Peloponnese to Athens, where it was to stay. The peninsula's contribution to the early Greek state became a disaffected one, highlighted by the assassination of Kapodistrias, the first Greek president, by Maniots in Nafplio. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries , the region developed important ports at Patra, Korinthos and Kalamata, but its interior reverted to backwater status, starting a population decline that continues today. It was little disturbed until World War II , during which the area saw some of the worst German atrocities; there was much brave resistance in the mountains, but also some of the most shameful collaboration. The civil war which followed left many of the towns polarized and physically in ruins. In its wake there was substantial emigration from both towns and countryside, to North America and Australia in particular, as well as to Athens and other Greek cities. Earthquakes still cause considerable disruption, as at Korinthos in 1981 and Kalamata in 1986. Today, the southern Peloponnese has a reputation for being one of the most traditional and politically conservative regions of Greece. The people are held in rather poor regard by other Greeks, though to outsiders they seem unfailingly hospitable.
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