Mythology and early history in
Mycenae 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 or Peninsula (archaic meaning of the word ) of Pelops. The
Mycenaean civilization, mainland Greece's (and Europe's) first major civilization, dominated the Peloponnese in the
Bronze Age from the palaces of
Mycenae,
Pylos, and
Tiryns, among others. Many figures from
Greek mythology, including
Heracles and
Perseus, as well as stories like the
Iliad and – more broadly – the
Trojan War, are associated with this period. The Mycenaean civilization collapsed suddenly at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Archeological research has found that many of its cities and palaces show signs of destruction. The subsequent period, known as the
Greek Dark Ages, is marked by an absence of written records.
Classical antiquity In 776 BC, the first
Olympic Games were held at
Olympia, in
Elis in western Peloponnese, and this date is sometimes used to denote the beginning of the classical period of Greek antiquity. During
classical antiquity, the Peloponnese was at the heart of the affairs of
ancient Greece, possessed some of its most powerful city-states, and was the location of some of its bloodiest battles. The major cities of
Sparta,
Corinth,
Argos, and
Megalopolis were all located on the Peloponnese, and it formed also the core of the
Peloponnesian League. Soldiers from the peninsula fought in the
Persian Wars at the battles of
Thermopylae,
Salamis and
Plataea. The Peloponnesian League under Spartan leadership defeated
Athenians at the
Peloponnesian War of 431–404 BC. The entire Peloponnese, with the notable exception of Sparta (which was forced to join later in 331 BC), joined
Philip's
League of Corinth in 338 BC and the following expedition of
Alexander the Great against the
Persian Empire. Along with the rest of Greece, the
Achaean League fell to the expanding
Roman Republic in 146 BC, when the Romans
razed the city of Corinth and massacred its inhabitants. The Romans established the province of
Achaea, comprising the Peloponnese and most of central Greece. During the
Roman period, the peninsula remained prosperous but became a provincial backwater, relatively disengaged from the affairs of the wider
Roman world.
Middle Ages Byzantine rule After the partition of the Empire in 395, the Peloponnese became a part of the
Byzantine Empire. The devastation of
Alaric's raid in 396–397 led to the construction of the
Hexamilion wall across the Isthmus of Corinth. Throughout the major part of
late antiquity, the peninsula retained its urbanized character: in the 6th century,
Hierocles counted 26 cities in his
Synecdemus. By the latter part of that century, however, building activity seems to have stopped virtually everywhere except in
Constantinople,
Thessalonica,
Corinth, and
Athens. This has traditionally been attributed to calamities such as plague, earthquakes, and Slavic invasions. However, more recent analysis suggests that urban decline was closely linked with the collapse of long-distance and regional commercial networks that underpinned and supported late antique urbanism in Greece, as well as with the generalized withdrawal of imperial troops and administration from the Balkans.
Slavic migration, settlement, and decline The scale of the Slavic "invasion" and settlement in the 7th and 8th centuries remains a matter of dispute, although it is nowadays considered much smaller than previously thought. The Slavs did occupy most of the peninsula, as evidenced by the abundance of Slavic
toponyms, but these toponyms accumulated over centuries rather than as a result of an initial "flood" of Slavic invasions, and many appear to have been mediated by speakers of Greek, or in mixed Slavic-Greek compounds. Fewer Slavic toponyms appear on the eastern coast, which remained in Byzantine hands and was included in the
thema of
Hellas, established by Byzantine emperor
Justinian II . While traditional historiography has dated the arrival of Slavs to southern Greece to the late 6th century, according to Florin Curta, there is no evidence for a Slavic presence in the Peloponnese until after , when Slavs may have been allowed to settle in specific areas that had been depopulated. Relations between the Slavs and Greeks were probably peaceful apart from intermittent uprisings. There was also a continuity of the Peloponnesian Greek population. This is especially true in
Mani and
Tsakonia, where Slavic incursions were minimal or non-existent. Considering their predominantly agricultural economy and rural lifestyle, the Slavs probably traded with the Greeks, who remained in the towns, while Greek villages continued to exist in the interior, governing themselves, possibly paying tribute to the Slavs. The first attempt by the Byzantine imperial government to reassert its control over the independent Slavic tribes of the Peloponnese occurred in 783, with the
logothete Staurakios' overland campaign from Constantinople into Greece and the Peloponnese, which, according to
Theophanes the Confessor, captured many prisoners and forced the Slavs to pay tribute. , with the themes and major settlements From the mid-9th century, in the aftermath of a
Slavic revolt and attack on
Patras, a process of
Hellenization was carried out overwhelmingly and persistently. According to the
Chronicle of Monemvasia, in 805, the Byzantine governor of
Corinth went to war with the Slavs, exterminated them, and allowed the original inhabitants to claim their lands. They regained control of the city of Patras, and the region was resettled with Greeks. Many Slavs were transported to
Asia Minor, and many Asian, Sicilian, and Calabrian Greeks were resettled in the Peloponnese. By the turn of the 9th century, the entire Peloponnese was formed into the new
thema of
Peloponnesos, with its capital at Corinth. By the end of the 9th century, the Peloponnese was culturally and administratively Greek again, except for a few small Slavic tribes in the mountains such as the
Melingoi and
Ezeritai. Although they were to remain relatively autonomous until
Ottoman times, such tribes were the exception rather than the rule. Even the Melingoi and Ezeritai, however, could speak Greek and appear to have been Christian. The success of the Hellenization campaign also shows that the Slavs had settled among many Greeks, in contrast to areas further north in what is now Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia, as those areas could not be Hellenized when they were recovered by the Byzantines in the early 11th century. A human genetics study in 2017 showed that the Peloponnesians have little admixture with populations of the Slavic homeland and are much closer to Sicilians and southern Italians. Apart from the troubled relations with the Slavs, the coastal regions of the Peloponnese suffered greatly from repeated Arab raids following the Arab capture of
Crete in the 820s and the establishment of a
corsair emirate there. After the island was recovered by Byzantium in 961, however, the region entered a period of renewed prosperity, where agriculture, commerce, and urban industry flourished.
Frankish rule and Byzantine reconquest ) , now a
UNESCO World Heritage Site In 1205, following the destruction of the Byzantine Empire by the forces of the
Fourth Crusade, the Crusaders under
William of Champlitte and
Geoffrey of Villehardouin marched south through mainland Greece and conquered the Peloponnese against
sporadic local Greek resistance. The
Franks then founded the
Principality of Achaea, nominally a
vassal of the
Latin Empire, while the
Venetians occupied several strategically important ports around the coast, such as
Navarino and
Coron, which they retained into the 15th century. The Franks popularized the name
Morea for the peninsula, which first appears as the name of a small bishopric in
Elis during the 10th century. Its etymology is disputed, but it is most commonly held to be derived from the mulberry tree (
morea), whose leaves are similar in shape to the peninsula. In 1208, William I founded a commission at
Andravida, consisting of Latin bishops, two
bannerets, five Greek magnates, and chaired by himself, to assess the land and divide it, according to Latin practice, in
fiefs. As a result, the country was divided into twelve
baronies, mostly centred around a newly constructed castle—a testament to the fact that the Franks were a military elite amidst a potentially hostile Greek population. The twelve temporal barons were joined by seven ecclesiastic lords, headed by the
Latin Archbishop of Patras. Each of the latter was granted several estates as
knightly fiefs, with the Archbishop receiving eight, the other bishops four each, and likewise four granted to each of the
military orders: the
Templars,
Hospitallers, and the
Teutonic Knights. Shortly after 1260, a thirteenth barony, that of
Arcadia (modern
Kyparissia), was established, which was also a personal fief of the
Geoffrey I of Villehardouin. The barons retained considerable powers and privileges, so that the Prince was not an absolute sovereign but rather a "first among equals" among them. Thus they had the right to construct a castle without the Prince's permission, or to decree
capital punishment. Since
Salic Law was not adopted in Achaea, women could also inherit the fiefs.
Despotate of Morea and Ottoman incursions Frankish supremacy in the peninsula, however, received a critical blow after the
Battle of Pelagonia, when
William II of Villehardouin was forced to cede the newly constructed fortress and palace at
Mystras near ancient
Sparta to a resurgent Byzantium. At this point, the emperor concluded an agreement with the captive prince: William and his men would be set free in exchange for an oath of fealty, and for the cession of Monemvasia, Grand Magne, and Mystras. The handover was effected in 1262, and henceforth Mystras was the seat of the governor of the Byzantine territories in the Morea. Initially this governor (
kephale) was changed every year, but after 1308 they started being appointed for longer terms. Almost immediately on his return to the Morea, William of Villehardouin renounced his oath to the emperor, and warfare broke out between Byzantines and Franks. The first Byzantine attempts to subdue the Principality of Achaea were beaten back in the battles of
Prinitsa and
Makryplagi, but the Byzantines were firmly ensconced in Laconia. Warfare became endemic, and the Byzantines slowly pushed the Franks back. The insecurity engendered by the raids and counter-raids caused the inhabitants of Lacedaemon to abandon their exposed city and settle at Mystras, in a new town built under the shadow of the fortress. While Mystras served as the provincial capital from this time, it became a royal capital in 1349, when the first despot was appointed to rule over the Morea. The Byzantine Emperor
John VI Kantakouzenos, reorganized the territory in 1349 to establish it as an
appanage for his son, the
Despot Manuel Kantakouzenos. Around that time, the
Ottoman Turks began raiding the Peloponnese, but their raids intensified only after 1387 when the energetic
Evrenos Bey took control. Exploiting the quarrels between Byzantines and Franks, he plundered across the peninsula and forced both the Byzantine despots and the remaining Frankish rulers to acknowledge Ottoman suzerainty and pay tribute. This situation lasted until the Ottoman defeat at the
Battle of Ankara in 1402, after which Ottoman power was for a time checked. From 1349 until its surrender to the
Ottoman Turks on 31 May 1460, Mystras was the residence of a
Despot who ruled over the Byzantine Morea, known as the "
Despotate of the Morea". For the larger portion of his reign, Manuel maintained peaceful relations with his Latin neighbors and secured a long period of prosperity for the area. Greco-Latin cooperation included an alliance to contain the raids of the Ottoman Sultan
Murad I into Morea in the 1360s. The rival
Palaiologos dynasty seized the Morea after Manuel's death in 1380, with
Theodore I Palaiologos becoming despot in 1383. Theodore I ruled until 1407, consolidating Byzantine rule and coming to terms with his more powerful neighbours—particularly the expansionist
Ottoman Empire, whose
suzerainty he recognised. Subsequent despots were the sons of the Emperor
Manuel II Palaiologos, brother of the despot Theodore: Theodore II, Constantine, Demetrios, and Thomas. As Latin power in the Peloponnese waned during the 15th century, the Despotate of the Morea expanded to incorporate the entire peninsula in 1430 with territory being acquired by dowry settlements, and the conquest of
Patras by
Constantine Palaiologos, the last
Byzantine emperor. However, in 1446 the Ottoman Sultan
Murad II destroyed the Byzantine defences—the
Hexamilion wall at the
Isthmus of Corinth. His attack opened the peninsula to invasion, though Murad died before he could exploit this. His successor
Mehmed II "the Conqueror"
captured the Byzantine capital
Constantinople in 1453. The despots,
Demetrios Palaiologos and
Thomas Palaiologos, brothers of the last emperor, failed to send him any aid, as Morea was recovering from a recent Ottoman attack. Their own incompetence resulted in the
Morea revolt of 1453–1454, led by
Manuel Kantakouzenos against them, during which they invited in Ottoman troops to help them put down the revolt. At this time, the
Greek archons made peace with Mehmed. After several years of incompetent rule by the despots, their failure to pay their annual tribute to the Sultan, and finally their own revolt against Ottoman rule, Mehmed came into the Morea in May 1460. Demetrios ended up a prisoner of the Ottomans, and his younger brother Thomas fled. By the end of the summer, the Ottomans had achieved the submission of virtually all cities held by the
Greeks. Ottoman incursions into the Morea resumed under
Turahan Bey after 1423. Despite the reconstruction of the Hexamilion wall at the Isthmus of Corinth, the Ottomans under
Murad II breached it in 1446, forcing the Despots of the Morea to re-acknowledge Ottoman suzerainty, and again under Turahan in 1452 and 1456. Following the occupation of the
Duchy of Athens in 1456, the Ottomans occupied a third of the Peloponnese in 1458, and Sultan
Mehmed II extinguished the remnants of the Despotate in 1460. A few holdouts remained for a time. The rocky peninsula of
Monemvasia refused to surrender, and it was first ruled for a brief time by a Catalan corsair. When the population drove him out, they obtained the consent of Thomas to submit to the Pope's protection before the end of 1460. The
Mani Peninsula at the south end of the Morea resisted under a loose coalition of the local clans, and that area then came under
Venice's rule. The last holdout was
Salmeniko, in the Morea's northwest.
Graitzas Palaiologos was the military commander there, stationed at
Salmeniko Castle. While the town eventually surrendered, Graitzas and his garrison and some town residents held out in the castle until July 1461, when they escaped and reached Venetian territory. The Albanians settled in successive waves, often invited by the local rulers. They start appearing more frequently in the historical record from during the second part of the 14th century, when they were being offered arable land, pasture and favorable taxation in exchange for military service. One of the larger groups of Albanian settlers, amounting to 10,000, settled the Peloponnese during the reign of
Theodore I Palaiologos, first in
Arcadia and subsequently in other regions around
Messenia,
Argolis,
Elis and
Achaia. Around 1418, a second large group arrived, possibly fleeing
Aetolia,
Acarnania and
Arta, where Albanian political power had been defeated. The settling Albanians lived in tribes spread out into small villages, practicing nomadic lifestyles based on pastoralism and animal husbandry. By the mid-15th century, they formed a substantial part of the population of the Peloponnesus. In the second half of the 15th century, Albanians constituted at least one-third of the population of the Peloponnese. Military sources of the era (1425) report about 30,000 Albanian men who could carry arms in the Peloponnese. The Greeks tended to live in large villages and cities, while Albanians in small villages. Following Ottoman conquest, many Albanians fled to Italy, settling primarily in nowadays
Arbereshe villages of
Calabria and
Sicily. On the other hand, in an effort to control the remaining Albanians, during the second half of the 15th century, the Ottomans adopted favorable tax policies towards them, likely in continuation of similar Byzantine practices. This policy had been discontinued by the early 16th century. Throughout the
Ottoman–Venetian wars, many Albanians died or were captured in service to the Venetians; at
Nafpaktos,
Nafplio,
Argos,
Methoni,
Koroni and
Pylos. Furthermore, 8,000 Albanian
stratioti, most of them along with their families, left the Peloponnese to continue their military service under the
Republic of Venice or the
Kingdom of Naples. At the end of the Ottoman–Venetian wars, a large number of Albanians had fled from the Peloponnese to Sicily. A demographic census by
Alfred Philippson, based on fieldwork between 1887 and 1889, found that out of the approximately 730,000 inhabitants of the Peloponnese, and the three neighboring islands of
Poros,
Hydra and
Spetses, Arvanites numbered 90,253, or 12.3% of the total population.
Ottoman conquest, Venetian interlude and Ottoman reconquest The Venetian fortresses were conquered in a series of
Ottoman-Venetian Wars: the
first war, lasting from 1463 to 1479, saw much fighting in the Peloponnese, resulting in the loss of
Argos, while
Modon and
Coron fell in 1500 during the
second war.
Coron and
Patras were captured in a crusading expedition in 1532, led by the Genoese admiral
Andrea Doria, but this provoked
another war in which the last Venetian possessions on the Greek mainland were lost. and halberds from the time of the
Kingdom of the Morea in the
National Historical Museum, Athens , by
Peter von Hess. Following the Ottoman conquest, the peninsula was made into a province (
sanjak), with 109
ziamets and 342
timars. During the first period of Ottoman rule (1460–1687), the capital was first in Corinth (Turk.
Gördes), later in
Leontari (
Londari),
Mystras (
Misistire) and finally in Nauplion (Tr.
Anaboli). Sometime in the mid-17th century, the Morea became the centre of a separate
eyalet, with
Patras (
Ballibadra) as its capital. Until the death of
Suleiman the Magnificent in 1570, the Christian population (counted at some 42,000 families c. 1550 The Venetians established their province as the "
Kingdom of the Morea" (It.
Regno di Morea), but their rule proved unpopular, and when the Ottomans
invaded the peninsula in 1715, most local Greeks welcomed them. The Ottoman reconquest was easy and swift, and was recognized by Venice in the
Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718. The Peloponnese now became the core of the
Morea Eyalet, headed by the
Mora valesi, who until 1780 was a
pasha of the first rank (with three
horsetails) and held the title of
vizier. After 1780 and until the
Greek War of Independence, the province was headed by a
muhassil. The pasha of the Morea was aided by several subordinate officials, including a Christian translator (
dragoman), who was the senior Christian official of the province. The Peloponnese suffered more than any other Greek inhabited area by irregular Albanian gangs during the decades following. In
Patras nearly no one was left alive after the Turkish-Albanian invasion. The city of
Mystras was left in ruins and the metropolitan bishop Ananias was executed despite having saved the life of several Turks during the uprising. A great number of local Greeks were killed by the Albanian groups, while children were sold to slavery. It is estimated that 20,000 local Greeks were captured during those nine years of devastation by those Albanian mercenaries and sold to slave markets. Also an additional of 50,000 Greeks left Peloponesse: around one-sixth of the pre-1770 population. The Ottoman government was unable to pay the wages the Albanian mercenaries demanded for their service, causing the latter to ravage the region even after revolt had been put down. 1770-1779 was a prolonged period of devastation and atrocities committed by Albanian irregulars in the Peloponnese. In 1774 the
Russo-Turkish War ended with the
Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca which granted general amnesty to the population. Nevertheless, attacks by Muslim Albanian mercenaries in the region continued not only against the Greek population but also against Turks. The extensive destruction and lack of control in the Peloponnese forced the central Ottoman government to send a regular Turkish military force to suppress those Albanian troops in 1779, and eventually drive them out from Peloponnese. As a result of the invasion by those mercenary groups the local population had to found refuge in the mountains of Peloponnese to avoid persecution. The total population decreased during this time, while the Muslim element in it increased. Nevertheless, through the privileges granted with the
Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji, especially the right for the Christians to trade under the Russian flag, led to a considerable economic flowering of the local Greeks, which, coupled with the increased cultural contacts with Western Europe (
Modern Greek Enlightenment) and the inspiring ideals of the
French Revolution, laid the groundwork for the
Greek War of Independence. The Greek insurgents made rapid progress and the entire peninsula was under Greek control within a few months, except for a few coastal forts and the main Turkish garrison at
Tripolitsa. The fighting was fierce and marked by atrocities on both sides; eventually the entire Muslim population was either massacred or fled to the forts. The
capture of Tripolitsa by
Theodoros Kolokotronis in September 1821 marked a turning point. Short of men and money, the Ottoman state turned to hiring Albanian tribesmen to fight the Greeks, and by 1823, the bulk of the Ottoman forces in Greece were Albanian mercenaries hired for a campaigning season rather than the Ottoman Army. Rivalries among the insurgents eventually erupted into civil war in 1824, which enabled the Ottoman Egyptian vassal
Ibrahim Pasha to land in the peninsula in 1825. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the region became relatively poor and economically isolated. 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 improved dramatically throughout Greece after the country accedes to the
European Union in 1981. The
Corinth Canal was completed in the late 19th century, linking the Aegean Sea with the Gulf of Corinth and the Ionian. In 2001, the
Rio-Antirio Bridge was completed, linking the western Peloponnese to western Greece. In late August 2007, large parts of Peloponnese
suffered from wildfires, which caused severe damage in villages and forests and the death of 77 people. The impact of the fires to the environment and economy of the region are still unknown. It is thought to be one of the largest environmental disasters in modern Greek history. ==Regional units==