THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

228 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
petent, the task that lay before it might well have
proved too much for its strength. The country was
utterly exhausted; no taxes could be collected; no
customs levied ; and, save for the contributions of the
Philhellenes, the coffers of the State were empty.
Everywhere, too, the wildest anarchy reigned supreme.
The islanders, weary of an unprofitable war, had taken
to piracy, and turned their arms against the commerce
of all nations. Spezziots and Hydriots did what
seemed good in their own eyes. The Psariots made
^Egina itself the centre of their depredations and the
;
fugitive Cretans in the Cyclades had established pirate
strongholds, from which they issued to scour the narrow
seas. On the mainland, too, the fortresses in the
possession of the Greeks had been converted into robbers'
nests. J. Mavromichales in Monemvasia, Djavellas
in Acrocorinthos, levied blackmail on the
wretched peasants of the surrounding country. In
!NTauplia the castles of Itsch-kale and Palamidi were
held by rival bands of Suliots and Eumeliots, under
their chiefs Photomaras and Grivas, who, when not
engaged in bombarding each other, agreed in wringing
contributions from the miserable inhabitants of the
town by torture and imprisonment. In the open country
wandering bands of Armatoli passed hither and
thither, plundering what the devastating columns of