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

50 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
the banner of revolt in the north of the Peloponnese,
the southern districts were flying to arms under leaders
of a different stamp.
In Messenia Petros Mavromichales,
generally known as Petrobey, Prince or Bey of
the Maina,
a wild and mountainous district in the
southern spur of Laconia, inhabited by warlike robber
tribes who boasted their descent from the ancient
1
Spartans, took the field at the head of his clan. Niketas,
Anagnostaras, and other well-known chiefs of banditti
joined the revolt; and, above all, Kolokotrones,
a celebrated Klepht of the Morea, who for some time
had been an officer in a Greek regiment in English
service, crossed over from Zante to share in the liberation
of his country. His courage, personal strength,
and proved skill in the conduct of irregular warfare
2
made Kolokotrones a fitting leader of wild warriors;
and on his arrival he was recognised as the chief of the
insurrection, a position to which Petrobey's hereditary
dignity and patriarchal power, though not his easygoing
and somewhat weak nature, would seem to have
entitled him.
1 For an account of the Mainotes, see p. 362.
2 Cf. Gordon, i. 222. Kolokotrones had in full measure
*
the vices as well as the virtues of a robber chief. His
military talents as a partisan were unparalleled in Greece;
at the same time . . . his sordid avarice, and mean ambition,
. . .
severely scourged his country.'