Zakynthos (, in Italian) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the third largest of the Ionian Islands. Today, Zakynthos is a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and its only municipality. It covers an area of and its coastline is roughly in length. The name, like all similar names ending in , is pre-Mycenaean or Pelasgian in origin. In Greek mythology the island was said to be named after Zakynthos, the son of a legendary Arcadian chief Dardanus.
After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, Zakynthos has been held by the Kingdom of Naples, the Ottoman Turks, the Republic of Venice, the French, Russians, British, Italians and Germans.
Ancient history Zakynthos has been inhabited from at least the Paelolithic Age. The island was important during the Mycenaean period, being mentioned three times on Linear B tablets from Pylos, Messenia. There were also Zakynthian rowers present in the Mycenaean Messenian state. The Mycenaean presence is further attested by the monumental Mycenaean built and tholos tombs that have been excavated on Zakynthos. Most important is the Mycenaean cemetery that was accidentally discovered during road construction in 1971 near the town of Kambi.
The ancient Greek poet Homer mentioned Zakynthos in the Iliad and the Odyssey, stating that its first inhabitants were the son of King Dardanos of Arcadia called Zakynthos and his men. Before being renamed Zakynthos, the island was said to have been called Hyrie. Zakynthos was then conquered by King Arkesios of Cephalonia, and then by Odysseus from Ithaca. Zakynthos participated in the Trojan War and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships which, if accurate, describes the geopolitical situation in early Greece at some time between the Late Bronze Age and the eighth century BC. In the Odyssey, Homer mentions 20 nobles from Zakynthos among a total of 108 of Penelope's suitors. The Athenian military commander Tolmides concluded an alliance with Zakynthos during the First Peloponnesian War sometime between 459 and 446 BC. In 430 BC, the Spartans made an unsuccessful attack upon Zakynthos. The Zakynthians were then enumerated among the autonomous allies of Athens in the disastrous Sicilian expedition. After the Peloponnesian War, Zakynthos seems to have passed under the supremacy of Sparta because in 374 BC, Timotheus, the Athenian commander, on his return from Corfu, landed some Zakynthian exiles on the island and assisted them in establishing a fortified post. These exiles must have belonged to the anti-Spartan party as the Zakynthian rulers applied for help to the Spartans who sent a fleet of 25 ships to the island;.
Philip V of Macedon seized Zakynthos in the early 3rd century BC when it was a member of the Aetolian League. In 211 BC, the Roman praetor Marcus Valerius Laevinus took the city of Zakynthos with the exception of the citadel. It was afterwards restored to Philip V of Macedon. The Roman general, Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, finally conquered Zakynthos in 191 BC for Rome. In the Mithridatic War, it was attacked by Archelaus, the general of Mithridates VI of Pontus, but he was repulsed.
Byzantine period (330–1185)
The introduction of Christianity on Zakynthos is said to have occurred when either Saint Mary Magdalene or Saint Berenice visited the island in the 1st century AD on their way to Rome. In 324 AD, Zakynthos was made part of the Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum. As the Roman Empire split into Eastern and Western halves and the western half declined, Zakynthos and the rest of the Ionian Islands, now located on the periphery of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, became vulnerable to attacks from barbarian tribes and pirates. In 466, the Vandal King Genseric pillaged Zakynthos and captured 500 Zakynthian members of the local elite. Later the island was used as a naval station during Belisarius' campaign against the Vandals.
The Ionian Islands including Zakynthos remained largely unaffected by the Slavic invasions and settlement of the Greek mainland of the 7th century AD; however, they did suffer raids from Arab pirates in 880 and the Pisans in 1099. During the beginning of the Middle Byzantine era, Zakynthos formed a base for the re-establishment of imperial control and the re-Hellenization of the mainland coast with Greek-speaking settlers from southern Italy and Sicily. From the 9th century, Zakynthos was part of the Theme of Cephallenia, a military-civilian province comprising the Ionian Islands.
Following the collapse of Byzantine control in southern Italy in the mid-11th century, the Theme of Cephallenia's importance declined and was subsequently headed by civilian governors. Zakynthos endured attached from the Norman forces of Robert Guiscard in 1084 and Roger II of Sicily in 1147. Corfu and the rest of the Theme except for Lefkada were finally captured by the Normans under William II of Sicily in 1185. Although Corfu was recovered by the Byzantines by 1191, the other islands including Zakynthos remained lost to Byzantium, and formed a County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos under William II's Greek admiral Margaritus of Brindisi.
Latin rule (1185–1479) After 1185 Zakynthos became part of the County palatine under the Kingdom of Naples until its last Count Leonardo III Tocco fled from the Ottomans in 1479. The title to rule Cephalonia and Zakynthos was originally given to the Greek Margaritos of Brindisi in 1185 for his services to William II. The County then passed on to a branch of the Orsini family until 1325, when it passed briefly to the Angevins of Naples and then from 1357 to the Tocco family. Carlo I Tocco used the county as a springboard for his acquisition of Greek mainland territory. However, facing the advance of the Ottomans, the Tocco successively lost their mainland territories and were once again reduced to the County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos which they held until 1479, when the Ottomans raided the island and Leonardo III Tocco fled.
First refugees (1460–1479)
By 1460, and during the reign of Mehmed II, the Ottomans eventually controlled most of the Peloponnese with the exception of the remaining Venetian-controlled towns of Argos, Nafplio, Monemvassia, Methoni and Koroni. After the collapse of the Hexamilion, which was supposed to act as a defense across the Isthmus of Corinth; and hence, protect the Peloponnese, Leonardo III Tocco made an agreement with Venice to accept 10,000 refugees from this region. Leonardo III Tocco and his realm was increasingly vulnerable from Ottoman Turkish attacks. These refugees consisted of Greeks, Arvanites and some Venetian officials. Some of them were Stradiotes (see below) which Leonardo III Tocco must have figured would act as a bulwark against the Ottomans. Likely, many Stradiotes returned to the Peloponnese later, perhaps leaving their families in Zakynthos.
In April 1463, the Ottomans conquered Argos. The Venetians and their allies attempted a further defence of the Peloponnese but by 1464 more of the peninsula was under Ottoman Turkish control. Consequently, more refugees from the Peloponnese made their way to Zakynthos under the initiative of stradioti leader, Michael Rallis. Again, another wave made its way to Zakynythos in 1470 when the Ottoman Turks made further headway in the Peloponnese. Another group of stradiotes under the leadership of Nikolaos Bochalis and Petros Buas were stationed on the island during the last years of the First Venetian-Turkish War of 1463–1479. And so began the cycle of emigration of primarily Greeks from the Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus to Zakynthos.
In total, a little over 10,000 Arvanitic-speaking Greeks who had retained Venetian citizenship, and some Venetian officials, are said to have emigrated from the west of the Peloponnese to Zakynthos during the period 1460–1479. The newcomers were given land grants to cultivate previously non-arable land and formed an almost independent community represented by a Venetian official called the Consul. The first consul was Martin di Trino. The presence of this community would play a critical role in the defence of Zakynthos in 1479 and its later occupation by the Venetian Republic.
Ottoman Turkish raid (1479) During the reign of the Ottoman Turkish sultan Mehmet II, the Tocco family had been obliged to pay a tribute to the Sublime Porte to preserve their sovereignty. They were required to pay an annual tribute of 4000 ducats to the Sultan and to pay 500 ducats every time that an Ottoman Turkish sancak beyi or provincial governor visited Arta. Leonardo III Tocco was also bound by the treaty.
Around this time, Zakynthos had some 25,000 inhabitants bringing Leonardo III Tocco's state more than 12,000 ducats a year, according to the Spanish historian G. Curita.
Conditions for the local Greek Orthodox population were also improving – it is said that Leonardo III Tocco was more friendly to the Orthodox Church than his predecessors. He was also sufficiently Hellenised to use Greek in his documents. Even though he made these concessions, evidence suggests he was regarded as a tyrant by the islanders. The Ionian Islands under Leonardo III Tocco's reign had also been the refuge of thousands escaping mainland Greece. Most prominently a few agreements negotiated between Venice and the County palatinate of Cephallonia and Zakynthos since the early 1460s – borne by Leonardo III Tocco's increasing military vulnerability in the face of the Ottoman Turkish threat. It also appeared that Zakynthos was by now acting as a staging point for Stradiotes in the service of Venice for their wars on the Italian and Greek mainland.
In early 1479, the new sancak beyi of Ioannina passed through Arta. This official was not only 16 years of age, and he had been recently demoted by the Sultan but he was also related to Leanardo III Tocco – likely his cousin by being the bastard son of Leanardo's uncle, Carlo I who had gone over to the Ottoman Turks. In response to this insult, instead of handing over 500 ducats, Leonardo III Tocco presented a basket of cherries to him. Furious, the Bey reported the incident to the Porte in Constantinople.
Based on old grudges and for a chance to conquer some of the last Christian states in Greece, and perhaps to create a staging platform for an invasion of Italy, the complaint was taken as a pretext for war by the Sultan against Leonardo III Tocco. The Bey also reported to the Porte that during the recent First Venetian-Ottoman Turkish war (1463–1479), Leonardo III Tocco had provided stradiotes under the pay of Venice refuge on Zakynthos which helped them to continue their raids on the adjacent Ottoman-occupied Peloponesian territory.
Therefore, in mid-1479, the Sultan ordered the Bey of Valona, celebrated captain and former Grand Vizier, Gedik Ahmed Pasha, to attack Leonardo III Tocco with 29 ships. In early 1479, Gedik Ahmed Pasha had concluded the siege of Scutari resulting in the cessation of that territory to the Ottoman Empire. Leonardo III Tocco did not wait the for Turkish invasion. He knew that the Venetians were unwilling, and the Neapolitans were incapable, to provide military assistance, and that his own subjects considered him tyrannical. Consequently, long before the Gedik Ahmed Pasha appeared, he collected all his portable valuables and fled from Lefkada to his castle in Cephalonia, Fort St George. However, he did not trust the garrison stationed there. Also, the approaching Ottomans noticed his ship was laden with treasure, so he hastily embarked along with his wife, his son, and two brothers on board another Venetian vessel to Taranto. Thereafter, he proceeded to Naples.