Naupaktos in antiquity
Thoas: King of the Aetolians, supposedly son of Andraemon and Gorge and nephew of Meleager. He participated at the Trojan War with 40 ships (Iliad B, 638). After the wear he returned to Aetolia or went to Italy.
Αetolian Confederacy: The federate state of the Aetolians which was created as a barrier to the expansion of Macedonia as well as to the Achaean Confederacy of the Peloponnese. It was founded in the 4th century B.C. (some historians offer the date 370 B.C., while others the end of the century) and continued to expand throughout the 3rd century B.C. Eventually it comprised the largest part of the Mainland Greece apart from Attica. It was relying on a complicated administrative structure (since it comprised not only cities but also inhabitants of villages (komae) or nomadic pastoral populations) but also on a powerful army.
Ozolian Locrians: The Locrians were probably a Dorian tribe (other, however, support that they were descendants of the Lelegae), one of the first to have settled in Greece. They were divided in Ozolians or Hesperian Locrians, i.e. of the west, who settled in the regions of Phocis and Aetolia, and in Eoans, i.e. of the east, who settled in the region of Phthiotis and were equally discerned in Opuntians and Epicnemidians.
Naval battles in history
Amvrakiots: Amvrakia was a city-state, Corinthian colony of the 7th century B.C. in the region of present-day Arta. The Amvrakian Gulf was named after her. It was always a faithful ally of the Corinthians and it followed them into the pro-Lacedemonian faction during the Peloponnesian war.
Phormion: Athenian general and admiral, born around 480 B.C. in present-day Peania and died in 428 B.C. He was elected general in 440 and participated at the expedition against Samos with Pericles as co-leader, at the naval battle of the Amvrakian Gulf in 437 B.C. and was the leader in both naval battles of the Corinthian Gulf in 429 B.C., that of Patras and that of Naupaktos.
Trireme: the most typical war ship of antiquity, which took its name from the 3 rows of oarsmen (eretae in Greek). It was the evolution of the direme and it is said that the first one to construct such a ship was the Corinthian shipbuilder Ameinokles, around 704 B.C. Although bigger ships, such as quadriremes and quinqueremes were created later on, the trireme remained the basic war ship for centuries, due to its flexibility and speed.
Naval battle of Artemision: A naval battle which took place in the Euboean cape Artemision, simultaneously with the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., in order to drive back the Persian naval forces which aimed at supporting the Persian land forces.
Sima: A water gutter which ran along the roof of ancient buildings, particularly temples, and was decorated with relief representations.
Βyzantine period
Slavic raids: From the end of the 6th century onwards, Slavic populations started descending into Greece, particularly western Greece, where the networks of cities was not so dense; they settled in the countryside and it is estimated that in the 8th century (or maybe even earlier) they reached the Pelponnese. This phenomenon was for decades a "taboo" in Greek historiography and only from the 1980s onwards started a systematic study of the settlement and assimilation of the Slavic populations. Several historians consider these slavic raids as one of the reasons for the so-called "Dark Ages" of Byzantium (7ος-9ος), when development seems to follow a very slow pace.
Petar Deljan: Leader of the Bulgarian revolt against the Byzantine supremacy which took place in 1040-1041. Deljan spread the rumour that he was a grandson of Samuel, king of the Bulgarians, enemy of Vassileios Voulgaroktonos, but it is possible that he was just a local dynast. After the revolt he adopted the title "Zar of the Bulgarians". He conquered large part of western Greece and Albania, due also to the revolt of the Slavic populations that were settled there, however he was betrayed by his cousin Alysius, who blinded and amputated him in 1041.
Janissaries: The Janissary corps was an elite military corps related directly to the Sultan; initially it consisted solely of Christian subjects who had been forced to adopt Islam as they were taken away from their families with the devshirme system and they were raised to be soldiers in Istanbul.
Αrquebuze: An old gun, precursor of the rifle, which was in use in Europe from the beginning of the 15th to the end of the 16th century.
Suleyman the Magnificent: The 10th sultan of the Ottoman state, son of Selim I, who was born in 1494 and succeeded his father in 1520. Under his reign the Ottoman empire expanded considerably, both to the east and to the west. He annexed large part of central-eastern Europe (Hungary, Transylvania etc) and he even besieged Vienna twice (in 1529 and 1532). In his days literature and sciences also flourished in the Ottoman Empire.
The Knights of the Order of St. John: Τhe Order of St. John was initially founded in order to offer relief to the invalids and wounded in the Holy Land (thus the epithet Ospitallers from Hospital); however, they soon developed into a military regiment. In 1291 they were driven away by the Arabs and found refuge temporarily in Cyprus; in 1309 the island of Rhodes was ceded to them. However, Suleyman the Magnificent conquered the island in 1522 and drove them away. The Western forces then decided to offer them the island of Malta, where the Ospitallers settled in 1530.
Beyazid II Veli: The first-born son of Mehmed II the Conqueror, he goverened the Ottoman Empire from 1481 to 1512 and achieved a series of military victories both in the east and the west. In 1512 he ceded his throne to his son Selim I.
Piri Reis: Haji Ahmed Muhiddin Piri was an Ottoman admiral and cartographer; he was born betwen 1465 and 1470 and died in 1553. His best known work was the Kitab-ı Bahriye, a very detailed record and mapping of all the ports of the Mediterranean Sea.
Vincenzo Coronelli: A Franciscan monk (1650-1718), encyclopedist and cartographer. he spent most of his life in Venice. He made a series of heaven and earth globes for Luis XIV of France, and a multitude of maps, several of which depicted the Venetian-occupated lands of Gree
ce.Jacob Spon: (1647-1685) A French doctor and antiquary, who travelled together with the British botanist Sir George Wheler around large part of the Levant, Greece and Italy, collecting and recording antiquities.
Nasuh Matrakci: His full name was Nasuh bin Karagöz bin Abdullah el-Bosnavî. He originated from Bonia but was brought up as a Janissary following a devshirme. He became a great mathematician, architect, painter and illuminator and offered his services to several 16th century Sultans of the Ottoman Empire.
Ludwig Salvator of Austria: The archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria is also known as "the prince of Mallorca" since he settled on this Spanish island as a governor and bought a huge estate in order to preserve the flora and fauna of the region. In the 1870s, as was usual among the nobility of the time, he travelled extensively in the Eastern Mediterranean and then published his memoirs in a series of books. The travel around the Corinthian Gulf bears the title Eine Spazierfahrt im Golf von Korinth and was published in Prague in 1876.