The Benizelos Families of Athens
A Benizelos Grave
Section One, Number 237A
In the First Cemetery there are many graves of
Athenians who were born during the Ottoman occupation, lived through the
terrible years of the War of Independence, and remained residents when Athens
became Greece’s capital. One such grave is that of Vasileios Benizelos. He was
born in 1783 and died in 1840. The name Benizelos does not come immediately to mind when
thinking of heroes of the Greek War of Independence although family members did
take part in the struggle. It is more likely recognizable to Athenians today
because the Benizelos mansion at 96 Adrianou Street has recently been reconstructed
and is now open to the public. (1)
The
mansion as seen from Diogenous Street
This impressive structure is the only example of the home of a Greek family
residing in the city during the Ottoman period. The War of Independence destroyed
most of the city and what was left was most often torn down to make way for the
‘new’ neoclassical capital.
The Benizeloi were one of several aristocratic
families residing in the city during the Ottoman period. Like many other families of
their class, they claimed Byzantine roots. Records of that period are sparse so
their history has to be gleaned from scattered sources. Their name is mentioned
in some contemporary records, in the accounts of travellers who began coming to
Athens in the late 1600s looking for remnants of the classical age, and in the late
1700s by Greek historians, one of them a Benizelos himself. They were no doubt
a large clan as families tended to be in those days.
Their presence in the cemetery offers us an
opportunity to consider what life was like for an Athenian family during the
long years of Ottoman rule.
Life Under the Ottomans
Life for Athenian Christians under the
Ottomans was never easy and never secure. They had to make constant
accommodations, - adjusting as best they could to a harsh regime which cared about
their well being only insofar as it affected their ability to pay taxes.
1458 to 1687
The Dukes Depart
Greeks did not cede Athens to the Turks. Athens
had been under the thumb of various Latin Dukes of Athens since 1205. It was a Florentine, Francesco Acciaioli,
who waved the white flag from his palace on the acropolis and then departed to become
Duke of Thebes under Ottoman suzerainty and, some say, to become a lover of conqueror Mehmet 11. So much for the Latins.
Mehmet 11
The conqueror, Mehmet 11, had
considered himself quite a Philhellene and certain administrative freedoms were
bestowed on Athenians from the get go - if
they behaved. Like all Christians
under the Ottomans, Athenians were allowed religious freedom (something the Latin
Dukes, being Roman Catholic, had not been prone to allow ) but only if their religious leaders behaved.
The results of a Greek society being
simultaneously favoured in some degree and yet restricted created an unnatural situation.
Insecurity reigned, even for the advantaged, and bribes at every level of
social interaction were the order of the day.
Commerce was left to the Christians,
offering opportunities for some Athenian Christians to acquire wealth, to travel,
and to keep connections open with other Greek mercantile families throughout
the empire and beyond. Ottoman officials were present to collect taxes and keep
order. Some Muslim families did migrate into the city and, while not all became
wealthy, they were certainly favoured over the Christians. The lowly status of
the Christian population was reinforced by humiliating rules such as no
Christian being allowed to ride a horse.
Initially, the Ottomans divided Greece
into six divisions or sanjaks, each
ruled by a Sanjerbey accountable
directly to the Sultan. The Athenian
administrative area or Kaza belonged to the Sanjak of Euboia 80 kilometers to
the north. The governor of the Athenian Kaza, was the Voevoda and the fortunes of the Christian population would rise or
fall depending on his good will.
The Name Benizelos
The surname Benizelos is interesting. Surnames were more fluid in those days
and the name seems to have become somewhat interchangeable with the more common
Venizelos. Both versions of the name
were likely applied to families who had either fled to Venice after the fall of
Byzantium or to families with close Venetian ties. (2)
Angelos Benizelos, Surigi Palaiologina, and
Saint Philothei
Apparently wealthy Angelos Benizelos
lived at 96 Adrianou in the 1500s. He and his wife Sirigi Palaiologina produced
a saint. Their daughter Revoula had been forced by her parents into marriage at
14, became a widow at 17, and had no urge to remarry. Instead she stayed home,
prayed, and involved herself in charitable works. She inherited a great deal of
property upon her parents’ death in 1549 and subsequently became a nun,
founding a monastery for women and involving herself in many charitable works.
These included helping poor women by teaching them domestic crafts and helping enslaved
women escape to safer territories. Such efforts required many bribes. In 1583
she was reduced to such dire economic straits that she wrote a letter to the
Venetian Senate requesting financial assistance in order to continue.
When she went so far as to aid four
women to escape from a harem, she was arrested and thrown into prison. Bribes
secured her release but, in 1588, several Ottoman mercenaries broke into her
monastery and beat her so severely that she subsequently died of her injuries. (3)
Saint Philothei’s bones now reside in
an elaborate casket inside the Metropolitan Cathedral - just a few steps from
her childhood home.
The Chief Black Eunuch of the Sultan’s
Harem
By the time we again hear about the Benizelos
clan in the 1600s, Athens had a new owner.
It had been bestowed as a personal fief to the Kizlar Aga, the Chief Back Eunuch of the Sultan’s Harem in
Constantinople.- a seemingly bizarre happening but not so strange considering
that he was the third most important figure in the Ottoman hierarchy during
that period!
Athens’ Absentee Landlord
He never visited his fief but,
nonetheless, expected a yearly income of 30,000 Ducats from his ‘property’ and personally
appointed Athens’ Voevoda, the Qadi (the muslim judge) and the Aga of the Castle to make sure it was collected.
The Sultan’s gift did have one good
outcome for Athens. It resulted in the city becoming a self governing unit, no
longer ruled by the Sanjerbey from distant Euboia. There was therefore potential
for local Athenian leaders to influence events. They could appeal injustices to
a single overlord.
During this period, another Angelos Benizelos (1590-1670) was an Elder (4).
He, with other Elders handled the day to day affairs of the local Christian
population and represented their interests. He was an educated man who had resided
in Venice for some years and was a student of philosopher Theophilos
Korydaleos, who had ended his life as a monk teaching in Athens in the 1640s. It
is thought that Angelos taught school in Athens as well. Schooling was possible under the Ottomans; it
usually came under the aegis of the local bishop and, no doubt under the
watchful eyes of Ottoman officials.
Angelos’ son, Ioannis, also taught at
the Common school of Athens. Many subsequent Benezeloi would be teachers as
well.
George Wheler Visits Athens and Mentions a
Benizelos
In his account of Athens during the 1670s,
George Wheler creates a vivid picture of the city and its inhabitants: he
mentions the climate (excellent), their health (remarkably good), their diet
(varied), their clothing (rich and well embroidered), and their women
(remarkably restricted) – which might explain all the embroidery! His account is
fascinating and available free as a digital book on the Internet. (5)
Wheler had travelled extensively in
Ottoman lands and, in his opinion, the Athenians had much more freedom than
other Turkish towns he had visited. Of course, freedom is a relative term. The Athens
in his day was divided into 8 areas, each with its Elder.
In his list of the families
from which Elders were selected, he names the Benizelli (sic) along with the
Paleologues, the Limbonaroi, the Perouli and the Cavalaris. He even gives one
account of how the Elders could indeed plead successfully for their people.
Some years before his stay, two Elders from the
Limbonaris family had journeyed all the way to Constantinople to complain to
the Kizlar Aga about their treatment under his appointees. They returned
victorious but feared reprisals from their local overlords. Wheler records that
Jani Benizelli (sic) then felt it
prudent to retire forthwith to the Convent of Pendeli and remain there until
things died down. Even a victory brought real risks...
It is hard to say how long Athens may
have remained suspended in this quasi-medieval situation if Venice had not decided
to take the city in 1687.
The Venetian Push Causes Mixed
feelings
In 1684 the Venetian Doge had mustered
a multi-national mercenary force under Francesco
Morosini for another go at the Ottomans. By the summer of 1687, his army had
conquered the entire Peloponnese except Monemvasia and was camped in Corinth - with
Athens in their sights.
Francesco
Morosini
Athenian feelings were mixed. With over two
hundred years of Ottoman rule under their belt, accommodations had already been
made. For some the status quo was advantageous. Deciding if this Venetian push
was a good thing or a bad thing was not easy. The Athenian leaders sent three delegations
to Venice that summer. The first, in August, was a delegation offering cash
to keep the Venetians away! A month
later, a second delegation arrived to negotiate the price of 40,000 reals that
Venice was demanding as an annual tribute if they did not attack. Hard on their heels, a third Athenian delegation arrived, this time soliciting the Venetian’s help and inviting them to attack.
Those
who had managed to survive and live relatively well under the Ottomans would have
been terrified of reprisals if the venture failed and some may even have preferred
to keep what they did have rather than enter into a new venture with a state
that historically had respected their religion even less than the Turks.
Morosini himself thought the whole plan was a
bad one. Holding Athens would not protect their gains in the Peloponnese. The
Ottomans could simply bypass any Athenian stronghold and attack the Peloponnese
via Megara.
For him, Athens was not strategically
important. But the Venetian Doge (another Philhellene?) disagreed and ordered
the attack. At this point, the die was well and truly cast and all Athenian
Christians had to (and did) come out in support of Venice.
The Citadel and the
City of Athens as seen by the Venetian army in 1687 (engraving, Stathis
Finnopoulos collection).
The Parthenon is Destroyed
Morosini took Athens in a matter of
days but only after his own artillery had shattered a good deal of the town (in
error) and blown a good deal of the Parthenon to smithereens. For a detailed description of
that dramatic moment, see footnote (6).
The
Turkish garrison surrendered on September 28th, 1687.
Just as an aside: the Parthenon pieces
lying scattered around the building they had once been a protected part of,
made it much easier for the Ottomans at a later date to tell Lord Elgin to help
himself to whatever he could carry. Morosini’s troops had done the same and, in
doing so, seeded the collections of many a future European museum.
The Exodus
A few short months after that fateful
September, the Venetians realized they
could not hold the city and, on February
12, the decision for the immediate abandonment of Athens was made. Realizing
that Turkish reprisals would be horrendous,
they called the Elders together and announced that the entire city would be evacuated and resettled in Venetian territory
in the Peloponnese or on the Ionian Islands.
And so it was that a sad throng of Christian
Athenians, including the Benizelos family, abandoned their beloved Athens,
leaving it to pirates, bandits and the approaching Ottoman army. (7)
(Morosini had wanted to reduce the
entire Acropolis to rubble to prevent the Turks from retaking the citadel, but
his departure was too hurried to allow him to carry out the plan...)
Athens from 1687 Until Independence
Ottoman Athens never fully recovered
from the Venetian disaster. For a time, civic life remained as scattered as pieces
of the Parthenon itself. Some inhabitants never returned. (Even by the 1830s
the population had not reached the numbers that had existed before Morosini’s
attack.) Many, like the Benizelos family, did return after 1691 to rebuild
their fortunes and homes, - to carry on in their city and even, at times, to
prosper under the Ottoman thumb.
The regime by this time was losing
control piecemeal over its territories. This allowed for Greeks in many places to
gain greater concessions, particularly those in large urban centres. Although
Athens was never an economic powerhouse, it appears the Benizelos family did
prosper and were able, sometime after 1750s, to build the imposing mansion we
see resurrected today.
The
Benizelos house in the late 1700s
During the 1700s, Ioannis
Benizelos (c. 1735 – 1807) was a distinguished member of Athenian society
and, in the 1770s, authored his own History of Athens.
He taught at the Deka School from 1774 until nearly the end of his life.
At this period, when Greeks elsewhere
were getting some benefit from Russia’s new role as protector of Ottoman
Christians (after the 1774 Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji), Athens
was suffering under its worst voevoda ever. Hadji Ali Haseki ruled Athens with an iron fist from
1775 to 1795. His despotism in the face
of greater freedoms for the Greek population elsewhere, would have made
Athenians more than ready to join the revolution when it came in 1821.
The Revolution
History records that three elders, a Palaiologos
Benizelos among them, were helping to gather arms and ammunition for the struggle
ahead.
By March of 1821, the revolt had started elsewhere and the Ottoman
authorities in Athens were terrified. They were outnumbered and at one point
had attempted to have their Qadi sign a document authorizing them to execute
3,000 Christian inhabitants to even up the numbers. To his credit, The Qadi
refused (8).
Three Elders, including Palaiologos Benizelos, offered themselves as hostages
to the Turks in order to protect the general population and were duly incarcerated
in the Acropolis. After the fighting started in earnest, Benizelos managed to
escape and fled to Aigina together with his family. It was in Aigina that his
son, Miltiades, was born in 1822.
Miltiades Benizelos went on to become a
respected Athenian doctor and is buried in the First Cemetery.
Note the Palaiologos crest. He could claim this from his mother’s side.
Athenian aristocratic familes, of course, intermarried.
Section 7, Number 388
The
famous Greek benefactor, writer, and ambassador Ioannis Gennadios
(1844 – 1932) was a proud descendent of the Benizelos family on his mother’s
side. His personal library forms the
core of the famous Gennadius Library in Athens.
And then there is Vasileios
Benizelos whose grave prompted this entry. Of him, I know nothing more than
what is written in the ancient Doric dialect on his grave stele:
THIS GRAVE COVERS THE BONES OF
BENIZELOS
A NAME YOU SURELY ALREADY KNOW.
MANY TIMES THE ACROPOLIS SAW
BASILEIOS
FIGHTING BRAVELY AGAINST THE BLOODTHIRSTY
TURKS.
IN HIS HONOUR, HIS DESCENDANTS
HAVE MADE THIS
STELE IN MEMORIAM WITH MUCH
AFFECTION AND RESPECT
(With
thanks to Mr Panos Koumbouros for the translation into modern Greek)
Note
that the surname on the monument is spelled with both spellings (ΜΠ and Β),
one at the base and the other in the inscription
Map
Footnotes
(1)
The Benizelos House is well worth a visit. The process of the rebuilding has
been well documented and all elements explained. It has an impressive interior.
If I have any complaint, it is that it’s a tad sterile. I wish they had left a
few remnants of real life - a shawl, a discarded slipper, something that would have recalled the people who lived here.
(2)There are other theories about the name. One
suggestion is that the family was named Benzi
and the ending elis got tacked on
because of an ancestor coming from Arcadia. I like the simpler explanation of
Venetian ties. It makes sense anyway.
(3)
There is a lot of information about Saint Pholothei. Try, http://archontiko-mpenizelon.gr/en/saint-philothei/ 4
rchontiko-mpenizelon.gr/en/saint-philothei/
(4) Different historians refer to these leaders in
various ways: as Elders, as
Archondes, or as nobles. As if Greek
history were not complicated enough!
(5) By googling Kizlar Haga chief of the
black eunuchs of Athens, I got the following website and was able to scroll
up and down and read his book. https://books.google.gr/books?id=xt1OAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA348&dq=kizlar+Haga+chief+black+eunuch+of+athens&hl=el&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi81uew4pHnAhVIa1AKHeu2AT4Q6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=kizlar%20Haga%20chief%20black%20eunuch%20of%20athens&f=false
On the night of September 26 during the
full moon, a bomb passed through an opening in the roof and to ignite a large
quantity of gunpowder that was stored in the temple. The Venetians, according to the sources, exploded in cheers. Some
shouted “Long Live the Republic”, others “Long Live Konigsmark.” As a result of
the explosion, three of the sanctuary’s four walls nearly collapsed and three-fifths of the sculptures from the
frieze fell. Nothing of the roof apparently remained in place. Six columns
from the south side fell, eight from the north, as well as whatever remained
from eastern porch, except for one column.
The columns brought down with them the enormous marble architraves, triglyphs
and metopes. The blast created indescribable panic. Three hundred Turks were killed by the marble that was launched in all
directions. The fire spread to surrounding homes, and, since there was not
enough water, became extended ever further. The entire night of September 26
(towards the 27th) as well as the entire next day, the Acropolis burned.
(7) We
know the Benizeloi were among the refugees because the Venetians, ever
conscious of class, listed the Athenian families in 1690 according to their class,
and the Benizelos family was listed in the uppermost of four classes. On such
slender snippets of information does Athenian history, during this period,
rest.
(8) The Sultan recalled him and had him executed.
His home is still in situ on Tripodos Street in the Plaka.
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