Sklavounakos

The fortified complex of the warlord Sklavounakos stands to the south of the village Pyrgos Dirou in Eastern Mani, a relic of the revolutionary year 1821. Its centrepiece is a six-storey tower reaching 15 metres, among the tallest in the region, and it remains in relatively good condition. Around it cluster a two-storey house, cisterns, a chapel, a cemetery and an animal yard, all enclosed by a fortification wall five metres high. This was not a noble seat but the stronghold of a local captain, built at the moment Greece rose against Ottoman rule, and its scale speaks of the pride and peril of Maniot clan life. The tower’s height offered both status and a vantage point over the rocky landscape, while the wall and cisterns made the compound defensible in times of trouble. Today it survives as a compact monument to a turbulent era.