I stood at his shoulder and looked. The interior was empty, bare of
all ornament. On the wall facing the door, and cut in plain letters
a foot high, two words in Greek confronted me--
PHILOPATRI STEPHANOPOULOI.
"A tomb?" I asked.
"Yes, and a kinsman's; for the Stephanopouli were of blood the
emperors did not disdain to mate with. In the last rally the Turks
had much ado with them as leaders of the Moreote tribes around Maina,
and north along Taygetus to Sparta. Yes, and there were some who
revived the Spartan name in those days, maintaining the fight among
the mountains until the Turks swarmed across from Crete, overran
Maina and closed the struggle. Yet there was a man, Constantine
Stephanopoulos, the grandfather of this Philopater, who would buy
nothing at the price of slavery, but, collecting a thousand souls--
men, women, and children--escaped by ship from Porto Vitilo and
sailed in search of a new home. At first he had thought of Sicily;
but, finding no welcome there, he came (in the spring of 1675, I
think) to Genoa, and obtained leave from the Genoese to choose a site
in Corsica.
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