2. The statue of Cervantes

Nafpaktos is famous as the site of the battle of Lepanto, the last great battle involving war galleys. In 1571, in a desperate effort to assist the Venetians in their struggle to maintain their control of Cyprus against the invading Ottoman army, an alliance of Christian nations managed to send a fleet of 206 galleys (plus 6 larger galleasses) against the Ottoman navy that consisted of 208 galleys plus 120 smaller ships. It was a titanic clash, involving 70,000 Christian and 77,000 Ottoman soldiers and oarsmen. The battle was fought on October 7 and lasted a few hours. At its conclusion, the Ottoman fleet was completely destroyed. It was a pointless victory though, for within a year the Ottoman shipyards had replaced the losses, while Cyprus was not saved. And the battle was not even fought near Lepanto.

The port of Nafpaktos is tiny and makes one wonder where exactly did 300 Ottoman ships fit. Thankfully, the Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi, who visited Nafpaktos in the late 1660s,offers a valuable clue. He described the port as he found it, almost a century after the battle of Lepanto, but we have no reason to doubt that nothing much had changed. According to him, the port was surrounded by a wall and only a handful of important ships docked within its protective embrace. The rest of the fleet dropped anchor in the open bay outside the port. The walls are low but thick and have many towers. It was from here that the Ottoman fleet sailed to meet the Christians over the horizon to the west of Nafpaktos, near the entrance to the Gulf of Patras.

The battle may have taken place far from Nafpaktos but this town was the site of the last Ottoman council of war before the two fleets met in the open sea. The various commanders could not agree on a strategy. Ali Pasha, the commander of the fleet, knew that his orders were to fight the enemy wherever he encountered him. The younger commanders were in favour of an aggressive campaign instead of remaining in port “playing with the women”. Others advocated caution, arguing that the season was advanced and the Christian fleet must be low in supplies, meaning they would soon have to depart anyways. Ali Pasha was convinced that the Christians would not offer battle, so he ordered the fleet to sail. Three days later, disaster struck.

The battle of Lepanto was a bloody affair. More than 30,000 Turks and 29,000 Christians were killed or injured. Among the latter was Miguel de Cervantes, the future author of Don Quixote. Cervantes had joined the Spanish navy marines as a soldier the previous year and despite suffering from fever, he insisted upon participating in the battle. He received two gunshot wounds in the chest and a third one that rendered his left arm useless. After six months of recuperation in a hospital in Malta, he returned to his career in the navy. But he had no luck. In October 1575 he was captured by Muslim pirates and taken to Algiers where he spent the next five years in captivity. He tried to escape four times and was finally ransomed by his family. The Captive's tale in Don Quixote is inspired by these bitter experiences.

A few years after the battle of Lepanto, Nafpaktos became a nest of pirates. Many freebooters from North Africa, especially Algiers, turned this town into a base of operations. Their depredations soon made them infamous throughout the region and Nafpaktos came to be known as the “Little Algiers” (while Oitylo in the Mani Peninsula was known as the “Big Algiers”). The most fearsome pirate was Durach Bey. His mother was a Christian and his father a Muslim Turk. He had a fleet of eleven brigantines and raided the nearby islands of Zante and Leukas, enslaving hundreds of islanders.