Preveza (, ) is a city in the region of Epirus, northwestern Greece, located on the northern peninsula of the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. It is the capital of the regional unit of Preveza, which comprises the southern part of Epirus. Preveza is connected to Aktio in Central Greece by the Aktio-Preveza Immersed Tunnel, the only undersea tunnel in Greece. The ruins of the ancient city of Nicopolis lie north of Preveza.
Etymology Despite the fact that the name Preveza is attested in the Chronicle of the Morea (, , ), in the narratives referring to the suppression of the rebellious prince of the Despotate of Epirus, Nikephoros I, which occurred in 1290, this does not prove that the city existed in that period. The name is commonly regarded as originally deriving from the Slavic word , meaning 'passage', but transmitted via an Albanian form , 'transportation, crossing'. These words correspond to the ancient Greek word pereosis (), which means passing across, pointing to it as a likely ultimate origin of the name.
An alternative derivation is that proposed in 1857 by Panagiotis Aravantinos as coming from the Italian word , which means 'provision, supply'.Panagiotis Aravantinos, Chronography of Epirus , (in Greek), Athens, 1857, vol. 2, p. 133, sv. Πρέβεζα. Aravantinos' proposal has no solid foundations, according to recent academic views.
Administration
The present form of the Municipality of Preveza was established in 2011, through the Reform Legislation for Local Government, which merged the following three former municipalities, which in turn became its Municipal Units. (The constituent communities are mentioned in brackets): Former Municipality of Louros (Ano Rachi, Kotsanopoulo, Louros, Neo Sfinoto, Oropos, Remmatia, Skiadas, Stefani, Trikastro, Vrysoula) Former Municipality of Preveza (Flamboura, Michalitsi, Mytikas, Nicopolis, Preveza) Former Municipality of Zalongo (Cheimadio, Eklissies, Kamarina, Kanali, Kryopigi, Myrsini, Nea Sampsounta, Nea Sinopi, Riza, Vrachos)
The municipality has an area of 380.541 km2, the municipal unit 66.835 km2.
History
Antiquity
In antiquity, the south-southwestern part of Epirus was inhabited by the Greek tribe of Cassopeans, part of a larger tribe, the Thesprotians.Theodora Kontogianni, Kassopi. A brief guide of the archaeological site, Greek Ministry of Culture, Ioannina, 2006. Their capital city was Cassope (today, near the village of Kamarina). At the southernmost part of Epirus, king Pyrrhus founded, in 290 BC, the town of Berenike or Berenice, named after his mother-in-law Berenice I of Egypt.Plutarch: Life of King Pyrrhus, Kaktos editions, Athens Today, it is believed that Berenike lies on the hills near the village of Michalitsi, following the excavations by Sotirios Dakaris in 1965. The Ionian Sea, near Berenike, was the site of the naval Battle of Actium, on 2 September 31 BC, in which Octavian's forces defeated those of Mark Antony and queen Cleopatra of Egypt. The city of Nicopolis (, "Victory City") was built nearby by Augustus to commemorate his victory.Plutarch: Life of Marc Antony, vol.III The city is believed to have, at its peak, a population of 150,000.Konstantinos Zachos: Ancient Nicopolis, The Greek Ministry of Culture, 2003 In AD 90, Epictetus arrived at Nicopolis, after he had been banished by the Roman emperor Domitian and established a school of philosophy. One of his students Arrian became a famous historian and recorded all of his works.
Medieval period
The name Preveza was first attested in the Chronicle of the Morea for the year 1292, when the Genoese allies of Byzantine emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos raided its port of Saint Nicholas. However, it likely dates to the abandonment of Nicopolis after the Uzes raids in Greece in the 1060s.
Preveza is not mentioned thereafter until the 15th century, indicating that it was likely abandoned or was of negligible importance. No medieval monuments survive, either. The modern city likely traces its sources to a foundation (or at least fortification) after the Ottoman conquest of the region, likely , followed by a second fortification in 1495. Therefore, it is most unlikely that Preveza constitutes the continuation of ancient Nicopolis, as earlier scholars have suggested.Nikos D. Karabelas, Is Preveza the continuation of ancient Nicopolis? , Preveza, 2014.
First Ottoman period The Ottomans refounded Preveza probably in 1477, with a subsequent strengthening of the fortifications in 1495.Isager Jacob: "Foundation and destruction, Nikopolis and Northwestern Greece". Danish Institute at Athens, 2001, , p. 60. The naval Battle of Preveza was fought off the shores of Preveza on 29 September 1538, where the Ottoman fleet of Hayreddin Barbarossa defeated a united Christian fleet under the Genoese captain Andrea Doria. This day is a Turkish Navy National Holiday, and some of today's Turkish submarines are called "Preveze".
Venetian intervention
Preveza was hotly contested in several Ottoman-Venetian Wars. In September 1684, in the early phase of the Morean War, the Venetians, aided by Greek irregulars, crossed from the island of Lefkada (Santa Maura) and captured Preveza as well as Vonitsa, which gave them control of Acarnania – an important morale booster towards the main campaign in the Morea.Finlay, p. 209 However, at the end of the war in 1699 Preveza was handed back to Ottoman rule. Venice captured Preveza again in 1717, during its next war with the Ottomans and was this time able to hold on to the town and fort it – a meager achievement in a war which otherwise went very badly for the Republic. Venetian rule would persist until the very end of the Venetian Republic itself in 1797. During this period, in 1779, the Orthodox missionary Kosmas visited Preveza where it is said he founded a Greek school, which would be the only school of the city during the 18th century.Sakellariou M.V.:"Epirus, 4,000 years of Greek history and civilisation", Ekdotikē Athēnōn, 1997, , p. 306 At the end of the 18th century, Preveza became a transit center of trade with western Europe (particularly France), which resulted in the increase of its population to approximately 10,000–12,000.Mikropoulos A. Tassos:Elevating and Safeguarding Culture Using Tools of the Information Society: Dusty traces of the Muslim culture. Earthlab. , p. 313-315.
French rule
Following the Treaty of Campo Formio, where Napoleon Bonaparte decreed the final dissolution of the Venetian Republic, Preveza – like other Venetian possessions in Greece and Albania – was ceded to Revolutionary France. 280 French grenadiers arrived in Preveza under the commands of General La Salchette. The people of Preveza welcomed the French troops, and formed a pro-French civic militia. Around this same time the poet Rigas Feraios was combining support for the ideas of the French Revolution with calls for a Greek uprising against Ottoman rule. He was intercepted and killed by the Ottoman authorities when en route to meet Napoleon and directly ask for his help for the Greek cause.
Napoleon Bonaparte, however, focused his attention in another direction, launching the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria, placing France at war with the Ottoman Empire and giving little thought to the fate of the small Preveza garrison exposed on the edge of Ottoman territory. In October 1798, the local Ottoman governor Ali Pasha Tepelena – having great ambitions to make himself a semi-independent ruler – attacked Preveza with an overwhelming force. In the Battle of Nicopolis on 12 October 1798 the troops of Ali Pasha and his son Mukhtar completely overwhelmed the French troops and their local allies. Over the next two days, 13–14 October 1798, a major massacre of the French troops and the local Greek population which defended the city took place in Preveza and Port Salaora, on the Ambracian Gulf, starting before Ali Pasha entered Preveza on 13 October but also continuing in his presence.Fleming Katherine Elizabeth: The Muslim Bonaparte: Diplomacy and Orientalism in Ali Pasha's Greece. Princeton University Press, 1999. , p. 99 On 14 October, Ali Pasha called on those citizens of Preveza who had escaped to the Acarnanian Mountains to return to the city, and declared that they would be in no danger. However, upon their return, 170 of them were executed by the sword at the Salaora Port Customs.Nikos Karabelas: "Foreign travellers in Preveza", Newspaper Kathimerini, 28 January 2001 Many prisoners who survived the massacre died from the hardships on the road to Ioannina. In the grand return and reception held for his victorious troops, which Ali Pasha organized at Ioannina, surviving French and rebel prisoners were given the unpleasant role of walking at the head of the procession, holding the cut and salted heads of their companions, under the shouts and jeers of Ioannina's pro-Ottoman residents. From Ioannina, nine captured French grenadiers, and two officers were sent chained to Istanbul for questioning. One of them, Captain Louis-Auguste Camus de Richemont, was later released, possibly mediated by the mother of Napoleon Bonaparte, Maria Letizia Bonaparte, and eventually became a general. Some popularly circulating tales, of doubtful historical authenticity, link this incident with the origins of the Spoonmaker's Diamond, one of the most closely guarded treasures of Istanbul's Topkapı Palace.
Though Preveza would remain under Ottoman rule for more than a century, this event – both the short period of Greek militias active in the city and the shock of the massacre that followed – and the influence of the ideas of the French Revolution had a part in the development of Greek nationalism towards the Greek War of Independence, which broke out three decades later.
Second Ottoman period
From 1798 to 1820, Preveza was under the rule of the semi-independent Ali Pasha. Following his death in 1822 in Ioannina, Preveza was more directly controlled from Constantinople. Preveza became the seat of a province (the Sanjak of Preveze) in 1863, until the year 1912 when the city joined Greece. In 1835, educational activity in the city revived with the foundation of a new Greek school, the Theophaneios, named after its sponsor, Anastassios Theophanis. In the following decades, this school became a centre of education in the surrounding area and in 1851 it also hosted a female and a secondary school.Sakellariou M. V.: "Epirus, 4,000 years of Greek history and civilisation". Ekdotikē Athēnōn, 1997, , p. 306