collaborated in the ‘great Insurrection’ against Janissary pretensions. But in the imperial capital Sultan Ahmed used these years to consolidate his position on the
throne, playing off rival viziers and ‘Lords of the Divan’ while advancing his own nominees to key posts in the army and at Court. The policy of modernizing the army and navy, begun by
Hüseyin, was cautiously continued and met with some success. While no Ottoman commander could outwit Prince Eugene, the Russians were checked on the river Pruth in 1711, Peter the Great
himself narrowly avoiding capture. But the most striking achievements of this period were in southern Greece. The remarkable speed with which the Peloponnese was recovered testifies to the
effectiveness of the redesigned fleet. It also provides a significant commentary on the status of Ahmed III’s Greek Orthodox subjects.
Over the centuries Ottoman Sultans appropriated many churches as mosques, but they never sought to enforce conversion on the whole Christian community. 12 Mehmed II recognized his Orthodox subjects as a religious ‘nation’ ( millet ); they had to pay heavy taxes and accept discriminatory laws—no
proselytizing of Muslims, no church processions, no riding of a horse, no carrying of arms, etc.—but they were permitted self-government in spiritual and secular church affairs under the
leadership of the Greek Patriarch in Constantinople, who was given high Ottoman rank: a Pasha with three horsetails. Later Sultans used Greeks widely in government service; almost invariably, for
example, theinterpreter (dragoman) to a foreign envoy would be a Greek. But it was from commerce that the Greeks grew wealthy. A Greek quarter—which included the
walled residence of the Patriarch—survived in the Stamboul district of Constantinople around Phanar (Fener), the old Byzantine lighthouse above the Golden Horn. By the early eighteenth
century these ‘Phanariot’ Greeks formed a mercantile aristocracy, active not only at the heart of the Empire but throughout Rumelia and the Levant as well. Their greatest commercial
rivals had long been the Venetians and, to a lesser extent, the Genoese. The Phanariots presented Ahmed III with a series of appeals from Greeks under Venetian rule in the Aegean islands of the
Peloponnese imploring the Ottomans to come and liberate them from Latin domination. This influential pressure group was supported by Sultan Ahmed’s Cretan-born mother, who did not die until
November 1715. Military and naval action against the Venetian Republic would be more popular in Constantinople than any campaign on the lower Danube.
By 1710 a quarter of a century of Venetian administration was bringing prosperity back to the Peloponnese after many years of neglect. The population had increased rapidly, assisted by
colonization from north of the Gulf of Corinth, and in the less arid districts farming was flourishing for the first time since the Classical Age. But, despite this rising standard of living,
Venetian rule was unpopular with the Greeks themselves. When the French traveller Aubry de la Moutraye landed at Methoni in the summer of 1710 he found that the people deeply resented trade
restrictions which, they said, favoured Venetian merchants. 13 The Greeks complained, too, of the coming of an Italian priesthood and of Roman Catholic
attacks on the Orthodox Church; they thought their co-believers enjoyed greater freedom of worship in the lands still within the Ottoman Empire. This Greek Orthodox hostility to intrusive Latin
rites, together with Phanariot hopes of crippling Venetian trade, ensured that the proposed war was warmly supported along the Golden Horn. Early in December 1714 occasional exchanges of fire
between Ottoman and Venetian vessels in the Aegean gave the Sultan an excuse to declare war on the Republic of St Mark.
The campaign began in the following summer, when the Grand Vizier’s army advanced into the Peloponnese. The invaders met
throne, playing off rival viziers and ‘Lords of the Divan’ while advancing his own nominees to key posts in the army and at Court. The policy of modernizing the army and navy, begun by
Hüseyin, was cautiously continued and met with some success. While no Ottoman commander could outwit Prince Eugene, the Russians were checked on the river Pruth in 1711, Peter the Great
himself narrowly avoiding capture. But the most striking achievements of this period were in southern Greece. The remarkable speed with which the Peloponnese was recovered testifies to the
effectiveness of the redesigned fleet. It also provides a significant commentary on the status of Ahmed III’s Greek Orthodox subjects.
Over the centuries Ottoman Sultans appropriated many churches as mosques, but they never sought to enforce conversion on the whole Christian community. 12 Mehmed II recognized his Orthodox subjects as a religious ‘nation’ ( millet ); they had to pay heavy taxes and accept discriminatory laws—no
proselytizing of Muslims, no church processions, no riding of a horse, no carrying of arms, etc.—but they were permitted self-government in spiritual and secular church affairs under the
leadership of the Greek Patriarch in Constantinople, who was given high Ottoman rank: a Pasha with three horsetails. Later Sultans used Greeks widely in government service; almost invariably, for
example, theinterpreter (dragoman) to a foreign envoy would be a Greek. But it was from commerce that the Greeks grew wealthy. A Greek quarter—which included the
walled residence of the Patriarch—survived in the Stamboul district of Constantinople around Phanar (Fener), the old Byzantine lighthouse above the Golden Horn. By the early eighteenth
century these ‘Phanariot’ Greeks formed a mercantile aristocracy, active not only at the heart of the Empire but throughout Rumelia and the Levant as well. Their greatest commercial
rivals had long been the Venetians and, to a lesser extent, the Genoese. The Phanariots presented Ahmed III with a series of appeals from Greeks under Venetian rule in the Aegean islands of the
Peloponnese imploring the Ottomans to come and liberate them from Latin domination. This influential pressure group was supported by Sultan Ahmed’s Cretan-born mother, who did not die until
November 1715. Military and naval action against the Venetian Republic would be more popular in Constantinople than any campaign on the lower Danube.
By 1710 a quarter of a century of Venetian administration was bringing prosperity back to the Peloponnese after many years of neglect. The population had increased rapidly, assisted by
colonization from north of the Gulf of Corinth, and in the less arid districts farming was flourishing for the first time since the Classical Age. But, despite this rising standard of living,
Venetian rule was unpopular with the Greeks themselves. When the French traveller Aubry de la Moutraye landed at Methoni in the summer of 1710 he found that the people deeply resented trade
restrictions which, they said, favoured Venetian merchants. 13 The Greeks complained, too, of the coming of an Italian priesthood and of Roman Catholic
attacks on the Orthodox Church; they thought their co-believers enjoyed greater freedom of worship in the lands still within the Ottoman Empire. This Greek Orthodox hostility to intrusive Latin
rites, together with Phanariot hopes of crippling Venetian trade, ensured that the proposed war was warmly supported along the Golden Horn. Early in December 1714 occasional exchanges of fire
between Ottoman and Venetian vessels in the Aegean gave the Sultan an excuse to declare war on the Republic of St Mark.
The campaign began in the following summer, when the Grand Vizier’s army advanced into the Peloponnese. The invaders met
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