The Battle of Alamana was fought between the Greeks

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

 and the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 during the Greek War of Independence

Greek War of Independence

The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...

 on April 22nd, 1821.

Battle

Omer Vrioni, the commander of the Ottoman army, advanced with 8,000 men from Thessaly

Thessaly

Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....

 to crush the revolt that had broken out in Peloponnesos. Athanasios Diakos

Athanasios Diakos

Athanasios Diakos , a Greek military commander during the Greek War of Independence and a national hero, was born Athanasios Nikolaos Massavetas in the village of Ano Mousounitsa, Phocis.-Early life:...

 (he was an ex-deacon (Diakos: Gr. for deacon) who then became a trainee monk but gave it up for the War of Independence), Panourgias Panourgias and Yiannis Dyovouniotis with their bands of armatoloi

Armatoloi

Armatoloi , were Greek Christian irregular soldiers, or militia, commissioned by the Ottomans to enforce the Sultan's authority within an administrative district called an Armatoliki...

 (a total of perhaps 1,500 men) took up defensive positions at the river Alamana

Spercheios River

The Spercheios is a river in the Central Greece geographical region, of Greece. The river begins in Eurytania Prefecture in the Panaitoliko mountains and flows northeast from near Megalo Chorio and into Karpenisi and flows within GR-38 and through Agios Georgios Tymfistos south of the Tymfistos...

 (Spercheios - the alternative name for the river is a misnomer as the local memory confused Brennus' men (287 BC) with Allamani), near Thermopylae

Thermopylae

Thermopylae is a location in Greece where a narrow coastal passage existed in antiquity. It derives its name from its hot sulphur springs. "Hot gates" is also "the place of hot springs and cavernous entrances to Hades"....

.

Vrioni's attack forced Panourgias and Dyovouniotis to retreat, leaving Diakos alone. Diakos's men fought for several hours before they were overwhelmed.

Death of Diakos

Eventually, Diakos himself was captured and taken to Vrioni after he was shot in the foot and had his sword broken. When Vrioni offered to make Diakos an officer in his army, Diakos immediately refused and replied:

"I was born a Greek and I will die a Greek".

Vrioni then ordered that Diakos be impaled

Impalement

Impalement is the traumatic penetration of an organism by an elongated foreign object such as a stake, pole, or spear, and this usually implies complete perforation of the central mass of the impaled body...

 on a spit and roasted over a fire (the part about "being roasted" is questioned as local oral tradition has it that he was killed (freed from his torment) by a Greek rebel the next day). The Ottomans tried to make Diakos carry the long spit, but he threw it down with contempt. As he was led off to die, onlookers heard him sing:

"Look at the time Charon

Charon (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on...

chose to take me, now that branches are flowering, now that the earth sends forth grass".

Diakos's song was in reference to the Greeks' uprising against the Ottoman Empire.

Aftermath

Even though the battle was ultimately a military defeat for the Greeks, Diakos's death provided the Greek national cause with a stirring myth of heroic martyrdom.

Sources

• Paroulakis, Peter Harold. The Greeks: Their Struggle for Independence. Hellenic International Press, 1984. ISBN 0-9590894-0-3.