Athanasios Diakos

Athanasios Diakos was a hero of the Greek War of Independence. Two villages in the Phocis prefecture claim to be his birthplace: Artotina and Mousounitsa.

When the war started he was a monk. One day a Turkish pasha came to his monastery and Made some crude remarks about his good looks. Diakos slew him and fled to the mountains. He join a band of klephts, who made him there leader.

Omer Vryonis, the commander of the Turkish army advanced from Thessaly to crush the revolt in Peloponnesus. Diakos and his band of followers took up defensive posistion at the river of Alamana (Sperchios), near Thermopylae. Diakos' men fought for several hours before they were overwhelmed.

The wounded Diakos was take to Vryonis. Vryonis offered to make Diakos an officer in his army but Diakos refused and replied "I was born a Greek and I will die a Greek".

Vryonis ordered that Diakos be tied to a spit and roasted over a fire. As he was about to die onlookers heard him sing "Look at the time Charon chose to take me, now that branches are flowering, now that the earth sends forth grass" That referred to the Greeks' uprising against the Turks.