The death of this chieftain has formed the subject of
a modern Greek drama, for the Greeks of the mainland have always admired,
and sometimes imitated, the desperate valour of their Cretan brethren. On
the Venetians this revolt made so great an impression that the Duke was
ordered to admit no Cretan into the Great Council of the island without
the special permission of the Doge—an order due as much to the fears of
the home Government as to the jealousy of the colonists.
But the most significant feature of this insurrection was the apathy
of the Venetian vassals in contributing their quota of horses and men
for the defence of the island. Somewhat earlier, the knights had been
compelled, in spite of their vigorous protests, to pay the sum which,
by the terms of their feudal tenure, they were supposed to expend upon
their armed followers, direct to the Exchequer, which took care to see
that the money was properly applied. Many of the poorer among them now
found themselves unable to provide the amounts which the Government
required, and so became heavily indebted to the Treasury. It was the
opinion of Venetian statesmen that Crete should be self-supporting, but
it at last became necessary to grant a little grace to the impoverished
debtors, some of whom had shown signs of coquetting with the Turks. Thus
the discontented Venetian colonists, who had been born and trained for
the most part in an island which exercises a strong attraction on even
foreign residents, found that they had more grievances in common with the
Greeks than bonds of union with the city of their ancestors. More than a
century and a half had elapsed since the first great batch of colonists
had left the lagoons for the great Greek island. Redress had been
stubbornly refused, and it only needed a spark to set the whole colony
ablaze.