The seat of classical Greek culture was on the Peloponnesus peninsula, today more commonly known as Morea. This was the site of ancient Greece’s most powerful city-states — Sparta, Argos, Corinth and Megalopolis — as well as the main front in the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens. The Roman Empire gradually took over rule of the region in the early centuries A.D., and yet left almost no mark: modern-day Greece has more in common with Turkey than it does the Venice. The thriving Ottoman Empire made sure of that.

On this day, on July 21, in 1718, Venice, the ruler of the Peloponnesian region since the Roman Empire period, signed a treaty with the Ottoman Empire and Austria ceding control the land. The Ottomans had swept over the region as early as the late 1400s, but needed several more centuries to take down Venetian strongholds.

Much of the battle for Peloponnesus took place at sea. Venice had the better ships, but faced an almost a 2 to 1 disadvantage in ships, including the large warships. That might not have mattered as much as it did if the Venetian commander in charge of the fleet was better respected; but as he essentially bought his commission, many of the ships chose to ignore his orders.