214 benjamin arbel
Dalmatia in 1738–40.342 The Venetian authorities were conscious of the
social injustice in their colonies, as witnessed in so many reports written
by Venetian governors, but they did not intervene to stop it unless it was
absolutely necessary for the stability of Venice’s rule. The maintenance
of the traditional social system, with only marginal improvement and
amelioration, never on a grand scale, was the Republic’s general policy.
Venice adopted what may be described as a typical colonial attitude: it
was much more concerned with fairness and justice at home (and even
there, only up to a certain degree) than in its overseas colonies, where,
with the passage of time, the Republic increasingly allowed the local elites
to manage local affairs. The few manifestations of resistance that could be
clearly considered as anti-Venetian were actually three: two plots (not real
revolts) organized in Crete in the years following the definitive demise of
Byzantium,343 and one (again, not a revolt) organized in Cyprus in 1563
by Diassorinos.344 Interestingly, in all three cases the prime protagonists,
or at least some of them, came from outside—Byzantine refugees in the
Cretan cases and Diassorinos in the Cypriot one. And in all three cases,
Orthodox priests were also involved. No less significant is the facility with
which these plots were discovered (with the help of local informers) and
suppressed, especially compared with the difficulties encountered by Ven-
ice in suppressing earlier and later revolts (real ones) on Crete and also
with the more massive and drastic reactions on Venice’s part in response
to internal conflicts in other colonies.
An excellent example of the intricate mixture of factors related to
overseas manifestations of violence is the rebellion that broke out in La
Canea’s province in Crete in the years 1523–28. As elucidated by Anastasia
Papadia-Lala’s study of these events, their background and repercussions,
the roots of this turmoil can already be observed in the mountainous areas
of western Crete from the first decade of the 16th century onward, and
342 Berengo, “Problemi economico-sociali,” pp. 477–81, 503–04. 509; Paladini, ‘Un caos
che spaventa,’ pp. 315–27; Paladini, “Paterni tiranni,” pp. 209–10.
343 Manoussos I. Manoussakas, Η εν Κρήτη συνωμοσία του Σήφη Βλαστού (1453–1454) και
η νέα συνωμοτική κίνησις του 1460–1462 (Athens, 1960), pp. 22–156; See the summary in
O’Connell, Men of Empire, pp. 104–07; Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne, pp. 432–33.
344 Hill, A History of Cyprus, 3:837–41; Benjamin Arbel, “Cyprus on the Eve of the
Ottoman Conquest,” in Michalis N. Michael, Matthias Kappler, and Eftihios Gavriel, eds.,
Ottoman Cyprus (Wiesbaden, 2009), p. 47. Diassorinos is sometimes considered a precursor
of Greek Enlightenment and a fighter for national Greek independence; even if we accept
this view, such an ambition had no prospect of realization. See Theodoros Papadopoullos,
“Ιάκοβος Διασσορινός,” in Theodore Papadopoullos, ed., Ιστορία της Κύπρου vol. 4/A (Nicosia,
1995), pp. 537–42.