Society, Administration And Identities In Latin Greece 137
However, in the following two centuries (17th–18th), the records relate that
the community was composed of a large number of members who did not
possess citizen status and included even villagers. This situation led to the cre-
ation of the myth of the “democratic council” of Cephalonia. However, in fact
the ostensibly democratic make-up was due to the existence of powerful fam-
ily networks who, while clashing amongst themselves, had forced the council
to bring in members of inferior social ranks whom they would then control for
the purpose of boosting their own influence.
The Cephalonian communal council remained “unclean” until the end of
Venetian Rule in 1797 despite the efforts made by the Venetian authorities for
its reorganisation, particularly in 1750, as well as its relocation to the new capi-
tal of the island, Argostoli, in 1758.
The fourth category—the civic communities of the late Venetian period
with a fixed number of cittadini who had been members from the outset—
developed from 1684 onwards and somewhat later in the Peloponnese and the
island of Lefkada, regions which fell to the Venetians following many years
of Ottoman rule, as well as in the mainland administrative appendages of
Lefkada, that is, Preveza and Vonitsa, during the 18th century.
Throughout the Greek-Venetian lands, the members of the civic commu-
nities, nobles and cittadini, enjoyed a number of rights of which the most
important were the following two. The first was the dispatch of delegations
(ambascerie) to Venice to whom they submitted petitions, sometimes repre-
senting the entirety of the local population but more often favouring their own
class at the expense of the rest of the social strata.
The second was the participation in the local administration. As noted
above, the administration of the Greek-Venetian regions operated on two lev-
els, Venetian and local. The first included those offices granted exclusively to
Venetians of the metropolis, while the second comprised appointments that
could be undertaken by members of the indigenous populations and, mainly,
the members of the communal councils.
The offices of the local administration were divided into the few communal
appointments and those pertaining to more general public life either in the
city or in the rural areas: judges ( judici), market and health inspectors (giusti-
zieri and provveditori alla sanità), persons in charge of security and most espe-
cially of nighttime safety (signori di notte), administrators of the charitable
institutions, galley captains (sopracomiti); also, castellans and “captains” fight-
ing against bandits (capitani contra fures) in the countryside and even gover-
nors of small regions.
The awarding of the local offices took place in the following ways: