Threads
Water and mills
The springs of Lerna gave Myloi its mills and its name.
-
6000 BC – 3200 BC
First farmers settle by the springs of Lerna
In the Neolithic, more than 6,000 years ago, farmers settled on a low rise beside the springs, just south of today's village. Each generation built on the ruins of the last, so the settlement mound of Lerna slowly grew.…
-
c. 700 BC
Hesiod tells of the Hydra of Lerna
Around 700 BC the poet Hesiod is the first to write about the Hydra, the many-headed water serpent of the marshes of Lerna, killed by Heracles. In the later version of the story two heads grew back for every one he…
-
c. 67
Emperor Nero tries to find the bottom of the lake
Beside the springs lay the Alcyonian lake, said to have no bottom; through it, the Argives believed, Dionysus went down to the underworld to fetch his mother Semele. Pausanias tells that the emperor Nero had ropes many…
-
1212–1388
The Franks build the first watermills
In 1212 the Franks took Argos and Nafplio. In the period that followed, according to the Ephorate of Antiquities, the first watermills were built at Lerna, driven by the water of the springs. These mills would eventually…
-
1687–1714
The Venetians expand the mills
After the Peloponnese came under Venice in 1687, the Venetians greatly expanded the mills of Lerna. They built connected vaulted granaries, fitted new grinding machinery and surrounded the complex with a stone dam with…
-
1688–1715
A monopoly on the ferry, coffee and eels
Under Venice, transport between Nafplio and the mills was a state concession. The leaseholder had the sole right to carry people and goods by sea between Nafplio and the mills of Kiveri, to bring grain to the mills and…
-
10 July 1694
A Venetian field camp 'at the Mills of Argos'
On 10 July 1694 the Venetian commander-in-chief in the Morea, Marino Michiel, dated a dispatch to the Senate 'from the camp at the Mills of Argos'. Venetian and French writers used that name both for Kefalari near Argos…
-
1698
A water-driven gunpowder workshop
In 1698, according to the Ephorate of Antiquities, the Venetians added a gunpowder workshop to the mills, driven by the water of the springs. How long it worked is not known.
-
1700
Grain by boat, flour back to Nafplio
In his introduction to the Venetian cadastre of Argos, the engineer Francesco Vandeyk describes a castle on a high hill near the sea, called Anasiri, or by many 'Old Argos' or 'Helen's castle'. Below it, he writes, water…
-
1700
1700: ten families and nine working mills
The Venetian land register of Argos, made for governor Francesco Grimani in 1700, lists for "Civeri": 7 local and 3 newly settled families, one Greek church, 12 state houses, 20 ruined houses and 9 working water mills.…
-
3 October 1703
Two mills leased for ever to Giannis Glygorakis
Two of the state mills at Kiveri, in a building that housed two more, had been leased for four years to Kyriakos tou Giorgou from Monemvasia for 202 reals; his lease ran out on 21 October 1702. After a public auction…
-
c. 1704
The whole Venetian fleet takes water at the Mills
A Venetian description of the Kingdom of the Morea from around 1704, attributed to G. E. Alberghetti, notes that in the southernmost part of the plain of Argos lie 'the Mills, where the whole navy takes on water'. The…
-
1710
The mills grind too little for Nafplio
In 1710 the Venetian commander-in-chief Marco Loredan complained that the mills of Kiveri ground only 15 stara of grain a day, about 1,245 kilos. That was not enough for the ship's biscuit (paximadi) of the city and the…
-
21 July 1715 – 4 August 1715
The Ottoman army camps at the mills of Tziveri
On 21 July 1715, the day after Nafplio fell to the Ottomans, Grand Vizier Damat Ali Pasha moved his army away from the stench of the dead to the western end of the gulf, below a hill with the remains of an ancient city.…
-
1729
Fourmont sketches the 'fountain of Lerna'
The French scholar Michel Fourmont, sent to Greece by King Louis XV to search for inscriptions and manuscripts, drew a sketch of the Argive plain in 1729. On it he marked the 'fontaine de Lerna', a 'temple of Diana' and…
-
1804–1806
Gell: the lake has become a mill dam
The English topographer William Gell, who travelled the Morea in 1804–1806, wrote that the ancient Alcyonian lake 'is now become a species of mill dam', turning mills 'which give the name of Myli to the spot'. 'There are…
-
1806
The gardens of the Kapudan Pasha and the mill dam
South of the mills Leake saw a stone dam 250 yards long along the beach, with two shorter cross walls, built to hold water for the mills. Next to it lay gardens full of orange and other fruit trees, which 'formerly…
-
1806
Leake: the 'Afendiki Myli' are government mills of Nafplio
The British officer and topographer William Martin Leake visited the mills in 1806. He called them the Afendiki Myli, 'mills of Anapli [Nafplio], to which town they belong', and explained the Greek term as 'government…
-
1810
Barbié du Bocage notes six mills
In 1810 the French geographer Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage recorded six mills at Lerna. It is the same number that Benjamin Brue had seen turning on six channels in 1715.
-
c. 1815
Ottoman frigates anchor off 'the Mills'
Pouqueville noted that the frigates of the Kapudan Pasha, the Ottoman admiral, had to anchor off the beach of Lerna, 'commonly called the Mills', and that ships calling there took on fresh water. A century after the…
-
1816
'The mills of Nauplia', two hours from Nafplio and from Argos
In his critical notes on Chateaubriand's travels, printed in Padua in 1816, the Argos physician Avramiotti wrote that 'everyone knows' Lerna is the marsh a hundred paces from 'the mills of Nauplia', at the foot of Mount…
-
1822–1826
A German volunteer describes fortified Myli
The philhellene Gottfried Müller from Bremen wrote that Myli had several long houses along the sea and a former Turkish garden with a high wall, which the Greeks had turned into a stronghold. The spring drove a mill with…
-
June 1825
Makriyannis fortifies the mills
Makriyannis and the war minister Andreas Metaxas chose to stop Ibrahim at Myloi, then a hamlet of about thirty houses. Makriyannis built ramparts, cut loopholes in the garden wall and strengthened the old stone tower.…
-
18 February 1826
Barber Ali's watermill is sold
Under the law on the sale of former Ottoman property, decree no. 16,817 sold the watermill of "Barber Ali" by the Kroi spring, with about 40 stremmata of land, to six men from Nafplio for 1,441 thalers. In 1832 they…
-
14 October 1827
'No water for the mills': a captain's threat
In the civil strife around Nafplio in 1827, the mills of Myloi ground the grain for the fortress. Konstantis Veris wrote to Kolettis that he was asked to allow 10,000 oka of grain to be milled for the fortress, but that…
-
30 May 1831
American sailors find 'a little collection of huts'
Officers of the American frigate USS Constellation visited Lerna. Enoch Wines wrote that the water from the spring was led away in a canal and turned a few mills, which gave the name Mylos to a little group of huts built…
-
1865
A miller from Kynouria leases the mill
In 1865 the heirs of the Nafplio buyers leased Barber Ali's mill to Georgios V. Vasilopoulos from Mesorrachi in Kynouria. His family would keep the mill for almost a century.
-
29 March 1873
The arsenal's water-driven forge at Myloi
A newspaper listed 'the hammer forge at Myloi' among the branches of the army arsenal of Nafplio, together with works for saltpetre and percussion caps. The forge stood at the 'stomalimni', the outlet of the spring lake,…
-
13 February 1874
The state leases the fishery up to the 'Mill of Barberaga'
A state tender for the fisheries of the Argolid described the fishery of the river of Argos and the Almyros as running from Litharakia to the Almyros 'at the place of the Mill of Barberaga'. Eels were caught in these…
-
1875
Vasilopoulos buys Barber Ali's mill
In 1875 Georgios Vasilopoulos bought the mill he had been renting for about 7,000 drachmas, to be paid off over ten years.
-
15 December 1876
A steam hammer replaces the water wheel
The arsenal decided that the forging done 'at the water wheel at Myloi' would be replaced by a steam hammer. It marked the beginning of the end for the water-driven state forge.
-
1 April 1882
A Danish professor sees the spring by the chapel of Saint John
Travelling by carriage, Johan Louis Ussing wrote that the largest spring came out 'through seven openings by a small chapel of Saint John'. He also noted that at Myli the new carriage road turned west towards the…
-
1883
Baedeker: the 'Skala' with the most important mill
The German Baedeker guide of 1883 described Myli as a village stretching along the road at the foot of Pontinos. Below the road, near the chapel of Agios Ioannis, a mighty spring broke out. Part of the village, the…
-
April 1907
First stone of the ice factory Amymone
In early April 1907 the first stone of the first ice factory of Myloi was laid behind Barber Ali's watermill. The founders were the cousins Ioannis Vasilopoulos, a distiller in Tripoli, and Konstantinos G. Vasilopoulos,…
-
4 August 1907
The ice factory Amymone opens
The factory was inaugurated on a Sunday in July 1907 (old calendar) and made ice and lemonade from early August. Its second-hand machines came from the Athens ice factory Olympos; it produced 250–300 blocks a day, sold…
-
1917
The ice factory Amymone stops
With several interruptions the Amymone worked for ten years, from 1907 to 1917. Then work stopped suddenly, because of the old machines, low demand or, most likely, money troubles; the workers were laid off.
-
13 July 1941
Aerial photo: the northern water mill on the shore
North of the village the photographs of 13 July 1941 show a mill building of about 21 by 7 metres on the shore, fed by a walled, dead-straight mill race from the northern spring at the foot of Pontinos, with an outlet…
-
1945?
Postwar orthophoto: the pier and a stone coastal dam
A historic orthophoto of the Greek cadastre, probably from 1945, shows the railway pier at about 70 metres long, a smaller jetty to the north, the railway and the orchards. From the root of the pier a straight coastal…
-
7 October 1950
First stone of the ice factory «Η Λέρνη»
Early in 1950 Anastasios Vasileiou bought the ruins of the old state warehouses on the beach of Myloi and levelled the ground. On 7 October 1950, after a blessing, he laid the first stone of the ice and cold-storage…
-
1952–1953
Caskey photographs the marshes of Lerna
Caskey's first report shows the site from Mount Pontinos: marshes, the stream Amymone running from the spring to the gulf, orchards and the railway. It is one of the best pictures of the water landscape just before the…
-
1957
Barber Ali's mill is still at work
In 1957 the local historian A. P. Tsakopoulos wrote that of the Turkish watermills only the one of "Barber Ali" by the Kroi spring, north of Myloi, survived and was still working. It still carried the name of its Ottoman…
-
1958
The plain starts to use more water than the rain brings
Until about 1958 less groundwater was pumped in the Argive plain than the rain put back. After that the number of wells for citrus and fruit grew fast, the water table fell, seawater pushed inland and fields turned…
-
c. 1960
Ministries and the FAO look for water
Around 1960 the ministries of Coordination, Agriculture and Public Works set up a committee with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The FAO made three million dollars available for test drilling, which yielded…
-
1960
The first pumping station of Lerna is built
In 1960 the "Α' Αντλιοστάσιο Λέρνης" was built beside the main spring, on the Argos–Tripoli road. Its four pumps lift 5,000 m³ an hour, about as much as the spring gives, to irrigate 11,500 stremmata in Myloi, Skafidaki,…
-
1960s
Nafplio drinks water from Myloi
In the early 1960s Nafplio began to take its drinking water from the Amymone spring at Myloi, through an underground pipeline about 13 km long. Two pumping stations together deliver some 600 m³ an hour.
-
1963–1966
Spring water pumped back into the ground
From 1963 to 1966 the land-improvement service of the Ministry of Agriculture used the winter water of the Kefalari and Lerna springs to refill the groundwater through some 60 wells. The experiment was stopped in…
-
3 February 1967
Spyros Meletzis photographs the spring of Amymone
The magazine ΑΛΦΑ of 3 February 1967 carried a long report on the Argolid, "Η αρχόντισσα του Αργολικού", with text by Nikos Karantinos and photographs by Spyros Meletzis. Among them is the spring of Amymone at Myloi; the…
-
22 August 1977
Georgios Koromichis and the new water supply
As president of the community, Georgios Koromichis signs the tender for the water supply of Myloi (1.5 million drachmas). He also led the founding of a kindergarten in 1980. In 1981 he wrote of "eight years of our…
-
16 December 1979
The president speaks about selling Lerna's water
The Argos paper Feidon interviews the president of the community, G. Koromichis, about the sale of water from the springs of Lerna. In 1981 he publicly answered two opposition councillors in the same paper; the water of…
-
1988
Nafplio also draws on the Lerna spring
From 1988 the water company of Nafplio took drinking water not only from the Amymone spring but also from the main spring of Lerna at Myloi.
-
2003
Argos gets drinking water from Lerna
Around 2003 Argos also began to take drinking water from the springs at Myloi, about 500 m³ an hour through a pipeline of 10 km. One source gives 2005 instead.
-
2008
The spring weakens in summer
In the summer of 2008 the spring of Lerna gave less than 400 m³ an hour, a fraction of its old flow of around a thousand litres a second.
-
2009
Some 570 boreholes around the springs
In 2009 the geologist P. Ntontos wrote that the shared irrigation networks of Kefalari and Myloi had been neglected and were largely out of use. In the Myloi–Skafidaki–Kefalari area almost everything was now watered from…
-
24 April 2013
A water plan to protect the spring
The river basin management plan for the Eastern Peloponnese (ΦΕΚ 1004/Β/24-4-2013) proposed housing the scattered pumps at the Lerna spring inside the 1960 pumping station and moving the cemetery that lies above the…
-
11 March 2020
The pumps are still outside the building
At the Peloponnese Regional Council on 11 March 2020 two councillors pointed out that the plan to move the pumps into the building of the irrigation board had not been carried out: "the pumping stations remain outside…
-
14 May 2023
The irrigation boards sound the alarm
On 14 May 2023 the local irrigation boards of the Argolid, among them the Kefalari–Argos board that owns the 1960 pumping station, complained jointly about outdated pumps, high electricity costs and thefts at the pumping…
-
June 2025
Heracles and the Hydra on the pumping station
By June 2025 at the latest, artists including ZEM tattoo from Nafplio had painted a large mural on the 1960 pumping station: Heracles fighting the Hydra, a Pegasus, and a warning text ending with a line from Sophocles.…
-
August 2025
The spring that never ran dry runs dry
In August 2025 the local press reported that the spring of Lerna "gives not a drop of water". The pumps that supply Nafplio and Argos with drinking water stopped.
-
2026
A new water network for Kalamaki
The municipality of Argos-Mykines decides to replace and extend the water supply network "in the settlement of Kalamaki".
-
June 2026
After a wet winter the springs recover
In June 2026, after a wet winter, the springs of Lerna were reported to be back at about 65 per cent of their normal flow.