The Memory of Myloi
Timeline
All events in order, period by period. Use the threads to show only one theme.
Antiquity
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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.…
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2500 BC – 2200 BC
The House of the Tiles
At the centre of Early Bronze Age Lerna stood a large two-storey building roofed with baked clay tiles and stone slabs. Rows of seal impressions found inside show that goods were stored and checked here, so it probably…
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c. 1250 BC
Lerna is abandoned
Lerna stayed inhabited into the Middle Bronze Age. In the Mycenaean period the hill was used mainly as a cemetery and lived on only now and then, and around 1250 BC it was abandoned for good.
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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…
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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…
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130–199
A statue of Antinoos in a sanctuary near Lerna
After Antinoos, the young favourite of Emperor Hadrian, drowned in the Nile in 130 AD and was declared a god, statues of him were set up across the empire. One of them, slightly larger than life and crowned with ivy like…
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c. 160
Pausanias visits Lerna and Mount Pontinos
The Greek travel writer Pausanias describes the sacred grove of plane trees that began at Mount Pontinos, the mysteries held there for Lernaean Demeter, the spring of Amymone and the bottomless Alcyonian lake. On the…
Byzantines and Franks 395–1539
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1175–1399
A castle rises on Pontinos
On the summit where Pausanias had seen the ruined sanctuary of Athena, a fortress was built with an outer ward, a six-sided redoubt, a square keep and cisterns. When exactly is disputed: Wallace McLeod thought it…
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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…
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1347
A priest for the castle: the will of Gautier de Brienne
In his will of 1347, Gautier VI de Brienne, Lord of Argos and Nauplia and titular Duke of Athens, names his castle of Chamires. He left sixty hyperpyra a year, from the rent of a cloth shop in Argos, for a priest who had…
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1388
Argos and Nauplia are sold to Venice
Marie d'Enghien, heiress of the Brienne family's lands in the Argolid, sold her lordship of Argos and Nauplia, including the castle of Kiveri, to the Republic of Venice.
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1394
Venice finally takes over the castles
The handover after the sale of 1388 was anything but smooth. The Despot of Mystras seized the castles of the Argolid first, and only in 1394 did Venice actually gain control of the area, the castle on Pontinos included.
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1479
The castle on Pontinos falls out of use
After the Venetian–Ottoman war of 1463–1479 the castle was allowed to stay in Venetian hands on condition that it was not rebuilt. From then on it gradually disappears from the record; roofs collapsed and the walls began…
Venetian period 1686–1714
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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…
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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…
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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…
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1696
1696: 42 souls in 11 houses
A Venetian church census of 1696 counts 42 people, all locals, in 11 houses at "Kiveri". In Venetian papers this name usually means the part of Kiveri facing Nafplio, the later Myloi, but the identification is not…
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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.
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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…
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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.…
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1703
'The ruins of Tyrea near the mills'
In his description of the Morea of 1703, Alessandro Pini writes that across the sea from Nafplio one can see 'the ruins of the city of Tyrea towards the mills'. People then called those ruins the Tower of Helen, and the…
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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…
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21 November 1703
Timber for the saltpetre works at Kiveri
On 21 November 1703 a Venetian record notes timber being taken to Kiveri 'for the saltpetre works', the raw material for gunpowder. It fits the water-driven gunpowder workshop that, according to the Ephorate of…
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1704
'Molini': the village appears under its own name
In his description of the Peloponnese, printed in Venice in 1704, P. A. Pacifico lists the 29 villages of the territory of Argos. Next to 'Civeri' he names a separate village 'Molini', the Mills. This is the oldest known…
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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…
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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…
Second Ottoman period 1715–1820
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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.…
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21 July 1715
The captured Venetian commander Bon is found in the camp
In the same camp the Venetian provveditore generale of the Morea, Alessandro Bon, was found in the tent of a janissary, wounded in the shoulder, and put in chains. On 29 July he, General 'Zaco', Balbi and other officers…
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1 August 1715
Five Venetian officers are executed at the camp
On 1 August 1715, in the camp at Tziveri, Osman Aga received the rank of pasha of two horsetails, the governorship of Erzurum and the command of Nafplio. The same day five Venetian officers of the Nafplio garrison were…
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4 August 1715
The army leaves over the pass towards Achladokampos
On 4 August 1715 the Grand Vizier left the camp at Tziveri for Modon (Methoni). Brue describes an hour through fairly flat land and then three hours over a narrow, difficult pass through rocky mountains: the road from…
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21 September 1715 – 5 October 1715
Back at 'the camp of the Mills'
After conquering the rest of the Morea, the Grand Vizier returned on 21 September 1715 to Tziveri, 'the camp of the Mills', west of the gulf and three leagues from Nafplio. On 23 September the troops received three…
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22 September 1715
The Sultan's gifts for the conqueror of the Morea
On 22 September 1715, in the camp of the Mills, the Sultan's sword-bearer (silahdar) handed the Grand Vizier an imperial decree, a sable fur and a sabre set with diamonds and turquoises, as a reward for the reconquest of…
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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…
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1775–1799
'Les Moulins', a junction on the road to Tripolitsa
In the late 18th century 'les Moulins' was a junction of roads in the northeastern Peloponnese. From Tripolitsa a road came down via Achladokampos to the Mills and went on to Argos and Nafplio, while another road ran…
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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…
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1806
A khan below the Amymone spring
'Just below the fountain Amymone is a khan,' Leake noted, an inn for travellers; beyond it a road to Achladokampos branched off to the right, passing another, ruined khan. Further south he passed Kiveri, a hamlet of six…
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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…
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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…
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1806
A ship from Smyrna unloads iron at the wharf
Leake found the southern mills close to the shore and to 'a small wharf where vessels load or disembark their cargoes'. A ship from Smyrna lay at anchor, unloading iron, and a row of storehouses stretched from the mills…
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19 August 1806
Chateaubriand spends a feverish night in the marsh
The French writer Chateaubriand, travelling from Argos in August 1806, got lost in the marshes at night. He found 'a farm in the middle of the marsh, near the village of Lerne', where the harvest had just been brought in…
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19 July 1809
Tithe wheat goes from Myloi to Tripolitsa
A tax account dated 7 July 1809 (old style) records 'the wheat that was taken from Myloi to Tripolitsa' in the name of Nikolos Meletis, at 30 para a measure. It was the tithe wheat of the district of Argos, from 52…
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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.
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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…
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c. 1815
Pouqueville: about thirty houses at the foot of Pontinos
The French consul and traveller François Pouqueville arrived after sunset and, once someone had fetched the key, spent the night in the khan on bare planks, plagued by mosquitoes. 'Lerna or Milos', he wrote, consisted of…
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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…
Revolution and liberation 1821–1832
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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…
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July 1822
Kolokotronis makes the mills his headquarters
In the summer of 1822, as Dramali's army stood in the plain of Argos, Theodoros Kolokotronis made the mills of Lerna his headquarters. According to Samuel Howe he gathered up to 6,000 armed peasants there before the…
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July 1822
The Greek senate takes refuge at Myli
When Dramali's Ottoman army poured into the Argolid in July 1822, the Greek senate fled to Myli. Dimitrios Ypsilantis fell back there with about 600 men, taking position between the sea and the foot of the steep…
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24 November 1822
A police overseer for the Mills
During the War of Independence Myloi was a harbour and a supply point, so the revolutionary government gave it its own police official. Andreas Papadiamantopoulos was appointed "overseer of the police at Myloi". These…
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31 May 1823
Harbour master and police chief of Myloi, 1823–1824
Spyros Stathopoulos became "general harbour master and police overseer of Myloi" and served until early 1824. After him came Konstantinos Michalopoulos ("Astynomos"), Panagis Orfanos as acting police chief (March 1824)…
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March 1824 – June 1824
Myloi, seat of the Greek government
For more than two months in the spring of 1824, the Executive of Georgios Kountouriotis governed from Myloi and the ships off its shore. Proclamations and letters of the time are signed 'from Myloi of Nafplio'; the…
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30 March 1824
The government arrives by sea at the mills
During the civil war of 1824, two brigs carrying the members of the government dropped anchor in the roadstead of the mills of Lerna. Nafplio was in the hands of their opponents, so the mills became their foothold on the…
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31 March 1824
Admiral Miaoulis fires on the mills
Panos Kolokotronis, son of the general and on the opposing side in the civil war, had placed two small cannon at the mills. Admiral Andreas Miaoulis fired on them from the sea; the soldiers fled to Argos and government…
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25 April 1824
Colonel Stanhope comes ashore at the mills
The British philhellene Colonel Leicester Stanhope landed at the mills and went on to Kiveri, where he addressed the Greek senate.
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17 May 1824
Mourning salutes for Byron off Myloi
A report sent 'from Myloi of Nafplio' tells that the memorial service for Lord Byron, who had died at Missolonghi, was held that day in Argos. The flagship lying off Myloi fired mourning salutes.
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22 May 1824
Kolettis writes a letter from Myloi
Ioannis Kolettis, member of the Executive, dated a letter 'From Myloi of Nafplio, 10 May 1824'. It was printed half a century later in an Athens newspaper. A French version of a proclamation from the same days carries…
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June 1825
Admiral de Rigny warns Makriyannis
While the defences were going up, the French admiral Henri de Rigny visited the mills and told Makriyannis that his men were too few and the position too weak to stand against Ibrahim's cannon. Makriyannis answered that…
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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.…
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24 June 1825
Women and children taken aboard a French ship
On the evening before the battle, Admiral de Rigny, at anchor in the roadstead of the mills, took the women and children of the place on board his ship. After the fighting he sent rum to the Greek defenders.
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24 June 1825
Food and ammunition stored at the mills
As Ibrahim Pasha marched on Nafplio, a corps of 250 men was sent at once to seize the position of the mills, where large stores of food and ammunition had been laid up. A newspaper of the time wrote that this was exactly…
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25 June 1825
The Battle of Myloi
Ibrahim Pasha's army attacked the fortified mills in the late afternoon, in three columns along the Argos road, over the hill and from the Kiveri side. A few hundred Greeks under Dimitrios Ypsilantis, Makriyannis and…
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25 June 1825
A French eyewitness describes the battle lines
According to Jourdain, the French general Roche met Ypsilantis and Mavromichalis in the mills that morning. He counted 227 Greeks: 100 to the right of the mills, 100 on the slope to the left and the rest behind the…
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25 June 1825
Makriyannis wounded, few Greek losses
Makriyannis was wounded in the fighting but kept leading his men without letting them see it. The Greeks lost only a handful of men, among them a philhellene, while more than a hundred of Ibrahim's soldiers were killed…
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25 June 1825
Two Americans among the defenders
Samuel Gridley Howe described the position as some mills on the seashore, surrounded by a wall, with a garden and an outer wall. A boat from Nafplio brought about twenty volunteers, among them three Swiss and two…
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7 July 1825
Horsemen sent to burn Kiveri are driven off
Twelve days after the battle the enemy sent sixty horsemen to set fire to Kiveri. Greeks who came out from the mills drove them away.
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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…
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9 October 1826
Troops hold the fortifications of the mills
More than a year after the battle the mills were still a military post. A newspaper reported that the fortifications of the mills were occupied by troops under General Giannakis Rangos and Mitros Deligeorgis.
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1827
Generals agree to cut the garrison at the mills
Because promised food supplies did not arrive, the generals Stratos, Grivas and Veris decided to reduce the number of soldiers 'at the Mills and in Nafplio'. In the same months a man was held at Myloi by soldiers because…
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3 October 1827
Medicine against fever requested at Myloi
Captain Konstantis Veris, who held Myloi with his soldiers, asked Ioannis Kolettis to send medicine against 'the fever'. The marshes of Lerna made malaria a constant danger for anyone stationed at the mills.
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9 October 1827
A captain claims the harbour office of Myloi
Konstantis Veris asked for the return of the harbour office (limenarcheio) that had been assigned to him. It shows that in 1827 Myloi was a landing place with harbour dues, and that the soldiers holding it collected…
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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…
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1829
1829: 61 families, 181 people
The French scientific expedition to the Morea counted "Myli" in the province of Argos at 61 families and 181 people. The expedition noted that the war had sharply reduced the population of the area, but that it was now…
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1829
Myloi's landing stage becomes the zero point of the map
The French surveyors under Eugène Peytier, who made the first modern map of the Peloponnese, chose the landing stage of the mills at Lerna as the starting point for measuring heights, at 0.85 metres above the sea. The…
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1831
Work begins on the road from Tripoli to Myloi
Under Kapodistrias work began on a road from Tripoli over the mountains down to Myloi, the nearest landing place for Arcadia. It took almost thirty years to finish.
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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…
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4 June 1831
A boat of USS Boston capsizes on the way back from Lerna
A few days after the visit of the Constellation's officers, a boat from the American sloop USS Boston capsized in the gulf on its way back from Lerna.
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July 1832
Fighting at Myli after the murder of Kapodistrias
In the chaotic months after Governor Kapodistrias was murdered, rival Greek factions clashed at Myli. The archaeologist Ludwig Ross, newly arrived in Nafplio, wrote that General Krieziotis and his Roumeliot troops had…
The young kingdom 1833–1885
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19 June 1834
Myloi becomes seat of the municipality of Temenion
When King Otto's government divided Greece into municipalities, Myloi became the seat of the municipality of Temenion (Δήμος Τημενίου), named after the ancient harbour town nearby.
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1836–1839
Makriyannis has the battle painted
In the later 1830s Makriyannis asked the folk painter Panagiotis Zografos and his sons to paint the battles of the Revolution as he remembered them. One of the series shows the Battle of the Mills of Nafplio, with the…
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1839?
An English book shows the marsh of Lerna
Christopher Wordsworth's illustrated book on Greece, first published around 1839, includes a wood engraving of the 'Lernæan Marsh': water, plain and mountains, with travellers and a mule in the foreground. It is one of…
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4 November 1840
A town hall in Myloi
A notice in the Athens paper Athina announces an auction "in Myloi of the municipality of Temenion, in front of the town hall". A year later a court paper mentions "the café in Myloi of the municipality of Temenion". So…
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30 December 1840
The municipality of Temenion disappears
According to the official register of administrative changes, Temenion was merged into the municipality of Argos in December 1840. Yet newspapers still speak of "the municipality of Temenion" in 1841 and 1845. By 1864 at…
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1843
Myloi chooses an elector
For the elections to the National Assembly after the revolution of 3 September 1843, each village chose electors. For Myloi this was Panagis Spanos, the earliest villager of Myloi we know by name in a public role.
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1843
A state salt depot at Myloi
Salt was a state monopoly, and Myloi had a state salt depot (alatapothiki) from at least 1843. Its keepers were civil servants, and appointments and dismissals appear in the newspapers until at least 1877.
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1857
Carts on the road from Myloi to Tripoli
By the mid-1850s the road from Tripoli to Myloi could be used by carts. A Tripoli newspaper reported in 1858 that about ten freight carts a day travelled it, carrying goods between the landing place at Myloi and Arcadia.
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1858
'A landing-place, with a few poor houses'
The English scholar W. G. Clark went by boat from Nafplio to Myloi in one hour and twenty minutes, partly rowing and partly sailing. He found 'a landing-place, with a few poor houses about it', a pebble beach, quaking…
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March 1858
The village councillor welcomes King Otto and Queen Amalia
King Otto and Queen Amalia came by steamer from Nafplio to Myloi, where all the villagers met them with local music. The special councillor (ειδικός πάρεδρος) of Myloi, "Mr Loukas", had strewn the streets with myrtle and…
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12 November 1859
The road from Tripoli to Myloi is finished
A Tripoli newspaper reported that the road from Tripoli to Myloi, begun in 1831, had been completed in 1859. It made Myloi the port of Arcadia until the railway came.
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1861
Two German archaeologists draw a plan of Lerna
Alexander Conze and Adolf Michaelis published a plate of sketch plans from their travels in the Argolid, including a plan of the Lerna area with Mount Pontinos and the gulf.
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17 February 1862
Telegrams from Myloi about the revolt in Nafplio
When the garrison of Nafplio rose against King Otto in February 1862, some of the first news reached Athens through messages sent from Myloi by the keeper of the state salt depot. They were printed in the press dated…
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November 1862
A stagecoach between Tripoli and Myloi
From November 1862 a diligence was announced to run three times a week between Tripoli and Myloi.
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1864
The first known priest and teacher of Myloi
A report of 1864 mentions a priest who had served the villages of Myloi and Skafidaki until the feast of Saint George that year, and who had earlier been the teacher of the same villages. So Myloi already had some form…
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April 1864 – May 1864
Robbers carry off the village councillor
At nightfall a band of more than twelve robbers raided "the village of Myloi of the municipality of Argos". They robbed the councillor (πάρεδρος) Loukas Giannakopoulos and led him bound as far as the bridge of the…
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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.
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16 December 1865
No customs house at Myloi
Goods landed at Myloi for Tripoli still had to be cleared at the customs house in Nafplio, 'there being no customs house at Myloi'. A Tripoli newspaper complained about the detour this caused for the trade of Arcadia.
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15 February 1867
Deputies propose a customs office at Myloi
Twelve members of parliament from the Peloponnese tabled a bill to set up a third-class sub-customs office 'at Myloi of Argos'.
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17 June 1868
The national gunpowder works explodes
The national gunpowder works at Myloi blew up together with the powder magazine next to it. Five people were killed, among them a sergeant and two powder makers, and eight to ten more were injured. Some 6,000 to 7,000…
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1869
An early photograph across the plain to Lerna
Baron Paul des Granges photographed the gulf of Argos from Tiryns 'in the area of the Lernaean marsh'. On the horizon the west coast of the gulf with Lerna and Myloi can be made out below the mountains. It is one of the…
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14 October 1869
A carriage road and a pier for Myloi
A newspaper reported that a carriage road was being built from Argos to Myloi and that a landing pier (apovathra) was being built in the harbour of Myloi. So the village had a small pier well before the railway came.
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1873
Myloi gets a customs station
After years of requests, a law of 1873 set up 'a customs station at Myloi of Argos'. Goods for Arcadia no longer had to make the detour through Nafplio. In 1874 a newspaper noted that there were public offices at Myloi.
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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,…
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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…
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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.
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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.
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26 July 1877
The gunpowder works of Myloi at full work
In the tense summer of the Russo-Turkish war, the press reported that the gunpowder works at Myloi was 'working actively'. Nine years after the explosion of 1868, powder was being made here again.
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10 October 1877
The rowing ferry from Nafplio capsizes
Before the railway, people crossed between Nafplio and Myloi in rowing boats, a trip of about an hour. In the autumn of 1877 one of these boats from Nafplio capsized and a carter from Argos drowned.
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1 January 1878
Three boats full of goods capsize at the quay
A newspaper reported that 'at the quay of Myloi of Nafplia' three boats full of merchandise had capsized. The report shows that Myloi had a quay where goods were loaded and unloaded, and how exposed it was to bad…
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19 October 1878
Prices set for the state land around Myloi
Much of the land around Myloi was still 'national land', former Ottoman property that had passed to the Greek state. Under the law for distributing it to farmers, the cabinet set its price per stremma at Myloi: 60 to 100…
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1879
1879: 135 inhabitants, part of the municipality of Argos
The census of 1879 counts 135 people in Myloi: 78 men and 57 women. The village then belonged to the municipality of Argos (Δήμος Αργείων), together with Kiveri and Skafidaki. The surplus of men fits a village of…
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1879
Steamers begin to call at Myloi
From about 1879 coastal steamers, among them the Argolis, began to call at Myloi.
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3 August 1881
A telegraph office for Myloi is requested
Newspapers in Tripoli and Athens supported a request for a telegraph station at Myloi, the busy landing place on the road to Arcadia.
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1882
A branch line to Myloi in the first railway contract
In 1882 the government of Charilaos Trikoupis signed the contract for the Peloponnese railway. Besides the main line it included two branches: Corinth–Argos–Nafplio and Argos–Myloi.
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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…
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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…
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3 September 1883
A state grant for the school of Myloi
A royal decree on grants to municipalities for primary education gave Myloi, in the municipality of Argos, 10 drachmas a month 'for the grammar school' (grammatoscholeio), a small school where children learned to read…
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1884
A locomotive called ΜΥΛΟΙ
In 1884 Krauss in Munich built five small tank engines for the Peloponnese railway. Each got a name, and one of them was called ΜΥΛΟΙ. Engines of this series later worked the short branch Nafplio–Argos–Myloi.
The railway age 1886–1939
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11 January 1886
The schoolmaster of Myloi is paid by the state
A new decree on school grants again gave Myloi 10 drachmas a month, now 'for the schoolmaster' (grammatodidaskalos). Together with earlier reports, it shows that the village kept a small school of its own in the years…
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31 July 1886
A French engineer plans a line from Myloi to Kalamata
Even before the train reached Myloi, the French chief engineer Gotteland handed the ministry a study for a railway from Myloi via Tripoli to Kalamata. The line would be 185 km long and cost 21 million drachmas.
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7 August 1886
State commission accepts the line Argos–Myloi
On Saturday 7 August 1886 a state commission inspected and accepted the new 10 km section from Myloi to Argos. The line ran dead straight through currant vineyards and tobacco fields, with an iron bridge of 15 m over the…
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9 August 1886
A big station: Myloi meant to be the port of the Peloponnese
A reporter wrote that Myloi station was built 'very spacious, with matching warehouses', because this harbour was to become the port of the whole Peloponnese. The station stood right opposite a 'very high ancient…
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11 August 1886
The first timetable: local trains Nafplio–Argos–Myloi
The new timetable linked Myloi to the Corinth–Argos trains by a special train, plus four local trains between Nafplio, Argos and Myloi. Return tickets from Piraeus or Athens to Myloi were valid for four days, and freight…
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16 August 1886
The train reaches Myloi
On Monday 16 August 1886 (4 August by the old calendar) the new line from Argos to Myloi was opened to the public, together with the line from Kiato. Myloi now had a station on the metre-gauge Peloponnese railway.
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22 September 1886
'Myloi station has excellent staff'
A month after the opening, the Argos newspaper denied a rumour that the station master of Myloi, K. Koupassaris, was to leave. It called him capable, honest and very friendly, and also praised the telegraphist and the…
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1887
Myloi of Nafplio or Myloi of Argos?
In 1887 the Argos newspaper discovered that the railway company called the station 'Μύλος Ναυπλίου' in its books, Myloi of Nafplio. Argos protested: the village was 'Μύλοι Άργους'. The old rivalry between Argos and…
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April 1887
Trikoupis proposes a line from Myloi into the mountains
In April 1887 Prime Minister Charilaos Trikoupis proposed building a railway from Myloi via Tripoli to Kalamata at state expense. Myloi was chosen as the starting point because it lay at the end of the existing line,…
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October 1887
Smuggled silks found on the shore of Myloi
In the autumn of 1887 the justice of the peace and the gendarmerie of Argos heard that goods were being smuggled ashore at Myloi. They went to the beach and seized six large crates and a parcel of silk fabrics, neckties…
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2 December 1887
Parliament gets the bill: 'The line leaves from Myloi'
Minister Lomvardos sent parliament a bill to build a metre-gauge line 'from Myloi of Nafplia via Tripoli to Kalamata' at state expense. The attached survey said the line would leave Myloi, climb along the stream valley…
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18 December 1887
The first station master leaves for Eleusis
The Argos newspaper reported that 'our friend the station master' K. Koupassaris had been transferred from Myloi to Eleusis. He left 'the best memories' behind.
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February 1888
A ferry boat capsizes on the way to Myloi
Before the road was good, many travellers crossed the bay by rowing or sailing boat between Nafplio and the railway at Myloi. In February 1888 one of these boats capsized in a strong wind: one of the two boatmen drowned,…
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15 April 1888
Myloi gets its own post office
A 'Post Office of Myloi' was set up in the village. The mail for Tripoli now came by train as far as Myloi, and the paper expected Myloi to become the centre of 'numerous engineers, contractors and workers' once building…
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12 May 1888
Contract signed: a railway from Myloi, with a pier and a workshop
Trikoupis and Lomvardos signed the contract with the Belgian consul Louis Rosseels, acting for Ernest Rolin of the Société Internationale de Constructions et d'Entreprises de Travaux Publics. The line was to start at…
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10 July 1888
The pier is planned as a pier on piles
The company's budget set aside 290,000 francs for 'a pier (estacade) and workshops at Myloi and Kalamata'. An estacade is a pier standing on piles, not a solid stone harbour wall. The whole line was budgeted at 21.6…
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1889–1890
Ten Belgian locomotives for the line from Myloi
Ten tank engines with large 1.20 m driving wheels were built in Belgium in 1889 for the Myloi–Kalamata railway: three arrived in 1889, seven in 1890. A catalogue plate calls them 'Locomotive-Tender pour le chemin de fer…
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26 January 1889
A Spanish steamer brings the first building materials
On a Saturday in January 1889 a Spanish steamer sailed into Myloi with materials for the new Myloi–Kalamata railway. The works began at both ends of the line, Myloi and Kalamata, because materials could arrive there by…
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24 February 1889
A slow start: first a big bridge over the Lerna marsh
The paper Kairoi found that the works starting from Myloi were 'not going very briskly'. Right at the start, where the line left the end of the Peloponnese railway, it needed major structures, above all a big bridge over…
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23 March 1889
Ten extra gendarmes for Myloi
At the request of the mayor of Argos, the gendarmerie of Argolis reinforced its post at Myloi with ten men. With hundreds of railway workers arriving, the paper called it 'an excellent measure for public order'.
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24 March 1889
Workers of every nation, and 'famous cutlets'
'Workers of various nationalities pour in there every day,' wrote a correspondent about the building site of the Myloi–Kalamata line. A good restaurant had been built: 'In Myloi-Lerna you can taste famous cutlets.' He…
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May 1889
A German traveller sails from Myloi to Nauplia
In May 1889 Georg Behrmann found someone on the beach at Myloi who understood German and helped him hire a sailing boat, steered by 'two cheerful, talkative Myliots', to Nauplia. He noted that he could also have taken…
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17 June 1889
Railway workers without work and in debt
The big contractors kept re-letting sections to small sub-contractors, and workers offered themselves for 80 lepta a day. Many sat without work and without a penny, in debt to every shop on the site. Grocers and…
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30 July 1889
Boomtown Myloi: holidays, wine and brawls
'It is a fine sight,' wrote the Nafplio paper: from Myloi to Tripoli crowds of workers of every nationality and language, and carts bringing rails and sleepers. But on holidays and days off this whole crowd gathered in…
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31 July 1889
A French engineer checks the rolling stock built in Belgium
The government appointed the French engineer Macaigne, from Cambrai, to supervise the locomotives and wagons being built in Belgium for the Myloi–Kalamata line.
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19 September 1889
Myloi has a customs post
Under a new customs law, Nikolaos Theologidis was formally appointed head of the customs post at 'Myloi of Argos', a job he already held. Goods landed at Myloi had to pass through his hands.
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1 October 1889
Storm in the harbour: two iron lighters capsize
A heavy storm in the Argolic Gulf capsized two large iron lighters of the railway company in the harbour of Myloi–Lerna. The workers on board, who were unloading the English steamer Pleiad anchored there, were saved 'as…
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6 November 1889
1,945 workers, men and women, on the section from Myloi
A report to the minister counted 96 engineers and overseers, 106 assistants and guards, and 1,945 navvies, miners and labourers, 'men and women', on the section starting at Myloi. Seven kilometres of track had been laid,…
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December 1889
Armenian specialists for the Lerna bridge foundations
According to a 2015 thesis on the station, specialised Armenian workers were brought in during December 1889 to lay the foundations of the railway bridge over the Lerna marsh.
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14 December 1889
A new head of customs: Nikitas Loudaros
Nikitas Loudaros was appointed head of the customs post of Myloi. He replaced Nikolaos Theologidis, who had held the post for more than two years and was promoted to deputy customs officer on Othonoi.
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26 December 1889
Rolin takes on a second line
A new contract gave Ernest Rolin, contractor of the Myloi–Kalamata line, the branch Karytaina–Megalopoli–Leontari as well. His agent Louis Rosseels had to found a Greek company within 30 months, and the rolling stock of…
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1890–1944
Born in Kalamaki, buried in America
Find a Grave lists four people born in "Kalamaki, Argolis" between about 1890 and 1944 who died in New Jersey, California, Ohio and Texas. One of them was naturalised and served in the US Army in 1942–1943. The…
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22 February 1890
Bridge piers 14 metres deep, and a wooden stopgap bridge
Two piers of the iron bridge over the lake of Lerna now stood on foundations 14 m deep; the other two were being set at 8 m. Meanwhile a temporary wooden bridge was built across the lake so that goods trains could pass.
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7 April 1890
A locomotive already runs from Myloi to kilometre 12
The correspondent in Myloi reported that a locomotive was already running from Myloi to kilometre 12.2. The great bridge of Lerna was still not finished because of the difficult ground; the opening as far as…
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June 1890
The mail coach from Myloi to Tripoli plunges into a ravine
Before the trains ran to Tripoli, passengers and mail went on by road from the station at Myloi. In June 1890 the mail coach from Myloi to Tripoli fell into a ravine near the bridge of Achladokampos; four people died.
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June 1890
The Southern Greece Railways (ΣΜΕ) are founded
A new company was set up to run the line from Myloi: the Company of the Southern Railways of Greece, with the banker Andreas Syngros as chairman. Rolin transferred his rights to it.
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1891
MPs want to inspect the works for abuses
A group of MPs proposed sending a parliamentary committee to inspect the works on the Myloi–Kalamata line and to investigate abuses reported by the engineer and MP N. Schinas, including whether the carriages were fit for…
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13 January 1891
The Belgian engineer Couzin goes home; Rolin takes charge
Victor Couzin, who had directed the works on the Myloi–Kalamata line for two years for the firm Couzin–Génis, had gone back to Belgium with his wife. The original contractor, Ernest Rolin, now took over the direction of…
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13 February 1891
Myloi–Tripoli almost ready: only an iron bridge to go
Answering a question in parliament, the government said that the section from Myloi towards Tripoli had been built and was 'almost completely finished'; only the assembly of one iron bridge remained.
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March 1891 – May 1891
'The railway only went as far as Myli'
A Bavarian teacher who toured Greece in the spring of 1891 wrote that 'the railway then only went as far as Myli'. From there his group continued in an open carriage along the excellent road towards Tripoli, resting at…
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6 July 1891
Holy water at the station, in 34 degrees
From the landing stage the king rode by train to the flag-decked station of Myloi, where Archbishop Nikandros of Argolis performed the blessing of the waters and blessed the railway carriages. It was 34 °C in the shade…
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6 July 1891
A derailed royal carriage nearly stops the opening
Two days before, heavy rain had damaged the line near Tripoli and the royal carriage had derailed on a test run, partly because carriages with unequal buffers had been coupled together. The prefect of Arcadia telegraphed…
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6 July 1891
King George I lands at Myloi to open the line to Tripoli
At 6 in the morning the royal yacht Sfaktiria sailed into Myloi with King George I, the princes Nikolaos and Andreas and Prime Minister Deligiannis, greeted by cannon fire as she passed Nafplio. At 8 the king stepped…
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6 July 1891
Back at Myloi in the evening, the king sails home
At half past six in the evening the trains were back at Myloi. The king said goodbye and was rowed out to the Sfaktiria, which lay at anchor off Myloi; the prime minister followed in another boat. The guests left Myloi…
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6 July 1891
Soldiers along the line, because of stolen materials
On the opening day soldiers of the engineers stood at intervals along the line to prevent any attack on the railway by some local people. According to the paper, materials worth about 200,000 drachmas had been stolen…
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6 July 1891
Stowaways on the royal train, and a flask of wine for the king
First the train with the invited guests left Myloi and was the first to run the whole line to Tripoli. When the royal train followed, uninvited locals climbed onto the wagons and into the luggage van to ride along; the…
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8 July 1891
An illustrated report: portraits of the builders, and Myloi as km 0
The Athens daily To Asty printed engraved portraits of Ernest Rolin and Louis Rosseels, 'the founders of the Myloi–Kalamata company', and a large engraving of a bridge near Achladokampos. Its description of the line…
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8 July 1891
Opened, but no trains yet
Two days after the opening the paper Akropolis wrote that services would not start at once, probably in about 15 days, because the staff was not yet complete. On the opening day an agreement had been signed handing the…
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10 July 1891
Newspapers abroad report the opening
A telegram from Athens of 7 July appeared in the Lodzer Tageblatt in Poland: the section Myli–Tripolis of the Myli–Kalamata railway had been opened 'yesterday in the presence of the King, the ministers and numerous…
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17 August 1891
Regular trains from Myloi to Tripoli
From 17 August 1891 (5 August old style) the line was open to the public. The Southern Greece Railways' timetable had a train leaving Myloi at 5.05 pm, arriving in Tripoli at 7.55, with stops at Andritsa, Achladokampos,…
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September 1891 – October 1891
Works halted: hundreds of unpaid, hungry workers
In the autumn of 1891 the works on the line beyond Tripoli came to a halt. Hundreds of workers, most of them Italians and some French, were owed their daily wages; the papers spoke of 900 to 2,000 men, and of workers…
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6 November 1891
The state pays to feed the railway workers
The government opened a credit of 5,000 drachmas 'for the care and feeding of the workers of the Myloi–Kalamata railway'. Most of the stranded men were found work on the Corinth Canal and on the line to Larissa.
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17 November 1891
Nafplio wants the line extended from Myloi to its own pier
The town council of Nafplio asked for the Myloi–Kalamata line to be extended 'from Myloi to the pier in front of the customs house of Nafplio'. It was an early sign of the rivalry between the two harbours.
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22 November 1891
Foreign powers protest about the unpaid railway workers
The Belgian company building the Myloi–Kalamata railway had collapsed and its foreign workers had lost their wages. On a Sunday in November 1891 the envoys of several powers handed the Greek government a joint note…
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29 December 1891
The Belgian company is dropped; the Peloponnese railway takes over
In December 1891 the Belgian company was declared to have forfeited its rights. A new contract gave the Piraeus–Athens–Peloponnese Railways (ΣΠΑΠ) the completion of Tripoli–Diavolitsi and the operation of the whole line…
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1892
Italian workers and suppliers register their claims
In 1892 the Italian legation in Athens called on Italian 'piece-workers, labourers and food suppliers of the Myli–Calamata line' to register what they were still owed. An Athens paper wrote that Rolin's bankrupt company…
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1892
Nineteen locomotives change hands; seven go far from Myloi
The ΣΠΑΠ 'inherited' 19 locomotives bought for the line Myloi–Kalamata, 18 of them from Belgian factories. The ten Belgian tank engines became series Ι, numbers Ι651–Ι660, without names. According to the 1892 annual…
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27 January 1892
A law gives the line from Myloi to the Peloponnese railway
A law confirmed the December contract and obliged the ΣΠΑΠ to open the whole line Myloi–Kalamata to the public within one year.
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February 1892
The Peloponnese railway runs the trains from Myloi
In February 1892 the government of Theodoros Deligiannis handed the completion and operation of the line to the ΣΠΑΠ, probably from 1 February. From then on one company ran both the line from Argos and the line into the…
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27 February 1892
The train from Myloi stops before a damaged bridge
The train from Myloi stopped in front of the damaged bridge of Maskena: the driver did not dare to cross. The 'much-plagued' line had a difficult start.
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22 September 1892
A change at the customs post
The official gazette recorded that Andreas Papandreou was appointed head of the customs post of Myloi in place of Georgios D. Mousmoulis, who was dismissed. Nikitas Loudaros, an earlier head of the post, was moved to…
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1893
A bathing train from Argos to the sea at Myloi
In the summer of 1893 the people of Argos asked for a special bathing train. They wanted to swim at 'Almyro', 'only five minutes from Myloi station'. The train to Myloi was also becoming a train to the sea.
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1894
Baedeker: Myli, landing place for boats from Nauplia
The 1894 Baedeker guide told travellers that Myli 'is the landing-place for boats from Nauplia', with three or four trains a day to Myli and one or two on to Tripolitza.
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16 April 1894
The royal family lands at Myloi on the way to Mycenae
The royal yacht Sfaktiria sailed into Myloi with the royal family. They went ashore by boat and boarded a special train that was waiting for them, to visit the antiquities of Mycenae. The yacht waited at anchor off Myloi…
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1895
'Not suitable for the Myloi–Kalamata line'
In the 1895 annual report Apostolos Agathoklis, head of traction and rolling stock of the ΣΠΑΠ, judged the Belgian series Ι engines fit for fast passenger trains but not for the steep climbs of the Myloi–Kalamata line,…
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1 September 1896
1,650 tons of rails unloaded at Myloi
The ΣΠΑΠ put out to tender the unloading 'in the harbour of Myloi (Nafplio)' of a steamer bringing about 1,650 tons of rails and track parts for the company, for the extension of the line beyond Tripoli. The harbour of…
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7 August 1897
Another new head for the customs post
I. P. Digenis, formerly head of the customs post of Kionion, was appointed head of the customs post of Myloi. The heads changed often: in 1894 his predecessor (the name is unclear in the scan) had been promoted…
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23 February 1898
The pier is too shallow: the railway must extend it
A contract of 1898 for the last section of the line obliged the ΣΠΑΠ (article 9) 'to extend the pier of the harbour of Myloi of Nafplio to a depth of three metres'. So there was a pier, but it did not reach deep enough…
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November 1899
The line from Myloi finally reaches Kalamata
After Tripoli–Kourtaga (1897) and Kourtaga–Fragkoi (1898), the last gap to Diavolitsi was closed in 1899. According to the railway society ΣΦΣ the ΣΠΑΠ put the whole line from Myloi to Kalamata into service in November…
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16 December 1899
A new deal: money for Nafplio instead of a longer pier at Myloi
Prime Minister Theotokis and Pavlos Skouzes, chairman of the ΣΠΑΠ, signed a contract that replaced the pier extension at Myloi. The company would pay 100,000 drachmas to Nafplio's harbour fund and lay track along the…
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1900s
Myloi, one of the eleven locomotive depots
Once their network was complete, the ΣΠΑΠ had eleven locomotive depots, among them Tripoli and Myloi. Engines of several types were based at Myloi, ready for the climb into Arcadia.
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4 April 1900
'Silting made the pier useless': the extension is dropped
Introducing the bill, Prime Minister Theotokis told parliament that the bottom of the bay and the silting at Myloi made a longer pier useless. He added that the place was so unhealthy that, although the railway had come…
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10 April 1900
'Every attempt to build a pier at Myloi came to nothing'
N. Triantafyllakos, MP for Tripoli, protested that Myloi lay at the start of the line and a good pier there would make goods for Tripoli cheaper. Theotokis answered: 'Every attempt to build a pier at Myloi came to…
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28 August 1900
Smuggled cigarette paper found in the station's goods shed
Police officers from Argos seized smuggled cigarette paper in the railway goods shed of the station 'Myloi of Argos'. Cigarette paper was a state monopoly product, and the railway was an easy way to move it.
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1902
Zacharia Mila, the first known emigrant, goes to Chicago
Zacharia Mila from Kalamaki leaves for Chicago in 1902, which makes him the earliest emigrant from Myloi and Kalamaki we know of. He works there until 1906 and then returns to his wife Marigo in Kalamaki. We know this…
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1906
Andes Candies: a founder from Myloi or from Achladokampos?
In 1934 the New York Greek daily Ethnikos Kiryx wrote that Andreas G. Kanelos (Kanellopoulos), founder of the Andes Candies shops in Chicago, "comes from Myloi of Argos" and arrived in America in 1906 at the age of…
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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,…
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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…
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1908
Sailing directions: shallow water off Myloi
The Admiralty's Mediterranean Pilot of 1908 described Myli under Mount Pontinus. 'The shallow ground' prevented large vessels from coming close; the south wind was felt in full, though the holding ground was good. It…
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1909–1914
Young men from "Myli" and "Mylous" on the Ellis Island lists
A search of about 10,300 Ellis Island records found some twenty Greek travellers who gave Myli, Mylous or Milon as home, most between 1909 and 1914. They were mostly single men of 17 to 27, sailing from Patras or Piraeus…
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January 1911
Paraschos Pagkas, the village schoolmaster
Two newspapers of January 1911 call Paraschos Pagkas "the learned schoolmaster of Myloi". He is the first teacher known by name who certainly taught in the village.
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24 April 1911
On the Patris to Chicago: Mila and Stavros Kouvalis
Zacharia Mila (38) and fifteen-year-old Stavros Kouvalis sailed from Piraeus on 4 April 1911 on the Patris, the first Greek liner to New York, and arrived twenty days later. Both were going to Angelos Kouvalis, Stavros's…
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5 June 1912
A court case against the mill family
On 23 May 1912 (old style) the court of first instance in Nafplio (judgment 539/1912) ordered the heirs of Georgios Vasilopoulos, who had died in 1907, to pay a debt of 2,483.75 drachmas to a creditor from Argos. Most of…
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9 July 1912
The first trace of an emigrant in Canada
A judgment of the Athens court of first instance names, among the debtors of an ice company, a resident of Myloi "living in Canada". It is the earliest known link between Myloi and Canada, more than fifty years before…
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9 July 1912
The Olympos ice company sues over the machines
On 26 June 1912 (old style) the Athens court dealt with a claim of the ice company Olympos against the brothers Konstantinos and Ioannis G. Vasilopoulos for a bill of exchange of 3,975 drachmas. It was almost certainly…
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31 August 1912
Zachos Antoniou goes to the mills of Lowell
Zachos Antoniou from Myloi, a 23-year-old farmer and son of Costas, left Patras on 19 August 1912 in steerage on the brand-new Kaiser Franz Josef I and reached New York twelve days later. He was going to a cousin in…
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13 September 1912
Myloi becomes part of the community of Kiveri
With the reform that replaced the old municipalities by village communities, Myloi was separated from Argos and placed in the new community of Kiveri.
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16 June 1914
Zachos Antoniou again, now to his brother in Eureka
By 1914 Zachos Antoniou was back in Myloi, perhaps because of the Balkan Wars. On 26 May 1914 he left Patras again on the Pannonia and arrived in New York on 16 June, heading for his brother George Antoniou in Eureka,…
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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.
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1922–1961
A quiet line from Myloi to Chicago
Apart from Mila and the Kouvalis brothers, other threads lead from Myloi to Chicago. In 1922 a man in Chicago sent greetings in a New York Greek paper on the wedding of a bride "from Myloi of Argos", and in 1961 the…
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13 January 1927
'Skala': Myloi as the landing place of Tripoli
An Athens paper described Myloi as a village on the railway to Tripoli, 'well-watered, full of trees and pleasant', with tall eucalyptus trees along the beach where the boats lay. Besides its name from the many water…
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March 1927 – April 1927
The priest of Myloi dies, and America hears of it
A letter "from Argos, 3 April 1927", written for the people of Argos in America, reports the sudden death of the priest Christos Nikolaou Giannakopoulos "from the village of Myloi of Lerna". All the people of Myloi,…
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17 April 1927
A café-restaurant by the sea
An advertisement announces the "café-restaurant of Stylianos Balaskas in Myloi", opened by the sea in the premises that used to belong to Georgios Koutouzos, promising "care, cleanliness, low prices".
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December 1927
"Kalamaki of Kiveri"
A notice of December 1927 reports that a man "from Kalamaki of Kiveri" who had just died left 300 drachmas in his will to the Argos association "Danaos". It shows that Kalamaki then still counted as part of Kiveri, not…
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15 December 1927
The parish of Agios Dimitrios sells its pastures
The parish committee of the church of Agios Dimitrios in Myloi announces the public sale of two pieces of church pasture near Skafidaki, about 50 and 8 stremmata. The notice is signed by Petros Kodelas, D. Georgopoulos…
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1 October 1928
Myloi gets its own community
Myloi left the community of Kiveri and became the seat of its own community, the Κοινότης Μύλων, with an elected president and council. This community lasted until the Kapodistrias reform of the late 1990s.
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2 October 1928
A tobacco smuggler caught at Myloi
The commander of the police post of Myloi, Ch. Gkekopoulos, arrested a smuggler from Dalamanara who was carrying a sack of cut tobacco and cigarette paper.
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1929–1938
Weddings across the mountains
The Kynouria papers announce at least four engagements between men from Myloi and women from Vervena and nearby Xiropigado in 1929, 1931 and 1938. They are the human side of the yearly winter migration from the mountains…
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14 November 1929
Winter quarters for the shepherds of Vervena
Every autumn the people of Vervena, a mountain village in Kynouria at about 1,200 metres, left home for warmer winter villages with their flocks. A correspondent from Vervena lists them in 1929: among them Kiveri, Myloi,…
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December 1930
The customs post is still open: a new chief in 1930
The Argos paper reported that 'a few days ago the new head of the customs post, Grigorios Dymoperis, took up his post in Myloi'. Customs officers had been stationed in Myloi for at least forty years.
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1936
New rails from Piraeus to Myloi
The railway journal reported the replacement of the rails on the line from Piraeus to 'Myloi of Nafplia'.
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August 1937
An honest track gang returns a lost sack of silk cocoons
The director-general of the ΣΠΑΠ publicly praised the track gang of the Myloi–Kalamata line, a foreman and four workers, who had found a sack of silk cocoons fallen from a train, worth 2,500 drachmas, and handed it in.
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20 February 1938
A new station master at Myloi
The railway journal announced that station master D. Dimou was transferred from Myloi to Lechaina, and K. Katsoulos from Lechaina to Myloi.
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31 July 1938
Train collision between Argos and Myloi
At km 274.6 between Argos and Myloi, train E from Corinth to Myloi collided with a light engine that was running back from Myloi to Argos. The railway journal blamed the assistant station master on duty at Argos, who had…
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7 August 1939 – 12 August 1939
Americans excavate the blockhouse near Myloi
From 7 to 12 August 1939 Louis E. Lord, Alison Frantz and Carl Roebuck of the American School excavated an ancient blockhouse three kilometres beyond the spring of Lerna, beside the road to Tripoli. The finds were given…
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26 September 1939
The dictatorship replaces the village council
Under the Metaxas regime a royal decree dissolved the councils of Skotini, Kiveri and Myloi because they were "hindering normal operation". For Myloi an appointed committee took over: Nikolaos Chr. Giannakopoulos as…
War, occupation, civil war 1940–1949
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16 October 1940
Census 1940: Myloi 388, Kalamaki 50
Shortly before Greece entered the war, the census counts 438 people in the community of Myloi: 388 in the village and 50 in Kalamaki (29 men and 21 women). Since 1879 the village had almost tripled in size.
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16 October 1940
Kalamaki becomes an official settlement of Myloi
In the census of 16 October 1940 Kalamaki (officially Καλαμάκιον) is listed for the first time as a separate settlement and attached to the community of Myloi. The name itself is older: emigrants of 1911 gave…
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13 December 1940
A soldier from Skafidaki falls on the Albanian front
The Greek Army's roll of the dead of 1940–45 records Sokratis Papanastasopoulos, born in Skafidaki in 1916, killed at Golemi on the Albanian front on 13 December 1940.
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28 December 1940
A soldier born in Myloi dies in the military hospital of Mesolongi
Private Panagiotis Lymperopoulos, son of Epameinondas, born in Myloi in 1915, died in the military hospital of Mesolongi on 28 December 1940, during the Greek-Italian war. He is listed in the Greek Army's roll of the…
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1941–1942
A second German reconnaissance flight photographs the bay
A German strip flight of 1941–1942 (film 93) photographed Myloi again: the curve of the bay, the village along the main road at the foot of Pontinos, the station and the pier.
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1941–1943
A coastal gun near the tower of Bouboulina
Among the occupation defences of Myloi was a coastal gun next to the tower known as the tower of Bouboulina. The base of the gun emplacement could still be seen in 1994.
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1941–1943
Men rounded up in Argos work on the Myloi fortifications
The occupation authorities set up roadblocks in Argos, seized the men they found and took them away in a lorry that the people of Argos nicknamed 'Bogia', the dog-catcher. Most of this forced labour went to the airfield,…
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1941–1943
The Italian garrison fortifies the coast: anti-tank ditch and barbed wire
Myloi had its own Italian garrison. The Italians took over the fortification of the village against an Allied landing: they dug an anti-tank ditch, laid barbed wire and set up an anti-aircraft unit and gun batteries…
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1941–1943
Myloi in the Italian zone of occupation
From the summer of 1941 until September 1943 Myloi lay in the Italian zone of occupation, which covered most of the Peloponnese; Italian troops of the 'Siena' division held Argos and Nafplio from May to September 1941.…
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23 April 1941
King George II leaves Greece from Athens, not from Myloi
On 23 April 1941 King George II, members of his government and the British Minister flew by Sunderland flying boat from Skaramangas near Athens to Souda Bay on Crete. A later reader's letter claimed that the king left…
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24 April 1941
A flying boat waits in the bay for General Mackay
Just before dusk on 24 April 1941 a Sunderland of No. 228 Squadron RAF, flown by Flight Lieutenant Alex Frame, came down in the Gulf of Nafplio to collect RAF men. They had already gone, so it took on board about 25…
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24 April 1941
Advanced headquarters of W Force moves to Myloi
On 24 April 1941, with the evacuation of Greece under way, the Advanced Battle Headquarters of W Force, the British and Commonwealth army in Greece, settled in at Myloi. The village lay on the road from the plain of…
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25 April 1941
Australian 2/2nd Battalion lies up at Myloi during the day
The war diary of the Australian 2/2nd Infantry Battalion records: arrived Myloi at 06:00 on 25 April 1941, lying up during the day, and left at 20:00 for Kalamata via Tripoli. On 26 April the men were embarked at…
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25 April 1941
The Allen Group, 6,000 men and 600 vehicles, hides around Myloi
At daylight on 25 April 1941 the Allen Group arrived at Myloi after a night drive from Eleusis: about 6,000 men and 600 vehicles of the 16th and 17th Australian Brigades under Brigadier A. S. Allen. The vehicles were…
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25 April 1941
The Australian column leaves Myloi at 8 p.m.
Orders came in the afternoon of 25 April 1941. At 20:00 the Allen Group set off from Myloi over the mountain road to Tripoli and on to Kalamata, where the troops were to be taken off by the Navy. Australian military…
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25 April 1941
General Freyberg moves to a new headquarters near Myloi
Early on 25 April 1941 Major-General Bernard Freyberg, commander of the New Zealand Division, was on his way to 'a new headquarters near Miloi'. In the next days Myloi was described as the headquarters of both W Force…
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25 April 1941
General Mackay leaves by flying boat at dawn
Early on 25 April 1941 Major-General Iven Mackay, commander of the 6th Australian Division, flew to Crete in a Sunderland; the New Zealand official history says he left 'from Miloi'. At dawn the bay was full of smoke…
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25 April 1941
An Australian medical unit waits in an olive grove west of the bay
The Australian official medical history tells of a medical unit that moved with the 17th Brigade by Corinth and Argos 'to an olive grove west of Miloi Bay', and from there by Tripoli to Kalamata. The men left their…
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25 April 1941 – 26 April 1941
Patrick Leigh Fermor arrives in the armed caique Aghia Varvara
Lieutenant Patrick Leigh Fermor, then an intelligence officer with the British Military Mission, sailed the armed caique Aghia Varvara from near Sounion to Myloi, to evacuate General Wilson and Prince Peter if other…
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25 April 1941 – 26 April 1941
General Wilson drives from Athens to Myloi through the night
General Henry Maitland Wilson, commander of all British and Commonwealth forces in Greece, moved his headquarters south of Argos in the night of 25 to 26 April 1941. His party crossed the bridge over the Corinth Canal…
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26 April 1941
New Zealand 25th Battalion guards the approaches to Myloi
In Freyberg's new arrangement of 26 April 1941 one New Zealand battalion went north of Argos and one to Tripoli, while the 25th Battalion stayed in reserve at Myloi. Its companies took position between the village and…
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26 April 1941
Dive bombers hit the 24th Battalion camp: four New Zealanders killed
The New Zealand 24th Battalion reached Myloi early on 26 April 1941 and rested in a dried-up riverbed. Australian lorries driving to the camp in daylight were spotted, and dive bombers attacked the area at intervals for…
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26 April 1941
Prince Peter and Greek ministers wait at the headquarters
Baillie-Grohman's report lists who was at the headquarters at Myloi on 26 April 1941: General Wilson, Major-General Heywood, Rear-Admiral Turle, Brigadier Salisbury-Jones, Prince Peter of Greece, Admiral Sakellariou, the…
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26 April 1941
German paratroopers seize the Corinth Canal: Myloi is cut off
Shortly after seven in the morning of 26 April 1941 German paratroopers landed at the Corinth Canal and seized the crossing. The headquarters at Myloi was suddenly cut off from all troops still north of the canal.…
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26 April 1941
Stukas bomb the Crown Prince's yacht in the harbour
The Greek Crown Prince had handed his motor yacht over to the Royal Navy, and it was waiting at Myloi to help with the evacuation. In the afternoon of 26 April 1941 German dive bombers spotted it in the harbour and put…
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26 April 1941
A New Zealand dressing station at the foot of the Tripoli pass
At the request of the 6th New Zealand Brigade, A Company of the 4th Field Ambulance set up a dressing station 'at the foot of the pass leading over the ranges to Tripolis' on 26 April 1941. The rest of the unit crossed…
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26 April 1941
Wilson hands command in the Peloponnese to Freyberg
Later on 26 April 1941 Wilson told Freyberg that he would leave that night. Freyberg would take command of all troops still in the Peloponnese. 'From Myloi General Wilson departed in a Sunderland flying-boat for Crete…
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26 April 1941
Wilson's headquarters in an olive grove at the Tripoli road
On 26 April 1941 the headquarters of W Force was hidden in an olive grove at Myloi, where the trees gave cover from the German dive bombers. Wilson himself wrote that it lay 'close to where the road to Tripolis leaves…
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26 April 1941
Around 8.30 p.m. a Sunderland flying boat lands in the bay
A Sunderland flying boat sent from Souda Bay came to collect General Wilson at about 20:30 on 26 April 1941. It did not take off straight away: it lay in the bay off the pier until after midnight.
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26 April 1941
At sunset the headquarters is abandoned and the party goes to the pier
'At sunset we abandoned our H.Q. and the whole party proceeded to Myli pier,' wrote Baillie-Grohman. The flying boat and the caique were there, but the destroyer that was to take off the rest of the staff had not yet…
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26 April 1941 – 27 April 1941
Which destroyer called at Myloi: Nubian or Havock?
One version, followed until now on this website, says that HMS Nubian called at 'Myli' in the night of 26 to 27 April 1941 to collect General Wilson and found him already gone. The official despatch in the London Gazette…
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27 April 1941
The caique with Wilson's luggage is bombed and sunk off Leonidio
After Baillie-Grohman transferred to HMS Havock, the caique Aghia Varvara sailed on south from Myloi with Smith-Dorrien, Leigh Fermor and Wilson's aide. At dawn it reached Leonidio, where German dive bombers sank it in…
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27 April 1941
At midnight Baillie-Grohman sails in the caique; HMS Havock takes him off
As there was still no sign of the destroyer, Rear-Admiral Baillie-Grohman left the quay at Myloi at midnight with his staff and beachmasters in the caique chartered by Colonel Smith-Dorrien, heading for Monemvasia. Later…
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27 April 1941
Shortly after midnight the New Zealand rearguard passes Myloi
Shortly after midnight on 27 April 1941 the rear party of the New Zealand Division, the 6th Brigade, passed Myloi going south towards Tripoli. After that there was nothing between the flying boat in the bay and the…
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27 April 1941
After midnight General Wilson leaves Myloi by flying boat
The pilot could not land at Souda Bay before 06:30 and had too little fuel to stay in the air all night. So after midnight, in the night of 26 to 27 April 1941, the Sunderland with Wilson, Prince Peter, Admiral…
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28 April 1941
German advance guard enters Myloi at 6.10 p.m.
On 28 April 1941 the 5th Panzer Division, with two companies of paratroopers, pursued the British through Argos towards Tripoli and Kalamata. According to messages from the Luftwaffe, its advance guard entered Myloi at…
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20 May 1941
The telephone cable from Myloi to the Argos airfield is cut
In May 1941 a German telephone line ran from Myloi along the railway, under the Xerias bridge and past the Aspida to the airfield of Argos; it served the airfield's anti-aircraft defence. A small group of young men from…
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21 May 1941
After the sabotage, the men of Argos must guard the cable at night
On 21 May 1941 the Germans found that the cut cable had disrupted the anti-aircraft defence of the airfield. They gathered the people of Argos in the square of Agios Petros and threatened to execute 30 leading citizens…
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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…
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13 July 1941
Aerial photo: the long pier, the likely boarding place of April 1941
Frame 112 of 13 July 1941 shows the long railway pier with fields running down to the coast. Eleven weeks earlier this was the most likely place where Wilson's party went aboard; a smaller jetty further north is the…
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13 July 1941
Aerial photo: a goods train of about 25 wagons on the pier siding
The photographs of 13 July 1941 show the station yard in use under the occupation: the two-hall locomotive shed, a turntable, two round water tanks, the station buildings and the goods shed with wagons. A goods train of…
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13 July 1941
Aerial photo: a zigzag trench in the eucalyptus wood
In the eucalyptus wood by the station the photographs of 13 July 1941 show a zigzag trench. It was probably dug in April 1941, when Allied troops sheltered under these trees.
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13 July 1941
A German survey aircraft photographs Myloi from the air
On the morning of 13 July 1941 an aerial survey unit of the German air ministry flew over Myloi at about a thousand metres with camera no. 741 pointing straight down. The photographs, a strip from north to south along…
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30 November 1943
ELAS attacks the German post at Andritsa station
On 30 November 1943 a small ELAS group attacked the German guard of Andritsa railway station, on the line from Myloi to Tripoli, and killed about ten German soldiers.
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5 December 1943
Germans hang about fifty prisoners at Andritsa station
In reprisal for the attack, on 5 December 1943 German forces hanged about fifty men from the beams of the station shelter at Andritsa and from nearby trees. Most sources say they were prisoners brought from the prison of…
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October 1944
The Security Battalions of Tripoli are disarmed at Myloi and shipped to Spetses
Under an agreement made at the end of September 1944, the collaborationist Security Battalions of Tripoli under Dionysios Papadongonas marched in formation, with their personal weapons, to Myloi. There they handed their…
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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…
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11 January 1945
Truce terms: ELAS must withdraw 'beyond Myloi'
The truce of 11 January 1945 between EAM, the British forces and the government required the ELAS fighters to leave Argos and withdraw 'beyond Myloi'. British troops entered Argos on 19 January 1945. Witnesses remembered…
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May 1945
An Australian war photographer returns to the beach of 1941
In May 1945 the Australian war photographer V. J. Krauth travelled through the Peloponnese to record the places of 1941. At Myloi a resident showed him the beach and the row of eucalyptus trees under which Australian…
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1947
New railcars for the Peloponnese are landed at the pier
In 1947, with the bridge over the Corinth Canal still destroyed, new railcars for the Peloponnese lines were landed at the pier of Myloi directly from a Navy landing craft. A photograph shows one railcar rolling off the…
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26 January 1947
Two armed men with landmines appear in Myloi
In the night of 26 to 27 January 1947 two armed men carrying two landmines appeared in Myloi, the newspaper Rizospastis reported. No casualties were mentioned. The mines were probably meant for the railway, which became…
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31 January 1947
Reforestation order lifted for land at Profitis Ilias
The Government Gazette of 31 January 1947 lifted the reforestation status of 9 stremmata (about 0.9 hectares) at the place 'Profitis Ilias' of Myloi near Argos. The boundaries named in the decision are fields, an olive…
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June 1948
A rural militia unit is ambushed in the Myloi area
The army communiqué printed in Eleftheria on 9 June 1948 reported that a group of the MAY, the rural security militia, fell into an ambush of the Democratic Army in the area of Myloi. Nine militiamen were killed and four…
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June 1948
Partisans blow up a railway bridge between Myloi and Tripoli
The army communiqué of 19 June 1948 reported that partisans of the Democratic Army had blown up a railway bridge on the line between Myloi and Tripoli. In the fighting one government soldier and nine partisans were…
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November 1948
The Corinth–Tripoli passenger train hits a mine near Myloi
In November 1948 the passenger train from Corinth to Tripoli struck a mine in the area of Myloi and was damaged. The army communiqué, printed on 25 November, reported no casualties.
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14 December 1948
Operation 'Peristera': Myloi as a boundary point in the Peloponnese
In the army's plan for operation 'Peristera' against the Democratic Army in the Peloponnese (14 December 1948), the IX Division was to secure road and rail traffic in its zone and the works on the road…
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29 April 1949
Myloi in the new prefecture of Argolida
The old prefecture of Argolida and Corinthia was split, and the community of Myloi, with Kalamaki, came under the new prefecture of Argolida.
The postwar village 1950–1999
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1950–1969
Souvlaki passed up to the train windows
Because so many trains stopped at the junction of Myloi, the village became known for souvlaki. Sellers walked along the carriages with trays of skewers and passed them up to passengers at the open windows; a magazine…
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1950s
A rural doctor for three years
Evangelos Koligliatis, born in Ira near Argos in 1922, served three years as rural doctor in Myloi in the 1950s, after two years in Filiates (Thesprotia). He later became a physician at the hospital of Argos.
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1950s
A birth among the sheepfolds above Kalamaki
In an interview recorded in 1988, the old midwife of Kiveri remembered a birth "above Kalamaki, up at the sheepfolds". Afterwards the husband had to walk to the road and on to Myloi to call the doctor: there were…
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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…
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7 April 1951
Census 1951: Kalamaki suddenly has 206 people
After the war and the civil war the community of Myloi has 639 inhabitants: 433 in Myloi and 206 in Kalamaki, four times as many as in 1940. The cause is not known; possibly families settled there temporarily, or the…
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1952
John Caskey starts digging at Lerna
In 1952 the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, led by its director John L. Caskey, opened the first trenches in the low mound by the springs, at the edge of Myloi. The work went on every year until 1958.
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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…
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1953
A trench right beside the railway
In 1953 the diggers opened Area D right next to the Argos–Myloi railway, so trains passed only a few metres from the trench. The plates in Hesperia show both the ancient walls and the tracks.
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24 June 1953
Nikolaos Giannakopoulos, president of the community
On 24 June 1953 the president of the community, N. Giannakopoulos, signs a public tender "in Myloi". He had already led the village in 1939 as head of the appointed committee. In 1951 a newspaper lists him as a grocer.
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1954
The House of the Tiles comes to light
By the summer of 1954 a large part of the House of the Tiles was exposed: a big Early Bronze Age building (around 2500–2200 BC) whose roof had been covered with baked clay tiles. Caskey published the first photographs in…
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1954
Forty people on the dig, the staff living in Myloi
In 1954 the team photographed itself: some forty people, archaeologists and workmen, many of them probably from the village. That season the staff lodged in Myloi, among them the field architect Lloyd Cotsen and the…
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25 December 1954
Ilias Papoulias, president of the community
Ilias Papoulias signs as "president of the community of Myloi" a notice published on 1 January 1955. In 1959 he was a member of the council.
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1955
Graves just beyond the last houses of Myloi
The excavators also found a Geometric cemetery "a short distance beyond the southernmost houses of the village of Myloi", at the foot of Pontinos. Caskey's lists of the graves and their locations are kept in the Lerna…
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December 1955
A model cheese dairy in Myloi
The Argos paper Aspis praises "the energetic businessman in Myloi, Mr Chr. Koutouzos", who has founded a model cheese dairy, "an ornament of Myloi" and the only cheese-making centre of its kind.
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1956
Young George Bass digs at Lerna
In 1956 the American student George F. Bass worked at Lerna, where he was photographed holding a large pot in a trench. He later became one of the founders of underwater archaeology.
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1956
Loukas Kouvaras sets off round the world
Loukas Kouvaras, born in Myloi in 1931, studied mechanical engineering at the University of Houston. From 1956 to 1988 he worked for multinationals in Houston, New York, London, Brussels, Geneva, New Delhi, Bombay, Hong…
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August 1956
A stone grave found at the entrance of the village
In August 1956 the Greek Archaeological Service, under E. Protonotariou, cleaned a stone cist grave found on a private plot at the entrance of Myloi from Argos. It was published in the Archaiologiki Ephimeris.
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22 November 1956
Vervena still winters "as far as Myloi"
In 1956 a letter "from wintry Vervena" says that all its people have again settled in their winter quarters, "from Karakovouni, Meligou and Astros as far as Myloi of Argos and Skafidaki". The writer complains that the…
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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…
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1957
Land around the site is expropriated
The records of the American School contain a 1957 file of documents about land expropriations at Lerna, which bordered the fields and orchards of Myloi. The file has not yet been studied, so the owners and the…
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1957–1959
The castle on Pontinos is measured and drawn
Wallace E. McLeod, a Norton Fellow of the American School who worked at Lerna in 1957–59, photographed and planned the castle on Pontinos and the Tower of the Princess. He published them in Hesperia in 1962 under the…
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12 January 1957
Lerna in the Illustrated London News
On 12 January 1957 the Illustrated London News printed an article by Caskey about Lerna, with an aerial photograph of the mound and a view of the House of the Tiles. Readers across the world could now see the place by…
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May 1957
Christos Papagiannis leads the village for ten years
From May 1957 Christos Papagiannis signs as president of the community of Myloi. He is still president in April 1967, a few days before the military coup of 21 April 1967. The community secretary in these years was…
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June 1957 – September 1957
A roof over the House of the Tiles
Between June and September 1957 a large protective shelter was built over the House of the Tiles, so the mud-brick walls could stay visible. The roof still stands at the site today.
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July 1957
Alison Frantz photographs the excavation
In July 1957 the photographer Alison Frantz made the official pictures of Lerna for Hesperia. One shows the site from the north-west with the railway and the sea, another from the east with Myloi and Pontinos behind.
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13 October 1957 – 10 November 1957
A newspaper series on the first ice factory
Between 13 October and 10 November 1957 the Argos weekly Άσπις του Άργους printed four instalments of A. P. Tsakopoulos's "Historical notes: the first ice factory of Myloi–Lerna". Written partly from memory, it is the…
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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…
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1958
Machteld Mellink photographs Lerna in colour
In 1958, the last digging season, the archaeologist Machteld J. Mellink took colour slides of the Early Bronze Age walls and the fortification of Lerna III, already under small tiled roofs. The slides are kept at Bryn…
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12 February 1958 – 22 June 1958
The ice factory «Η Λέρνη» runs into debt
On 12 February 1958 the "cold industry of Myloi «Η Λέρνη»" announced that it would start paying its creditors in June, and in May Vasileiou called thirteen creditors to a meeting at the factory on 22 June 1958. Work…
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August 1958
Demosthenis Ntroulias, priest of Myloi
In August 1958 the Aspis of Argos names Demosthenis Ntroulias as the priest of Myloi. How long he served is not yet known.
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30 June 1959
The village council makes John Caskey an honorary citizen
By unanimous decision no. 45 the council of Myloi declared the American archaeologist John Caskey an honorary citizen, for services to culture and to tourism in the community. It was signed by president Chr. Papagiannis…
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2 July 1959
Lerna is handed over to the Greek state
On 2 July 1959 Caskey handed over the excavated site and the finds, now displayed in the museum of Argos, to the Greek Archaeological Service. He gave the key of the shelter to Ioannis Papadimitriou, in the presence of…
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31 July 1959
New York's Greek paper reports the honour
On 31 July 1959 the Greek-American daily Εθνικός Κήρυξ in New York reported, in its provincial news, that Caskey had been made an honorary citizen of Myloi. The news from the village thus reached emigrants in America.
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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…
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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,…
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1960–2010
Grill houses for travellers at the junction
On the old national road, where cars and the KTEL buses stopped at the junction before the long climb towards Tripoli, a row of grill houses fed drivers and passengers. In 1963 a newspaper already described the summer…
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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.
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19 March 1961
Census 1961: Myloi 503, Kalamaki 170
The census of 1961 counts 673 people in the community: 503 in Myloi and 170 in Kalamaki. Myloi passes 500 inhabitants for the first time.
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1962
Headmistress Maria Pagkalou and the battle monument
In 1962 the Aspis of Argos praises the "progressive headmistress of the primary school of Myloi", Maria Pagkalou, for what she achieved within a few months together with the community committee. A later article says the…
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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…
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14 November 1963
An Athens paper visits the president and his council
The evening paper Vradyni publishes a report on Myloi and its wishes: a longer harbour, the coastal road to Nafplio, a community office, a doctor's surgery and a museum. It names the council: Chr. Papagiannis…
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20 June 1965
A lawyer from Myloi in Argos politics
In a series on "our new politicians", the paper Argolika Nea writes that Dionysios Styl. Balaskas "was born in Myloi of Argos". He studied law in Athens, fought as a gunner on the Albanian front, practised as a lawyer in…
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1966
A "factory" on the British chart
The British Admiralty chart 1518 of 1966 marks a building labelled "Facty" just north-west of the root of the Myloi pier. It is probably the building of the ice factory «Η Λέρνη» on the beach.
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1966
A man from Myloi meets Mitterrand in Paris
In 1966 Dimitrios Kotsonaros from Myloi, then 23, did his military service at a NATO office in Paris because he spoke French. Through friends he met the politician François Mitterrand, and they stayed friends for…
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1967
Dimosthenis Ganas leaves for Winnipeg
Dimosthenis Ganas, born in Myloi in 1945, followed his brothers Nick and Ted to Canada at the age of 22. In Winnipeg, Manitoba, he became "Jim" and later joint owner of Nick's Inn, a roadside diner in Headingley.
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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…
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1968
An aerial photo of Lerna and Myloi
Very probably in June 1968 the Jesuit photographer Raymond V. Schoder flew over the gulf and photographed Lerna and Myloi from the east: the shelter over the House of the Tiles, the village, the railway and the orchards.
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27 January 1968
Under the junta: Georgios Granias
After the coup of April 1967 community presidents were appointed, not elected. In January and June 1968 Georgios Granias signs as president of the community of Myloi.
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September 1968
Georgios Lermas, president 1968–1972
From September 1968 Georgios Lermas signs as president of the community of Myloi, and he still does so in July 1972. Like his predecessor he served under the military regime.
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12 January 1970
An airman from Myloi dies on Mount Kithairon
A Dakota of the Greek air force, on a training drop of paratroopers from Elefsina, hit Mount Kithairon in bad weather near Villia; 23 men died. Among them was flight sergeant Ilias Psomadakis "from Myloi of Argolida",…
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14 March 1971
Census 1971: Kougeika appears
In 1971 the community of Myloi has 675 inhabitants: 466 in Myloi, 171 in Kalamaki and 38 in Kougeika, which is recognised as a settlement in this census. Myloi itself shrank a little, as many Greek villages did in these…
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April 1973 – November 1973
Georgios Koutouzos, president in 1973
Between April and November 1973 Georgios Koutouzos signs tenders "in the community office of Myloi" as president, among them one for an underwater sewage pipe. He fills the gap between Lermas and Koromichis.
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1977
A guidebook for visitors to Lerna
In 1977 the American School published the short guide Lerna in the Argolid for visitors to the site by Myloi. A revised edition followed in 1997; the photographs used for both are kept in the Lerna archive.
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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…
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20 July 1979
Souvlaki sellers at the train, photographed
On 20 July 1979 the Danish railway photographer Ole Holbech travelled the line through Myloi and photographed a souvlaki seller holding up his tray to passengers at the windows of a railcar.
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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…
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5 April 1981
Census 1981: Myloi 542
The census of 1981 counts 698 people in the community: 542 in Myloi, 123 in Kalamaki and 33 in Kougeika. The village grows again while Kalamaki slowly empties.
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March 1986 – April 1986
A graveyard of steam locomotives
In the spring of 1986 a visitor photographed rows of withdrawn metre-gauge steam locomotives standing at Myloi station. The station, once a busy junction, had become a resting place for engines the railway no longer…
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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.
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23 December 1991
President Mitterrand arrives for Christmas
On the evening of 23 December 1991 a French government plane landed at Kalamata at 20:39, and a few hire cars drove through the night to Myloi. François Mitterrand had chosen the simple village house of his friend…
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24 December 1991
Christmas Eve in Epidaurus, Lygourio and Nafplio
On 24 December Mitterrand visited the theatre of Epidaurus and lunched at the taverna Leonidas in Lygourio, where he liked the local rozakia best and posed for a photo with the family. In the afternoon he walked through…
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25 December 1991
The day the Soviet Union ended, seen from Myloi
On Christmas Day the press blocked the road to Mycenae, so Mitterrand stayed in Myloi. That day Mikhail Gorbachev resigned in Moscow, and the French president read a statement over the satellite link set up in a small…
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26 December 1991
Corinth, the theatre of Argos and dinner in Malantreni
On 26 December Mitterrand visited Ancient Corinth and Acrocorinth, then the rock-cut theatre of Argos, which he called a masterpiece and regretted to see so neglected. Back in Myloi he received local officials, and the…
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26 December 1991
The village council at the President's table
During his secret Christmas stay in Myloi, François Mitterrand received the mayor of Argos and the council of the community: president M. Koromichis with councillors N. Kodelas and N. Gkikopoulos.
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27 December 1991
Mitterrand leaves, with a gift for Argos
On 27 December 1991 at 16:29 Mitterrand flew from Kalamata back to Paris. He left his host a signature and 10,000 francs for a good cause, which Kotsonaros gave to the old people's home in Argos.
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October 1994
Loukas Kouvaras wins the village election
Back from an international career, Loukas Kouvaras stood in the local elections of October 1994 with his own independent list and won. He was president of the community of Myloi from 1995 to 1998 and also chaired the…
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23 February 1995
"Metre gauge graveyard" at the Myloi depot
On 23 February 1995 the British photographer Adrian Nicholls captured what he called the "metre gauge graveyard" at Mili Nafpliou depot: the stone engine shed with its arched doors, two water towers and dumped…
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4 December 1997
Myloi becomes seat of the new municipality of Lerna
Under the Kapodistrias reform the communities of Myloi, Kiveri, Skafidaki, Andritsa and others were merged into the municipality of Lerna (Δήμος Λέρνας), with its seat in Myloi. The new municipality began work in 1999…
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October 1998
Loukas Kouvaras, first mayor of Lerna
Kouvaras was elected first mayor of the new municipality of Lerna in 1998 and re-elected in 2002. He built the town hall in Myloi, laid out the beaches of Myloi and Kiveri and brought water and roads to the neighbouring…
Today 2000–
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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.
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2007–2010
Michalis Chasapis, last mayor of Lerna
Michalis Chasapis is named in later years as "former mayor of Lerna". He was most likely the second and last mayor, from 2007 until the municipality was abolished in 2010; afterwards he sat on the council of…
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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.
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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…
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10 January 2009
The bell from Winnipeg rings all day
Jim Ganas had given a church bell to the church of the Twelve Apostles in Myloi. When the news came that he had died in Headingley, Canada, on 10 January 2009, the bell was rung all through the day.
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c. 2010
Akis Koromichis, president of the local community
Panagiotis (Akis) Koromichis, born and raised in Myloi, was president of the local community of Myloi for about thirteen years up to 2023, and came first in the 2019 local vote. A report from June 2020, however, calls…
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2010
The last passenger trains pass Myloi
Although the line had just been renovated, regular services on the Peloponnese metre-gauge network were suspended in 2010, and no more trains stopped at Myloi. The souvlaki sellers left the platform, but the grill houses…
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7 June 2010
Lerna is merged into Argos-Mykines
Under the Kallikratis reform the municipality of Lerna was abolished and became a municipal unit of the large municipality of Argos-Mykines. Myloi, with Kalamaki and Kougeika, became a local community (Τοπική Κοινότητα…
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2011
Census 2011: Myloi 593
In 2011 the local community of Myloi had 593 inhabitants in Myloi, 98 in Kalamaki and 28 in Kougeika. Another summary of the same census gives 100 for Kalamaki. In 1991 Kalamaki had 140 and in 2001 about 131.
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9 March 2012
During the crisis, the young come back
In the middle of the Greek debt crisis two young farmers of Myloi told a local paper that most friends who had left Myloi to seek their luck in a big city had almost all come back. Leaving for the city, and returning,…
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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…
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2015–2016
Enosi Lernas are champions of the Argolid
In the 2015–16 season the blue-and-black football club Enosi Lernas, the club of the Myloi area, won the first division of the Argolid football association (Α΄ ΕΠΣ Αργολίδας). An earlier club of the village was called…
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22 May 2015
A blue Triumph Herald comes out of the dust
On 22 May 2015 Konstantinos Doris, who spent his childhood summers in Myloi, found a 1962 Triumph Herald under thick dust in a warehouse in Argos; it had belonged to the air-force pilot Petros Marinos. After three years…
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2017
To Mikraki, a family taverna on the old road
The family taverna To Mikraki stands on the old Argos–Tripoli road near the junction, where grill houses have long served travellers. The oldest online traces date from 2017; its opening year is not known. It serves…
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5 September 2017
Myloi says no to moving its pupils to Kiveri
When the primary school of Myloi was to be closed and the children sent to Kiveri, the residents decided that the pupils would not go. The statement was signed by community president Panagiotis Koromichis and the chair…
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August 2018
Enosi Lernas presents its season in Myloi
In August 2018 Enosi Lernas presented its 2018–19 team in the former town hall of the old Municipality of Lerna in Myloi. That season the club's main sponsor was the Myloi ice-cream maker FOODPROM (Provio).
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24 October 2018
Ice cream made in Myloi
A century after the first ice factory, the ice-cream maker FOODPROM (Provio), run by the brothers Athanasios and Christos Mitsakos, has a modern production unit at Kamini near Kalamaki, in the Myloi district. In 2018–19…
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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…
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2021
Census 2021: Kalamaki down to 96
The census of 2021 counts 96 inhabitants in Kalamaki, less than half of the 206 of 1951.
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8 October 2021
The Tour du Péloponnèse stops on the pier
On Friday 8 October 2021, from 15:15, the classic-car rally Tour du Péloponnèse, organised by Triskelion, made a stop in Myloi. Visit Myloi welcomed the drivers with a "Bienvenue à Myloi" poster, as it has done at every…
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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…
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October 2023
Classic cars line the whole pier
In October 2023, during a Tour du Péloponnèse that ran from 2 to 6 October over 898 km from Ancient Olympia to Spetses, the whole pier of Myloi was lined with rally cars, from small Minis to Porsches, while villagers and…
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13 October 2023
"A hymn to the souvlaki of Myloi"
On 13 October 2023 the site in2life published "A hymn to the souvlaki of Myloi", a day trip around the village's grills, naming the corner shop of Kadis. In January 2026 the Argos paper Αναγνώστης recalled the "legendary…
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2024
Babis Kalantzis, president of the local community
Charalambos (Babis) Kalantzis, who had been elected vice-president of the local community at 25, is named as president of the community of Myloi from May 2024 onwards. In June 2025 he took part in the commemoration of…
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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.…
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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.
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10 October 2025
The rally returns to Myloi
On Friday 10 October 2025, between about 16:00 and 17:00, the Tour du Péloponnèse classic cars again parked along the pier and the waterfront of Myloi.
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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".
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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.
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8 October 2026
The 13th Tour du Péloponnèse visits Myloi
The thirteenth edition of the rally ran from 4 to 11 October 2026 with 90 teams, 25 stages and about 1,000 km through the Peloponnese. On the afternoon of Thursday 8 October it stopped in Myloi.