Remains of a tower covered by dense vegetation at the location “Kastri” of the islet of Skorpios east of Lefkada. The said “Kastri” is a small, overgrown peninsula at the southeastern tip of Skorpios. In essence, it is a tiny independent islet connected by a sandbar to the rest of the island (the geographical term is “tied island”).

The tower protected the access to the island from the sandbar side. Around it, traces of an external fortification enclosure can be seen, which, in its original form, may have completely blocked the sandy isthmus, isolating “Kastri” from the rest of Skorpios.

Today, the tower is almost invisible from a distance, due to the dense vegetation. The most complete image of it is preserved in a 1905 photograph by the German archaeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld (photo 1). In this photograph, the vegetation of the islet is sparser and the tower is clearly visible. In the other photographs, which are relatively recent (2022), we can see, among the vegetation, the surviving parts of the tower, which are preserved at a certain height, although the tower seems to be in worse condition than it was at the beginning of the 20th century.

History

We do not know the history of the tower, which must be several centuries old, but it is certainly not ancient.

In fact, the old history of Skorpios itself is not known either. Skorpios is an islet in the Ionian Sea, next to Lefkada, 3 nautical miles from Nidri. It belongs to the group of islets called Pringiponisia, which belong to a wider island complex – between Lefkada and Aitoloakarnania – called Tilevoides nisoi. Administratively, it belongs to the Municipality of Meganisi.

Skorpios is mentioned in sources after 1684, when Lefkada and the surrounding islands came under Venetian rule; until then, the Pringiponisia Islands seem to have been uninhabited.
In the mid-18th century it belonged to Antonio Trevisan, a provveditore of Lefkada, who in 1755 subleased lands in Skorpios to the Prosalentis brothers. Later the island came into the possession of the Settini family and in 1892 its heirs sold it to the Mavroidis brothers. Already in the 19th century there was a mansion on the island, which was later renovated by Onassis.

During the WW II the last descendant of the Mavroidis family sold it to the Italians. He himself reacquired it after the war. In 1953 it was purchased by the Drymonas family of Lefkada. Ιn 1963 Aristotle Onassis became the owner of the island.
After his death, a period of abandonment followed and finally in 2013 Onassis’ granddaughter Athena sold it to Dmitry Rybolovlev, despite the Last will of Onassis that provided for its transfer to the Greek State.

The tower is not part of the aforementioned historical context. However, it is known that from 1470, after the Ottoman conquest, until the beginning of Venetian rule in 1684, the islets around Lefkada gradually turned into pirate bases. The phenomenon peaked especially during the period 1573–1644.

The historian K. Sathas (1842–1914), in an article (1866), noted that the complex of these small islands, to which Skorpios belongs, was uninhabited and “created a haven for piracy in the Middle Ages.”
He even mentioned the tower as a den of the pirates.

According to Sathas, therefore, the tower was a remnant of Skorpios’ pirate period. This hypothesis is very reasonable, as the location and form of the monument do not favor its identification with a Byzantine fortress, a Venetian watchtower, an Ottoman outpost or a tower house.
We will therefore accept, in the absence of other evidence, that it is indeed a pirate fort with a construction date around the 16th century.

Sources