Panagiotis Rodios (1789 – 1851)

Panagiotis Rodios (1789 – 1851)

From the island of Rhodes, he was a Major General during the Greek Revolution of 1821, a writer and later a politician.

His father was a merchant and shipowner, but following his death, Panagiotis Rodios did not wish to follow in this line of work, so sold his ship and instead went to study in Smyrni and later, in Padua and Paris.

Rodios was in Paris at the start of the Greek Revolution, at which point, he decided to come home, enlist and fight.

He participated in various important battles, he was present at the crucial Siege of Tripolitsa in 1821 and was one of the leaders at the Battle of Peta in Epirus in 1822.

Rodios, was an advocate for the modernisation of Greece’s military, the improvement of its tactics, training and organisation.

He was also a close associate of Greece’s first modern Head of State Ioannis Kapodistrias, acting as his Minister of Military up until the assassination of the latter in 1831.

In the 1840’s he also served as a Minister of Defence, before dying in Nafplio in 1851.