40 Palakaria.

This is coolbert:

"They met an old man.
An old man on the road.
Bless you 'yero'!
Bless you old man!"

He answered them:
"'Welcome, my young braves!
Where are you going?
Brave youths, where do you go?'"

"We go to trample on
great Tripolitsa!
Come with us!"

"Come with us old man!
Brave youths, I'm too old.
But take my youngest son.
He'll take my place.
He can run like a rabbit.
He can soar like a partridge."

"They had long knives in their belts and long guns on their shoulders. They had long hair, and mustaches. In the formal depictions of their march, in the paintings, they are often dressed in the fancy white kilts, the foustanella. Each kilt has 400 pleats. And each pleat represents a year of Greek slavery and occupation under the Turkish Ottoman Empire."

The Forty Palikaria of Levadia. On their way to battle. The revolt, the rebellion, the insurrection of the Greek against the Ottoman Turk! Lord Byron raising the Greek flag and such.

It was March 25, 1821.

March 25. Greek Independence Day. One hundred ninety years ago today, the battle began in earnest.

Almost half a millenia of Islamic oppression as endured by the Greek. A rule despotic and cruel, even genocidal at times. An end to that rule that began with the march of the 40 Palikaria.

As remembered today in the very good column from the Chicago Tribune as written by John Kass, worth reading in entirety. And thank you John!

That magic number of forty. Signifying the end of era and the beginning of another.

* It rained for forty days and night.
* The Hebrews spent forty years in the wilderness.
* JESUS spent forty days in the wilderness.
* The tenth and last guru of the Sikhs, Gobind Singh, having forty acolytes die in battle fighting with him!

Etc.

As it was with the Hebrews, JESUS and Gobind Singh, the number forty in this instance connotes an event of great significance, and INDEED - - IT WAS!

coolbert.