HORRIBLE REMINISENCE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1029, 11 November 1882, Page 3

HORRIBLE REMINISENCE.

Philios Alexin, who died in Lamia the other day, at the great age of 94, had in his youth contributed —but cnly under compulsion—to one of the most terrible deeds perpetrated by Turkish forces to crush the Greek rebellion of 1821. He was plying bis trade as a master cai'penter, in Lis native town, when Omar Brionis Pasha entered Tirnia in triumph, after his victory over the insurgents at Thermopylae, where he had taken several insurrectionary leaders prisoners, amongst them the celebrated champion of Hellenic liberties, Athanasios Diakos. The fierce Moslem commander doomed the heroic youth to be spitted on a wooden stake and roasted alive ; and Alexin was re-

quire I, mi pain ot death, to supply the executioners of this barbarous sentence with all implements needed fur its fulfilment ; that is to say a spite oi timber, fitted either end wilu a handle, by which it might lie made to revolve, and two stout wooden trestles, provided with circular grooves, wherein both extremeties of the stake might have free play during the luckless patriot’s martyrdom. On the 30th April, 1826, as soon as Alexin had completed the task imposed upon him, the Pasha s inhuman decree was carried out to the letter. Diakos displayed unflinching fortitude throughout his horrible torture ; and his death scene, to which Alexin was a witness, made an impression upon the latter’s mind that time could not eftace. He retained it, indeed, with undiminishffd vividness until within a few hours of his demise.