On December 16, 1803, roughly 60 Souliote women climbed to the edge of a cliff on Mount Zalongo in Epirus and jumped, on...

On December 16, 1803, roughly 60 Souliote women climbed to the edge of a cliff on Mount Zalongo in Epirus and jumped, one after another, taking their children with them. They chose death over capture by the forces of Ali Pasha, the Ottoman-Albanian warlord who had spent years trying to crush the Souliotes into submission. The Souliotes were Eastern Orthodox Greeks from the Souli region of Epirus, fighters by reputation and fierce enough that Ali Pasha had failed to defeat them through direct military confrontation for decades. But in December 1803, after a long war of attrition, the Souliotes were forced to evacuate. During the retreat, a group of women and children were cut off by Ali's troops in the mountains near Zalongo. With no route of escape and capture meaning enslavement, the women made their choice. According to the accounts that survived, they threw their children off the cliff first, then followed them, singing and dancing as they went over the edge. The image of women dancing toward death became one of the most powerful symbols of Greek resistance to Ottoman rule. The story spread across Europe within years. At the Paris Salon of 1827, French Romantic painter Ary Scheffer exhibited "Les Femmes souliotes," bringing the scene to audiences far outside Greece. Greek theater and folk music kept the memory alive through a song called "Choros tou Zalongou," the Dance of Zalongo, which is still performed today. A monument now stands on Mount Zalongo, near the ruins of ancient Kassope, depicting the women in the act of their final dance. The event happened 223 years ago, but it remains one of the defining acts of defiance in Greek history. #Greece #GreekHistory #Zalongo