Mercurius Boas was a great figure of Hellenism in the Renaissance period. He was the leader of the Greek light horsemen, known as "Stratiots", who fought and won glory on the Italian battlefields during the Italian Wars. Through the few elements that time has saved for the action of this great personality, we will try to follow his multifaceted action.
The Buis family is first mentioned in sources in the 14th century. And he had blood ties with the Arians, the famous Byzantine house that gave great figures to the Byzantine Empire , such as David Arianitis, general of the emperor Vasilios II Bulgaroktonos, or Constantine Arianitis, general of the emperor Michael IX, George Arianitis, son-in-law of George Kastriotis - of Skanderbeg - and the latter's son, Konstantinos Arianitis, who also he was one of the first Greek Soldiers to go to Italy and fight as a mercenary there. Constantinos Arianitis was even honored with the title of Marquis of Montferrat.
The main source of information about Mercurios Boua is the biographical, epic poem "Mercurios Andragathimas", which was composed, around 1519, by the young man Ioannis Koronaios, from Zakynthos. The Bues were Arvanites.
The Arvanites are first mentioned in Byzantine sources by the Byzantine historian Michael Attaleiatis (11th century) and later – as Arvanites from Arvanon – in the "Alexiada" of Anna Komneni, again in the 11th century. Michael Attaleiatis clearly distinguished the Albanians from the Arvanites – the inhabitants of the region of Arvanos, near the ancient Greek city of Dyrrachium.
The etymology of the term Arvanitis comes from the root Arvanit, according to the Great Etymological Dictionary of Ioannis S. Koulakis (published by Maliaris-Paideia). According to Georgios Babiniotis, the word comes from the toponym Arvana. Linguists argue that the term Albanian was mistakenly identified with the term Arvanite, as the two words have completely different etymological origins. The Arvanas are mountains that extend west of Lake Ahrida, forming the mountain range of the same name, on the geographical borders of today's Albania with the state of Skopje.
In conclusion, that the Arvanites were the inhabitants of the area from the Greek, for centuries, Dyrrachium and to the south of it, whom we can identify as the Greek northern continental leaf. However, this is how they characterized themselves, considering themselves as Greeks, with their Greek origin being lost, literally, in the depths of history. Mercurius Boas himself, is shown by the biographer Coroneus, to be proud of his descent from the generation of King Pyrrhus of Epirus. The Arvanites gradually, pressured by the Turkish expansion, left their northern continental homes and began to go down to Thessaly, initially also to Sterea and the Peloponnese, later, from the middle of the 14th century, approximately.
One of the families that came down to the Peloponnese and even joined the service of the Despots of Mystras, was that of Buas. Theodoros Boas, leader of the homeland, in the 15th century, was a descendant of Petros Boas, who served the Despots of Epirus, as commander of the city of Angelokastro. Petros Buas for a time submitted to the Serbs of Stefanos Dusan, to fight against the Latins who dominated western Greece, but later came into conflict with the Serbian ruler of the Ioannina, Tomas Preliubovic. Two nephews of Petros Buis also joined the service of Emperor Manuel Palaiologos, fighting with him against the Turks.
Theodoros Buas joined the service of the despots of Mystras. One of his relatives, Petros Buas, the so-called lame man, joined forces, shortly before the occupation of the Peloponnese by the Turks, with the anti-Paleologos rebel lord of Mani, Manuel Kandakouzenos, reacting to the atrocities of the despots Demetrius and Thomas of Palaiologos.
Mercurio's father, Theodoros Buas, was a soldier. He fought the Turks in the Peloponnese and after the collapse of the Despotate, in 1461, he fled with his family to the Venetian-occupied Nafplio, offering his services to the Venetians. In the First Turko-Venetian War (1463-1479) Theodoros fought bravely for the Venetians, accompanied by his teenage son Mercurio. When the Venetians capitulated to the Turks, Theodore did not stop the war. He joined the forces of the famous Crocodile Kladas and continued the resistance against the Ottomans.
Theodore secretly left Nafplio, at the head of 60 soldiers, and moved towards Mani, to join Kladas. On the way he attacked a Turkish detachment and crushed it. In 1481 he participated with Kladas, in the great battle in Oitylo of Mani, where more than 700 Turks were killed. A few months later the two Greek Soldiers trapped another Turkish detachment of 1,000 men in the narrows of Mani and destroyed it. His young son, who was only 14 years old at the time, according to some sources, Mercurius, also took part in these battles.
But the Turks came back with overwhelmingly superior forces and so Boas and Cladas fled the Peloponnese in ships of the King of Naples Ferdinand. Theodore Boas was later sent to Northern Epirus to support the Chemariote revolution, together with Cladas. He probably also perished then, along with the fearless Crocodile Kladas.
Mercury
Mercurius Boas must have been born about 1467. This is conjectured by some sources which state that he was 14 years old when he left the Peloponnese. He was born in Nafplio and, like all future Soldiers, he was named after a military saint (St. Mercurius) . It was a common and old tradition for Soldiers to be baptized with the names of military saints.
There is no information about the life of Mercurios in Italy, until 1495. He would probably have taken refuge, together with his family, under the protection of his uncle Constantinos Arianitis, who, from 1482, had formed the first detachment of Greek Soldiers , which acted in the so-called War of Ferrara (1482-84). Arianitis had married his daughter to the Marquis of Montferrat. After the latter's death, he himself took over the administration of the marquisate of Montferrat. The state in question remained under Greek control until 1531, with rulers from the Paleologos dynasty.
This is how the Venetian Marino Sanuto describes the first presence of the Greek Soldiers in Venice: "On the 22nd of April, 1482, the first ship of horsemen arrived, carrying also seven Soldiers from Coronis, who, when they disembarked at Lindos, paraded in their usual manner, before the unaccustomed crowd, which they astonished at the speed of the horses them and their horsemanship...the Soldiers are Greeks and they wear wide aprons and tall hats, some wear breastplates.
“They carry spears in their hands and a head-breaker and hang their sword at their side. They move like birds and remain constantly on their horses. They are accustomed to raids and often plundered the Turks in the Peloponnese. They are formidable opponents of the Turks and attack them in a surprising manner. They are loyal to their leader. They do not take prisoners, but instead cut off the heads of enemies and collect a ducat for each head.
A contemporary, particular British historian, adheres to the view that Mercury and the Soldiers in general were exclusively of Albanian origin. However, the biographer and protopalikaro of Mercurius, Ioannis (Zanes) Koronaios, whom some naturalize as a Veneto - he was a Peloponnesian who had taken refuge in Zakynthos - characteristically mentions:"And the Lacedaemonites were assembled as lords. And other chosen Macedonian soldiers".