A few years after the battle of Lepanto, Nafpaktos became a nest of pirates. Many freebooters from North Africa, especially Algiers, turned this town into a base of operations. Their depredations soon made them infamous throughout the region and Nafpaktos came to be known as the “Little Algiers” (while Oitylo in the Mani Peninsula was known as the “Big Algiers”). The most fearsome pirate was Durach Bey. His mother was a Christian and his father a Muslim Turk. He had a fleet of eleven brigantines and raided the nearby islands of Zante and Leukas, enslaving hundreds of islanders.