French rule in the Ionian Islands Corsican Greek military officer Demetrio Stefanopoli as his envoy to the Ionian Islands and Mani, who on his return in 1798 openly spoke of a restored Byzantine Empire and "Franco-Greek liberty" up to the Bosporus. At the same time, in Ancona, an "Executive Directory for the Commerce of Corsica, Malta, Zakynthos, Cephalonia, Corfu, the French Isles of the Adriatic, the Archipelago, and Egypt" was established with Greek and French members, aiming to collect intelligence and foment insurrection. In the event these machinations came to nothing, once the French were committed to the invasion of Egypt, rather than the Balkan provinces
Ionian League of Melia were part of the Lohmann et al. discoveries of 2004. Prior to then other theories of the location had been prevalent. The Ionian League was the first alliance of city-states in the region. Ionian League The Ionian League (ancient Greek: , "Íōnes"; , "koinón Iōnōn"; or , "koinē sýnodos Iōnōn"; Latin: "commune consilium"), also called the Panionic League, was a confederation formed at the end of the Meliac War in the mid-7th century BC comprising twelve Ionian cities (a dodecapolis, of which there were many others). These were listed by Herodotus as After 650 BC Smyrna, an originally