Dimitrios Meletopoulos
Dimitrios Meletopoulos (Greek: Δημήτριος Μελετόπουλος, Aigio, 1796 – Athens, 1858) was a Greek military leader of the Greek War of Independence and later a politician.[1]
Biographical information
Meletopoulos was born in Vostitsa (Aigio)[1] and was one of the six children of Aggelis Meletopoulos and Anastasia Charalampi. His grandfather was Christodoulos Meletopoulos, a notable who actively participated in the Orlov Revolt of 1770.[2] Before 1821, Dimitrios Meletopoulos worked as a raisin merchant. He became member of Filiki Eteria in 1819 through his father who served in Istanbul as vekil and participated in the assembly of Vostitsa where together with Andreas Londos and Leontas Messinezis, he supported the proposal of Papaflessas for immediate start of the Revolution.[2]
During the Revolution he initially supported the Londos family.[1] On 26 March 1821 he seized Vostitsa from the Ottomans. He also participated in the battles of Patras, in the repelling of the army of Dramali Pasha and in the military operations in Central Greece.[2] He eventually rose to head his own military force[1] and in 1823 he was appointed a lieutenant general. During the Greek civil wars of 1824–25, although initially he took the side of Londos, then he supported the government faction of Georgios Kountouriotis and in 1824 he became general.[2] Later, he participated in the operations against the army of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt and the subjugation of the regions of Peloponnese that had surrendered to the Ottomans.[2] Meletopoulos participated actively in the Third and Fifth National Assemblies in the following years and engaged in politics in the independent Greek state, becoming mayor of Aigio, Minister of the Interior, Minister of Military Affairs, and twice serving as prefect of Attica and Boeotia Prefecture.
During the reign of Otto of Greece, he was appointed lieutenant general in the regular army. He died in 1858 in Athens from apoplexy, while at the end of his life he was destitute. From his marriage with a daughter of Anagnostis Deligiannis, he had three sons: Leonidas, Angelos and Charilaos.[2]