Krokodeilos Kladas, whose family migrated from Epirus to the Peloponnese, was born in Koroni in 1425; his father was the Greek military chief Theodore Kladas. When the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1444–1446 and 1451–1481) took the Morea in 1460, Kladas handed over his castle of Saint George (Agios Giorgios) and was given in exchange the castle of Vardounia in Upper Mani and the territory of Elos. By 1465, the Kladas brothers, Krokodeilos and Epifani, were leading bands of "stratioti" (warrior bands) on behalf of Venice against the Turks. They put Vardounia and their lands into Venetian possession, for which Epifani then acted as governor. The Kladas brothers were frequently complimented by Venetian officials, and received generous Venetian gifts. Krokodeilos Kladas and his followers stood as rebels against Mehmed, but the Venetian-Ottoman peace settlement, while giving them a full pardon, also returned territorial boundaries to what they had been in 1463, so this put the Venetian-Kladas land holdings back into Ottoman possession. Kladas moved to Venetian-held Koroni.