Tellos Agras Tellos Agras ( , 1880 – 7 June 1907 ) was the " nom de guerre " of Sarantis - Tellos Agapinos ( ) , a Greek officer of the Hellenic Army who played a prominent role during the Greek Struggle for Macedonia . Early life . Agras was born in Gargalianoi ( now in Trifylia municipality ) , Messenia in 1880 , from an important family of that region , members of which had participated in the Greek War of Independence . He entered the Hellenic Military Academy , from where he graduated as lieutenant of the Hellenic Army in 1901 . The increasing presence of Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization guerrilla troops in Ottoman - held Macedonia and their actions against the followers of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and generally against the Macedonian Greek population concerned Greek public opinion in Athens , which led to the creation of some underground organizations financed by wealthy Greeks , initially without official support , with the intention of establishing Greek military bands in Macedonia to confront the threat . Agras entered one of these organizations , the " Macedonian Committee " in 1904 , after the death of Pavlos Melas . Involvement in the Macedonian Struggle . In September 1906 , he entered Macedonia leading a 14 men band with the mission to protect Macedonian Greek villages in Giannitsa Lake ( called " O Valtos " , i . e . , " the Swamp " by locals ) from the attacks of VMRO members that controlled the northern part of the lake . With the help of local Macedonian Greeks such as the wealthy tradesman Zafeiris Loggos and Antonis Mingas from Naoussa , in only three months he managed to limit Bulgarian presence in the Swamp . But on November 14 , 1906 Agras was seriously injured after an unsuccessful attack against the leader of the Bulgarian guerrilla troops , Apostol Petkov , near the village of Zervochori and was recalled to Thessaloniki to be healed . He continued his activity in the area for some months but his health deteriorated by his continuous presence and fights in the lake , resulting in his infection by malaria . The coordinator of the Greek forces , Konstantinos Mazarakis - Ainian , concerned for his life , ordered Agras to withdraw to Naoussa in April 1907 , where he started recruiting locals to man the band of his substitute Captain Amyntas , alias Lieutenant Doumpiotis . However , by that time , Ottoman forces , although initially passive and not intervening in Greek - Bulgarian fights , began attacking both , worried by the presence of so many armed bands in the area . That led Agras to seek cooperation with the leaders of the Bulgarian forces of the area against the Turks and a meeting was arranged on June 3 , 1907 between Agras and his opponent , Captain Zlatan , near the town of Aghia Foteini , 10 km north of Naoussa . Accorting to their agreement each group would be unarmed . In the event , the Bulgarians came armed and Agras , with his close friend Mingos were arrested by Zlatan and later hanged on June 7 outside the village of Tekhovo . The news of his death shocked the local Greek population and his fellow fighters who continued his work and eventually managed to predominate in the area of Giannitsa Lake , after the decisive victory of Captain Amyntas against Zlatan on June 30 in Xeroleivado . Tellos Agras is considered to be a martyr of the Greek Struggle of Macedonia and one of the most important and effective band leaders of it . He and his exploits are better known through the pages of the novel " Ta Mystika tou Valtou " ( " The Secrets of the Marsh " ) , written by Penelope Delta .