it, by buying up the properties of their less fortunate fellow citizens, as did speculators from other parts of the empire. Haseki himself sought to seize property wherever he could. He would either send his own assessors to give a very low estimate of the property's value, or, if the owner were a Christian, simply confiscate it in return for a receipt that he had paid his share of the public promissory note. The Kaisariani Monastery saved itself from expropriation only by arranging to be sold to the Metropolitan of Athens. He amassed a considerable estate, comprising much of the present-day Botanical Gardens, as well as over 12,000 olive trees, according to Skouzes. He built a large country mansion at the beginning of the Sacred Way, called "Tower of Haseki", and kept a large harem of women. The contemporary accounts report of his attempt to include in it the beautiful Ergena, who was forced to flee to Livadeia disguised as a Turk, while her husband, Stamatis Sarris, was beaten so brutally that he remained crippled thereafter. In 1789 Athens was visited again by the plague, with repeated outbreaks in January and in March–June. At its height, it claimed 30–40 people every day, and one day, as many as 500; by the time it subsided, it had carried off 1,200 Christians and 500 Muslims. Due to the poor harvest of the previous year, and despite the efforts of the primates to procure grain from Boeotia, the plague was followed by a famine. Haseki simply withdrew from the plague to the monastery of St. John on Mount Hymettus, and from there continued to send his agents to summon the citizens to him or collect debts. Haseki was able to profit both from the Porte's preoccupation with the ongoing war with Russia, as well as the support of the primates, who dismissed the complaints lodged against him in Constantinople as "the malicious gossip of mischief-makers". According to Skouzes, "All hope of being saved was gone, for a petition was sent three times to Constantinople, and nothing came of it. The tyrant spent money, and the Athenians paid. When they made a petition, they had to spend money as well as he, but he got his expenses back from them three times over." Downfall, banishment and execution It so happened, however, that Cezayirli Hasan Pasha's former silahdar, whom Haseki had displaced, was appointed as