In Ottoman historiography Balkan banditry is understood solely as a symptom of deteriorating security in the eighteenth century. In fact the Balkan "bandit" has much more to offer. If we understand the Balkan bandit as representative of indigenous military traditions, then we can interrogate this often mythologized actor to open up three major issues in Ottoman and Balkan history: the relationship between war and society, the relationship between great and little traditions of warfare and the existence of military diasporas. In my paper I will focus on the fifteenth century because in that century Balkans fighters spread out across the Ottoman and Italian worlds and established the outlines of a military diaspora that would endure until the end of the eighteenth century. Moving continuously between the Pindus mountains, a mighty range which stretches from what is today Albania down into mainland Greece, and centers of military recruitment, I will argue that Balkan fighters, often presented in rather splendid isolation, cannot be separated from the lowland societies around them. In addition, the extent to which both Ottomans and Italians drew on Balkan manpower, and thus Balkan military traditions, has been insufficiently appreciated.