Listed 13 sub titles with search on: Ancient literary sources for wider area of: "MITHIMNA Province LESVOS" .
MITHYMNA (Ancient city) LESVOS
ANTISSA (Ancient city) LESVOS
Lyric Poetry. While among the Greeks the elegiac and iambic poetry, which
forms the transition from epic to lyric composition, was practised by the Ionians,
lyric poetry proper, or, as it was more commonly called, melic poetry (melos,
"a song"), the song accompanied by music, was cultivated by the Aeolians
and Dorians. This is due to the talent for music peculiar to these races. That
playing on stringed instruments and singing were cultivated even in mythical times
in Aeolia, in the island of Lesbos, is shown by the legend that the head and lyre
of Orpheus, who had been torn to pieces by Thracian women, were washed ashore
on that island, and that the head was buried in the Lesbian town of Antissa. Antissa
was the native place of Terpander, who gave artistic form to the nomos, or hymn
to Apollo, by elaborating the laws of its composition. Settling at Sparta in B.C.
676, he laid the foundation of the Dorian music. While he had closely followed
Homeric poetry in the texts which he wrote for his musical compositions, there
afterwards arose a greater variety in the kinds of songs, corresponding to the
greater variety of musical forms, springing from the foundation laid by him. In
the Aeolian lyric the pathetic prevails, as might be expected from the passionate
nature of the people; the feelings of love and hatred, joy and sorrow are their
principal themes. As to the metrical form we find short lines with a soft, melodious
rhythm, which make up a small number of short strophes. They are written in the
Aeolic dialect; we may suppose that they were solos sung to the accompaniment
of stringed instruments. In Lesbos the Aeolian lyric was brought to its highest
perfection by Alcaeus of Mitylene (about 600), and by his contemporary Sappho,
also a Lesbian, and teacher of the poetess Erinna. The joyous poems of Anacreon
of Teos (born about 550), whose subjects are love and wine, were also in the Aeolian
style, but in the Ionic dialect. An echo of the Aeolian lyric are the scolia...
Scolion (skolion, sc. melos). A short lyrical poem, usually consisting
of a single strophe, and intended to be sung after dinner over the wine. The ancients
ascribed its invention to Terpander, and it received its first development among
the Lesbians, and was written by such masters of song as Alcaeus, Sappho, Praxilla,
Timocreon, Simonides, and Pindar. The last mentioned, however, gave it a more
artistic form, with several strophes, in accordance with the rules of Dorian lyric
verse. This class of poetry found a congenial home in the brilliant and lively
city of Athens, where, to the very end of the Peloponnesian War, it was the regular
custom at banquets, after all had joined in the paean, to pass round a lyre with
a twig of myrtle, and to request all guests who had the requisite skill to sing
such a song on the spur of the moment. To judge from the specimens that have been
preserved, their contents were extremely varied: invocations of the gods, gnomic
sayings, frequently with allusions to common proverbs and fables, and the praises
of the blessings and pleasures of life. The most famous scolion was that by a
certain Callistratus on Harmodius and Aristogiton, who had killed the tyrant Hipparchus,
son of Pisistratus. It consists of four strophes, but the last three are only
variations of the first.
ERESSOS (Ancient city) LESVOS
Then, after Pyrrha, one comes to Eressus; it is situated on a hill and extends down to the sea.
MITHYMNA (Ancient city) LESVOS
Now as one sails from Lectum to Assus, the Lesbian country begins at Sigrium (Sigrium is the westernmost promontory of Lesbos island), its promontory on the north. In this general neighborhood is also Methymna, a city of the Lesbians, sixty stadia distant from the coast that stretches from Polymedium to Assus. But while the perimeter which is filled out by the island as a whole is eleven hundred stadia, the several distances are as follows: From Methymna to Malia, the southernmost promontory to one keeping the island on the right, I mean at the point where Canae lies most directly opposite the island and precisely corresponds with it, the distance is three hundred and forty stadia; thence to Sigrium, which is the length of the island, five hundred and sixty; and then to Methymna, two hundred and ten. Mitylene, the largest city, lies between Methymna and Malia, being seventy stadia distant from Malia, one hundred and twenty from Canae, and the same distance from the Arginussae, which are three small islands lying near the mainland alongside Canae. In the interval between Mitylene and Methymna, in the neighborhood of a village called Aegeirus in the Methymnaean territory, the island is narrowest, with a passage of only twenty stadia over to the Euripus of the Pyrrhaeans.
This extract is from: The Geography of Strabo (ed. H. L. Jones, 1924), Cambridge. Harvard University Press. Cited Sept 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Now this Bessa should be written with a double s (for it is named from its being a wooded place, being spelled the same way--like Nape in the plain of Methymne, which Hellanicus ignorantly names Lape)
Commentary: Both "bessa" and nape mean "wooded glen."
MITHYMNA (Ancient city) LESVOS
After this, during the same summer, the Chians, whose zeal continued as active as ever, and who even without the Peloponnesians found themselves in sufficient force to effect the revolt of the cities and also wished to have as many companions in peril as possible, made an expedition with thirteen ships of their own to Lesbos; the instructions from Lacedaemon being to go to that island next, and from thence to the Hellespont. Meanwhile the land forces of the Peloponnesians who were with the Chians and of the allies on the spot, moved along shore for Clazomenae and Cuma, under the command of Eualas, a Spartan; while the fleet under Diniades, one of the Perioeci, first sailed up to Methymna and caused it to revolt, and, leaving four ships there, with the rest procured the revolt of Mitylene.
This extract is from: Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War (ed. Richard Crawley, 1910). Cited Sept 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Immediately after the invasion of the Peloponnesians all Lesbos, except Methymna, revolted from the Athenians.
About the same time that the Lacedaemonians were at the Isthmus, the Mitylenians marched by land with their mercenaries against Methymna, which they thought to gain by treachery. After assaulting the town, and not meeting with the success that they anticipated, they withdrew to Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus; and taking measures for the better security of these towns and strengthening their walls, hastily returned home. After their departure the Methymnians marched against Antissa, but were defeated in a sortie by the Antissians and their mercenaries, and retreated in haste after losing many of their number. Word of this reaching Athens, and the Athenians learning that the Mitylenians were masters of the country and their own soldiers unable to hold them in check, they sent out about the beginning of autumn Paches, son of Epicurus, to take the command, and a thousand Athenian heavy infantry; who worked their own passage, and arriving at Mitylene, built a single wall all round it, forts being erected at some of the strongest points. Mitylene was thus blockaded strictly on both sides, by land and by sea, and winter now drew near.
This extract is from: Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War (ed. Richard Crawley, 1910). Cited Sept 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Meanwhile Thrasyllus had heard of his having put out from Miletus, and immediately set sail with fifty-five ships from Samos, in haste to arrive before him in the Hellespont. But learning that he was at Chios, and expecting that he would stay there, he posted scouts in Lesbos and on the continent opposite to prevent the fleet moving without his knowing it, and himself coasted along to Methymna, and gave orders to prepare meal and other necessaries, in order to attack them from Lesbos in the event of their remaining for any length of time at Chios. Meanwhile he resolved to sail against Eresus, a town in Lesbos which had revolted, and, if he could, to take it. For some of the principal Methymnian exiles had carried over about fifty heavy infantry, their sworn associates, from Cuma, and hiring others from the continent, so as to make up three hundred in all, chose Anaxander, a Theban, to command them, on account of the community of blood existing between the Thebans and the Lesbians, and first attacked Methymna. Baulked in this attempt by the advance of the Athenian guards from Mitylene, and repulsed a second time in a battle outside the city, they then crossed the mountain and effected the revolt of Eresus. Thrasyllus accordingly determined to go there with all his ships and to attack the place. Meanwhile Thrasybulus had preceded him thither with five ships from Samos, as soon as he heard that the exiles had crossed over, and coming too late to save Eresus, went on and anchored before the town. Here they were joined also by two vessels on their way home from the Hellespont, and by the ships of the Methymnians, making a grand total of sixty-seven vessels; and the forces on board now made ready with engines and every other means available to do their utmost to storm Eresus.
This extract is from: Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War (ed. Richard Crawley, 1910). Cited Sept 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
While they ((The Athenians) were at anchor in the harbour of Methymna, in Lesbos, they saw sailing past them from Ephesus the twenty-five Syracusan ships; and putting out to the attack they captured four of them, men and all, and chased the rest back to Ephesus.
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