Mithymna () (, also sometimes spelled Methymna) is a town and former municipality on the island of Lesbos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2019 local government reform it is part of the municipality of West Lesbos, of which it is a municipal unit.[ Name changes of settlements in Greece] that name dates back to the end of the Byzantine Era, but is still in common use today.
Geography
It is located NE of
Eressos, N of
Plomari and NW of
Mytilene.
The town (pop. 1,399 at 2011 census) is on the northern part of the island, just some 6 km north of the popular beach town of Petra. One of the most noticeable features of the town is the old Genoese fortress on the hill in the middle of the town. The town's agora is located on the uphill road to the fortress and is popular among tourists, with many historic shops, cafés and restaurants.
The municipal unit of Míthymna stretches eastward from the town along the northern part of the island; it is the island's smallest municipal unit in land area at 50.166 km².
Molyvos Beach is one of the Blue Flag beaches in Lesbos. The shoreline is pebbled, but the seabed consists entirely of soft sand and remains shallow for a considerable distance. The agora and fortress are visible from the beach.
History
As
Methymna, the city was once the prosperous second city of Lesbos, with a
founding myth that identified an
Methymna (Greek: Μήθυμνα), the daughter of Macar and married to the personification of Lesbos. In epic tradition, the hero
Achilles besieged Methymna during the time of the
Trojan War, and was assisted by the Methymnian princess Pisidice who opened the city gates in exchange for him marrying her. Achilles then sacked Methymna with Pisidice's help, but afterwards he had her stoned by his soldiers for treason.
Archaic Period
Very little is known about Methymna in the Archaic period. The story of
Arion and the dolphin, which involves the
tyrant
Periander and is evidently set at the turn of the 7th century BCE, suggests that Methymna was already a prominent city with far-reaching contacts across the Greek world at this period.
[Herodotus 1.23-24.] Herodotus tells us that at some point in the Archaic period, Methymna enslaved the city of
Arisba on Lesbos: this will have greatly increased the territory of Methymna, as well as giving it access to the fertile land around the Gulf of
Kalloni.
[Herodotus 1.151.2, cf. Strabo 13.1.21. Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis 5.139 instead says that Arisba was destroyed by earthquake.] We are also told by a local historian, Myrsilus of Methymna, who wrote in the first half of the 3rd century BCE, that Methymna founded the city of
Assos which was on the coast of Asia Minor opposite Methymna.
[Myrsilos FGrHist 477 F 17 = Strabo 13.1.58.] However, another local historian, Hellanicus of Lesbos, writing in the mid-5th century BCE, instead simply says Assos was an Aeolian foundation and does not specify a particular city as its founder.
[Hellanicus FGrHist 4 F 160 = Strabo 13.1.58.] This has led some historians to doubt Myrsilus, and instead suggest that this is an example of "local Methymnaean manipulation of the past", although this could equally be true of Hellanicus.
[C. Constantakopoulou, Dance of the Islands (2007) 240 n. 51. A further complication is that Alexander Polyhistor FGrHist 273 F 96 = Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Ἀσσός says that Assos was a colony of Mytilene. However, the editor of Stephanus, Augustus Meineke, commenting on this passage believed this was an error in the manuscript, and thought it originally said Assos was a colony of Methymna.]
Classical Period
Methymna had a long-standing rivalry with
Mytilene, and during the Peloponnesian War it sided with Athens during the Mytilenaean revolt in 428 BCE when all the other cities of Lesbos sided with Mytilene.
[Thucydides 3.2.1, 3.5.1.] When the Athenians put down the revolt the following year, only Methymna was spared from having its territory turned into a
cleruchy.
[Thucydides 3.50.2, Diodorus Siculus 12.55.10.] After 427, Methymna and
Chios were the only members of the
Delian League to remain self-governing and exempt from tribute, indicating the privileged position Methymna held within the Athenian Empire.
[Thucydides 6.85.2, 7.57.5, 8.100.5.] Methymna was briefly captured by the Spartans in summer 412, before quickly being retaken by the Athenians: in describing this episode, the historian
Thucydides indicates that the Methymnaeans were much more inclined to side with Athens than Sparta.
[Thucydides 8.23.4-6.] This was likewise the case in 411, when a group of Methymnaeans who were in exile at Cyme in
Aeolis attempted to return to Methymna by force, but were rebuffed by the population.
[Thucydides 8.100.2-3.] When the Spartan commander
Kallikratidas besieged Methymna in 406, the city stayed loyal to its Athenian garrison and held out until it was betrayed by several traitors.
[Xenophon, Hellenica 1.6.12-15, Diodorus Siculus 13.76.5-6.]
Our knowledge of the history of Methymna in the 4th century is limited, but its prominence as a polis is firmly attested by the city's silver and bronze coinage.[Isocrates, Epistles 7.8-9 (ca. 346/5?), Theopompus FGrHist 115 F 227 = Athenaeus 10.442f-443a, IG II2 284 + Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 54.132.] We do not know what happened to Kleommis after this, although it is likely that he was expelled when the island fell to Philip II's generals Parmenion and Attalus in 336.[P. J. Rhodes and R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions, 404–323 BC (2003) 416–17.] The political history of the following four years are poorly attested: we know that Lesbos changed hands several times between the Macedonian forces of Alexander the Great and the Persian forces of Memnon of Rhodes, that Memnon captured Methymna in 333 BCE, and that when Alexander's admiral Hegelochus recaptured Methymna in 332 BCE its tyrant was Aristonicus not Kleommis.[Diodorus Siculus 17.29.2, Arrian, Anabasis 3.2.4.] However, it is not clear whether Aristonicus was made tyrant when the Persians recaptured Methymna in 335, or whether Kleommis was re-installed and Aristonicus only made tyrant in 333. Whatever the case, in 332 Alexander gave Aristonicus over to the newly restored Methymnaean democracy to try, and he was found guilty and put to death by torture.[Capture at Chios: Arrian, Anabasis 3.2.4, Curtius 4.5.19. Execution: Curtius 4.8.11.]
Hellenistic Period
In c. 295 BCE, Methymna struck silver drachms for King
Lysimachus, indicating that the city was part of his kingdom at this time.
[ Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum Kayhan 4.] However, by the 250s BCE at the latest, Methymna had come under the sway of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
[ P. Brun, 'Les Lagides à Lesbos: essai de chronologie' Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 85 (1991) 99-113 has suggested an earlier date in the 270s, but this has not been accepted by scholars: Ph. Gauthier, Bulletin épigraphique (1992) no. 343.] During this period, a festival in honour of the Ptolemies, the Ptolemaia, was instituted, and public documents produced by the city were dated by the regnal years of the Ptolemies.
[ IG XII (2) 498 (ca. 221-205).] Worship of
Sarapis, an Egyptian cult patronized by the Ptolemies, was probably introduced to Methymna at this period, and remained an important part of the city's life for several centuries.
[List of Sarapiastai: IG XII (2) 511 (1st century BC).]
In the 2nd century BCE Methymna increasingly pursued a policy of seeking closer ties with the emerging power of Rome. Methymna remained loyal to Rome during the Macedonian Wars, and in 167 BCE it was rewarded when the Romans punished neighbouring Antissa for disloyalty and transferred its territory to Methymna.[Livy 45.31.13-14, Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis 5.139, H. J. Mason, 'The end of Antissa' American Journal of Philology 116.3 (1995) 399-410.] The territory of Methymna was ravaged by King Prusias II of Bithynia along with several other cities in this region in ca. 156 BCE, but the Romans later compelled Prusias to pay reparations of 100 talents for the damage done.[Polybius 33.13.8.] In 129 BCE, an inscription from Methymna shows that the city formed a formal alliance with Rome.[ IG XII (2) 510.] A dedication to the Galatian princess Adobogiona (fl. c. 80 - 50 BCE), who was the mistress of Mithridates VI of Pontus, a long-standing enemy of Rome, may indicate a cooling of relations between Methymna or Rome or simply political expediency.[ IG XII (2) 516.]
Roman Period
Methymna gained a particular reputation among Romans for
viticulture during the
Roman Empire.
Virgil speaks of the vines of Methymna as the best and most numerous on Lesbos, while
Ovid invokes them as an example of something which is proverbially numerous and bountiful.
[Virgil, Georgics 2.89-90, Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.57-9.] The distinctive strong taste of Methymnaean wine is mentioned by
Silius Italicus, and
Propertius uses this as a point of reference when describing another Greek wine.
[Silius Italicus, Punica 7.209-11, Propertius 4.8.38.] When Virgil and Silius wished to indicate the exceptional quality of Phalernian wine, Methymnaean wine is among the vintages which they say it surpasses.
[Virgil, Georgics 2.89ff, Silius Italicus, Punica 7.209-11.] We also learn from
Horace that Methymnaean grapes were equally prized for the excellent vinegar which could be produced from them and which he describes accompanying a sumptuous eel dish.
[Horace, Satires 2.8.49-50.] The medical writer
Galen, who was a native of nearby
Pergamon, considered all the wines of Lesbos to be excellent, but ranked that of Methymna the first in quality, that of Eresos second, and that of Mytilene third.
[Galen 10.832, 13.405, 13.659 Kühn. At 14.28-29 Kühn he instead places Eresian wine above that of Methymna.] In the novel
Daphnis and Chloe, thought to be by the Mytilenaean aristocrat
Longus and set in the region of Lesbos between Methymna and Mytilene, the vine harvest is the most important time of the agricultural year, and the Mytilenaean owner of the land in this region times his annual visit to coincide with the end of this harvest when the year's profit can be established.
[Longus, Daphnis and Chloe.]
Byzantine Period
The first attested bishop of Methymna was Christodoros in 520 CE.
[ Patrologia Latina 63 cols. 483-5, A. Kaldellis and S. Efthymiadis, The Prosopography of Byzantine Lesbos 284-1355 AD (2010) no. 10.] In 640, Methymna was mentioned in the
Ecthesis, pseudographically attributed to Epiphanius of Salamis, as an autocephalous archdiocese, and around 1084, it was made a metropolitan see under Alexius I Comnenus. The
Fourth Crusade brought Latin control, on the strength of which the Roman Catholic Church maintains a purely
titular see of Methymna; there were 40 Roman Catholics in 1908.
In 840 the city was plundered by Cretan Arabs and many of the inhabitants sold into slavery.[ E. Malamut, Les îles de l'Empire byzantin: VIIIe-XIIe siècles (1988) 101.] The fortifications of Methymna were strengthened following this attack, and again at the end of the 11th century, as we learn from a building inscription dating to 1084/5.[A. Conze, Reise auf der Insel Lesbos (1865) 21-4.] A few years later in 1089/90 these fortifications helped the inhabitants of Methymna successfully repel an attack by Emir Tzachas of Smyrna.[Anna Komnena, Alexiad, vol. 2, p. 110f.] These fortifications again kept Methymna safe when the Genoese Lord of Phokaia, Domenico Cattaneo, seized the rest of Lesbos in 1335, but was unable to take Methymna or the equally well-fortified town of Eresos.[ Tabula Imperii Byzantini 10 s.v. Methymna, p. 229.] Along with the rest of Lesbos, Methymna became a possession of the Gattelusi family in 1355. Methymna repelled an Ottoman invasion force in 1450, but its defences were over-powered in a second invasion in 1458 when the admiral Ismaelos seized the city with a force of 150 ships.[ Tabula Imperii Byzantini 10 s.v. Methymna, p. 229.] Using Methymna as a base, the whole island was gradually brought under Ottoman control by September 1462.
Ottoman Period
As Molova under the
Ottoman Empire, the city was a
qadaa of the
sanjak of Metelin in the
vilayet of
Rhodes.
Modern Period
After the defeat of the Ottomans in the First Balkan War (1912), the Greek navy liberated and incorporated
Lesbos in the Greek Kingdom.
Province
The province of Mithymna () was one of the provinces of the Lesbos Prefecture. Its territory corresponded with that of the current municipal units Mithymna, Agia Paraskevi,
Eresos-Antissa,
Kalloni and Petra.
[ ] It was abolished in 2006.
Historical population
Notable people
-
Matriketas, astronomer.
[Theophrastus, De Signis 4.]
-
Echecratides, Peripatetic philosopher and friend of Aristotle.
[Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Μήθυμνα.]
-
Myrsilus, local historian and paradoxographer.
[Myrsilos von Methymna, FGrHist 477.]
-
Hermeias, author of a history of the Sicilian tyrant Dionysus I.
[Hermeias of Methymna, Brill's New Jacoby 558.]
-
Kratinos, cithara player at the court of Alexander the Great.
[Chares of Mytilene, FGrHist 125 F 4.]
-
Theolytus, poet and historian.
[Theolytus of Methymna, Brill's New Jacoby 478.]
-
Theoctiste of Lesbos, saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
[ De S. Theoctiste Lesbia in insula Paro, AASS Nov. IV 221-33.]
-
Argyris Eftaliotis, modern Greek poet and translator.
-
Elias Venezis, writer
See also
-
List of settlements in Lesbos
External links
