Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/182

 1G6 LESBOS. portant (Thucyd. viii. 5, 22, 23, 32, 100). It was near the coast of this iahmd that the last great naval vi('tory of the Athenians during the war was won, that of Conon over Callicratidas at Arginusae. On the destruction of the Athenian force by Lysander at Aegospotami, it fell under the power of Sparta ; but it was recovered for a time by Thrasybulus (Xen. Hell. iv. 8. §§ 28—30). At the peace of Antalcidas it was declared independent. From this time to the establishment of the Macedonian empire it is extremely difficult to fix the fluctuations of the history of Lesbos in the midst of the varying influ- ences of Athens, Sparta, and Persia. After the battle of the Granicus, Alexander made a treaty with the Lesbians. Blemnon the Ehodian took Jlytilene and fortified it, and died there. Af- terwards Hegelochus reduced the various cities of the island under the Macedonian power. (For the history of these transactions see Arrian, Exped. Alex. iii. 2; Curt. Eist. Alex. iv. 5.) In the war of the Eomans w-ith Perseus, Labeo destroyed Antissa for aiding the JIacedonians, .and incorporated its inha- bitants with those of Jlethymna (Liv. xlv. 3L Hence perhaps the true explanation of Pliny's remark, I. c). In the course of the Mithridatic War, !Mytilene incurred the displeasure of the Romans by delivering up M'. Aq^uillius (Veil. Pat. ii IS; Appian, Mithr. 21). It was also the last city which held out after the close of the war, and was reduced by JM. Jlinucius Thermus, — an occasion on which Julius Caesar dis- tinguished himself, and earned a ci^^c crown by saving the life of a soldier (Liv. Epit. 89; Suet. Caes. 2; see Cic contra Rull. ii. 16). Pompey, however, was induced by Theoph.anes to make My- tilene a free city (Yell. Pat. I.e.; Str.ab. xiii. p. 617), and he left there his wife and son during the camp.aign which ended at Pharsalia. (A])pian, B. C. ii. 83; ¥^. Pomp. 74,75.) From this time we are to regard Lesbos as a part of the Roman province of Asia, with Mytilene distinguished as its chief city, and in the enjoyment of privileges more par- ticularly described elsewhere. q may mention here that a few imperial coins of Lesbos, as distinguished from those of the cities, are ext.ant, of the reigns of M. Aurelius and Commodus, and with the legend KOINON AECBinN (Eckhel, vol.ii. p. 501 ; Jlionnet, vol. iii. pp. 34, 35). In the new division of provinces under Constantine, Lesbos was placed in the Provincia Insularum (Hierocl. p. 686, ed. Wesseling). A few detached notices of its fortunes during the middle .ages are all that can be given here. On the 15th of August, A.D. 802, the empress Irene ended her extraordin.ary life here in exile. (See Le Beau, Hist, du Bas Empire, vol. xii. p. 400.) In the thirteenth century, con- temporaneously with the first crusade, Lesbos began to be affected by the Turkish conquests: Tzachas, Emir of Smyrna, succeeded in t.aking Mytilene, but failed in his attempt on Methymua. (Anna Comn. Alex. lib. vii. p. 362, ed. Bonn.) Alexis, however, sent an expedition to retake Mytilene, and was suc- cessful (lb. ix. p. 425). In the thirteenth century Lesbos was in the power of the Latin emperors of Constantinople, but it was recovered to the Greeks by Joannes Ducas Vatatzes, emperor of Xicaea (see his life in the Diet, of Biography). In the fourteenth century Joannes Palaeologus gave his sister in marriage to Francisco Gateluzzio, and the island of Lesbos as a dowry ; and it continued in the possession of this family till its final absorption in the Turkish empire (Ducas, Hist. Bi/zant. p. 46, ed. Bonn). It LESORA MONS. appears, however, that these princes were tributary to the Turks (lb. p. 328). In 1457, Mahomet II. made an unsuccessful assault on Methymna, in con- sequence of a suspicion that the Lesbians had aided the Catalan buccaneers (lb. p. 338 ; see also Vertot, Hist, de rOrdre de Malte, ii. 258). He did not actually take the island till 1462. The history of the annalist Ducas himself is closely connected with Lesbos: he resided there after the fall of Constan- tinople; he conveyed the tribute from the reigning Gateluzzio to the sultan at Adrianople; and the last paragraph of his histoiy is an unfinished account of the final catastrophe of the island. This notice of Lesbos would be very incomplete, unless something were said of its intellectual emi- nence. In reference to poetry, and especially poetry in connection with music, no island of the Greeks is so celebrated as Lesbos. Whatever other explana- tion we may give of the legend concerning the head and lyre of Orpheus being carried by the waves to its shores, we may take it as an expression of the flict that here was the primitive seat of the music of the lyre. Lesches, the cyclic minstrel, a native of I'yrrha, was the first of its series of poets. Ter- pander, though his later life vicis chiefly connected with the Peloponnesus, was almost certainly a native of Lesbos, and probably of Antissa : Arion, of Me- thymna, appears to have belonged to his school ; and no two men were so closely connected with the early history of Greek music. The names of Alcaeus and Sappho are the most imperishable elements in the renown of Jlytilene. The latter was sometimes called the tenth Muse (as in Plato's epigram, 'XawcpHo AecrSdOev rj BtKarrf) ; and a school of jioetesses (Lesbiadum turb.a, Ovid, Her. xv.) seems to have been formed by her. Here, without entering into the discussions, by Welcker and others, concerning the character of Sappho herself, we must state that the women of Lesbos were as famous for their profligacy as their beauty. Their be.auty is celebrated by Homer {II. ix. 129, 271), and, as regards their profligacy, the proverbial expression KfaSid^av afiixes a worse stain to their island than Kpr^Ti^nv does to Crete. Lesbos seems never to have produced any dis- tinguished painter or sculptor, but Hellanicus and Theophanes the friend of Pompey are worthy of being mentioned among historians ; and Pittacus, Theophrastus, and Cratippus are known in the annals of philosophy and science. Pittacns ivas fiimous also as a legisl.ator. These eminent men were all natives of Mytilene, with the exception of Theophrastus, who was born at Eresus. The fullest account of Lesbos is the treatise of S. L. Plehn, Lesbiacorum Liber, Berlin, 1826. In this work is a map of the island ; but the English Admiralty charts should be consulted, especially Nos. 1654 and 1665. Forbiger refers to reviews of Plehn's work by Meier in the Hall. Allg. Lit. Zeit. for 1827, and by 0. Miiller in the Goett. Gel. Am. for 1828 ; also to Lander's Beitriige zur Kunde der Insel Lesbos, Hamb. 1827. Inform.ation regard- ing the modem condition of the island will be ob- tained from Pococke, Tournefort, Richter, and Pro- kesch. [J. S. H.] LE'SORA MONS {Mont Lozere), a summit of the Cevennes, above 4800 feet high, is mentioned by Sidonius Apollinaris (Carm. 24, 44) as containing the source of the Tarnis ( Tarn) : — " Hinc te Lesora Caitcasum Scytharura VLncens aspicict citusque Tarnis."