Page:The Poems of Sappho (1924).djvu/17



ESBOS, the chief town of which Mytilene claims with Eresus the honour of having been the birthplace of Sappho, has been from the earliest ages famous for its fertility, its beauty, and the perfection of its climate. The nearest point of the mainland of Asia Minor is eight miles distant, and the whole island, with its irregular coast-line, is one hundred and thirty-eight miles in circumference. Though its surface is mountainous, the soil is very prolific, and its oil, wine, and grain have from immemorial times been proverbially celebrated. Even as early as the Homeric poems there ate references to its wealth and its populous cities. Mitylene was the only Aeolian city which maintained a navy, and Lesbos had for generations many flourishing colonies in Asia Minor and in Thrace.

Methymna, Antissa, Eresus, and Pyrrha were the other four important towns which, at the period of its greatness, 700 B.C. to 500 B.C., caused the island to be known as Pentapolis. After the defeat of Croesus, about 546 B.C.,