[BACK TO LIMNOS]

Limnos

According to Homer the inhabitants of Limnos were of Thracian stock. Herodotus and Thucydides, however, call them Pelasgi or Tirrheni (the same Tyrrhenian pirates, who Dionysos had transformed into dolphins). This may well represent the two stages of pre-Greek history. Recent archaeological evidence shows that Limnos had the most advanced Neolithic civilization in the Aegean, and a Bronze Age culture of Minoan-Mycenaean type, connected with Troy and Lesbos, which continued without a sharp break into the Geometric period. In the 8-6th century the island seems to have had contact with the Greeks - at the main land, though it is certain from inscriptions that before the 6th century the inhabitants were not Greek; their language is undeciphered and their burial customs show affinities with Villanovan (Etruscan) burials in Italy. The island is said by Polybius to have borne the more ancient name of Aithaleia, it possibly took the name Limnos from a Goddess identifiable with the Great Mother. The principal cults, however, were those of Hephaistos (said to have been thrown down to Limnos from Olympos for intervening in a quarrel between Zeus and Hera, his parents) and of the Kabeiroi.

Limnos fell to Persia c 513 B.C. and changed hands more than once before the end of the Persian wars. Here Hippias is said to have died after Marathon. From 477 BC the island formed part of the Delian League. Limnian troops fought for Athens at Sphakteria (425 B.C.), at Amphipolis (422 B.C.) and at Syracuses (413 B.C.). Safe for brief periods of domination by Sparta (404-393 B.C.), by the Macedonians, and by the Seleucid Antiochus the Great, Limnos remained under Athenian influence at the time of Septimius Severus. The island was twice visited (162 and 165 A.D.) by Dioskorides. In the 2nd. and 3rd. Century, the Limnian Philostratus's family achieved fame in Rome as sophists.

The island was plundered by the Heruli and later passed to Byzantium. It had a bishop in the 4th century and became a metropolitan island in the reign of Leo VI. In 924 the Saracens, under Leo of Tripoli, were defeated by a Byzantine fleet off the island. Venetian merchants settled in the 11th. and 12th. century, establishing sovereignty after 1204 under the Navigaiosa Grand Dukes. In the 13-15th century the island was disputed between Venetians, Genoese, and Byzantines, and after 1462 between Venetians and Turks. John of Selymbria spent some years in exile here after 1344 and Gregory Palamas took refuge here in 1349. After 1670 the Turks in their turn used it as a place of exile for disgraced notables. Orloff's Russians occupied the island in the war of 1770, only to be driven out by Hassan Bey. Limnos became Greek for a few months in 1829 before being exchanged with the Turks for Euboea. It fell to Greece in 1912, and was the British base for the Gallipoli campaign.
 

<click to go back>