Lesbos Island in the context of "Arion"

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⭐ Core Definition: Lesbos Island

Lesbos or Lesvos (Greek: Λέσβος, romanizedLésvos [ˈlezvos]) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of 1,633 km (631 sq mi), with approximately 400 kilometres (249 miles) of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece and the eighth largest in the Mediterranean. It is separated from Asia Minor by the narrow Mytilini Strait. On the southeastern coast is the island's capital and largest city, Mytilene (Μυτιλήνη), whose name is also used for the island as a whole. Lesbos is a separate regional unit with the seat in Mytilene, which is also the capital of the larger North Aegean region. The region includes the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Ikaria, Lemnos, and Samos. The total population of the island was 83,755 in 2021. A third of the island's inhabitants live in the capital, while the remainder are concentrated in small towns and villages. The largest are Plomari, Agia Paraskevi, Polichnitos, Agiassos, Eresos, Gera, and Molyvos (the ancient Mythimna).

According to later Greek writers, Mytilene was founded in the 11th century BC by the family Penthilidae, who arrived from Thessaly and ruled the city-state until a popular revolt (590–580 BC) led by Pittacus of Mytilene ended their rule. In fact, the archaeological and linguistic records may indicate a late Iron Age arrival of Greek settlers, although references in Late Bronze Age Hittite archives indicate a likely Greek presence then. According to Homer's Iliad, Lesbos was part of the kingdom of Priam, which ruled from Troy. In the Middle Ages, it was under Byzantine and then Genoese rule. Lesbos was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1462. The Ottomans then ruled the island until the First Balkan War in 1912, when it became part of the Kingdom of Greece.

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👉 Lesbos Island in the context of Arion

Arion (/əˈrən/; Ancient Greek: Ἀρίων) was a kitharode in ancient Greece, a Dionysiac poet credited with inventing the dithyramb. The islanders of Lesbos claimed him as their native son, but Arion found a patron in Periander, tyrant of Corinth. Although notable for his musical inventions, Arion is chiefly remembered for the fantastic myth of his kidnapping by pirates and miraculous rescue by dolphins, a folktale motif.

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Lesbos Island in the context of Cunda Island

Cunda Island, also called Alibey Island, (Turkish: Cunda Adası, Alibey Adası), Greek Moschonisi (Greek: Μοσχονήσι or Μοσχόνησος), is the largest of the Ayvalık Islands archipelago in Turkey, which was historically called the Εκατόνησα (Hekatonisa) or Μοσχονήσια (Moschonisia) archipelago in Greek. It lies in the Edremit Gulf on Turkey's northwestern coast, off the coast of Ayvalık in Balıkesir Province, Turkey, with an area of 26.8 square kilometres (10 sq mi). It is located 16 kilometres (10 miles) east of Lesbos, Greece.

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Lesbos Island in the context of Lesches

Lesches (Ancient Greek: Λέσχης) is a semi-legendary early Greek poet and the reputed author of the Little Iliad. According to the usually accepted tradition, he was a native of Pyrrha in Lesbos, and flourished about 660 BC (others place him about 50 years earlier). Proclus refers to him as "Lesches of Mytilene". Mytilene and Lesbos are names of the same Greek island used interchangeably.

The lost epic Little Iliad, in four books, was commonly attributed to Lesches. It took up the story of the Homeric Iliad, and, beginning with the contest between Telamonian Ajax and Odysseus for the arms of Achilles, carried it down to the feast of the Trojans over the captured Trojan Horse, according to the epitome in Proclus, or to the Fall of Troy, according to Aristotle. Some ancient authorities ascribe the work to a Spartan named Cinaethon, and even to Homer.

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Lesbos Island in the context of Security

Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercion). Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be persons and social groups, objects and institutions, ecosystems, or any other entity or phenomenon vulnerable to unwanted change.

Security mostly refers to protection from hostile forces, but it has a wide range of other senses: for example, as the absence of harm (e.g., freedom from want); as the presence of an essential good (e.g., food security); as resilience against potential damage or harm (e.g. secure foundations); as secrecy (e.g., a secure telephone line); as containment (e.g., a secure room or cell); and as a state of mind (e.g., emotional security).

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Lesbos Island in the context of Phaenias of Eresus

Phaenias of Eresus (Ancient Greek: Φαινίας ὁ Ἐρέσιος, Phainias; also Phanias (Φανίας)) was a Greek philosopher from Lesbos, important as an immediate follower of and commentator on Aristotle. He came to Athens about 332 BCE, and joined his compatriot, Theophrastus, in the Peripatetic school. His writings on logic and science appear to have been commentaries or supplements to the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus. He also wrote extensively on history. His works have only survived in fragments quoted by other authors.

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Lesbos Island in the context of Phaon

In Greek mythology, Phaon (Ancient Greek: Φάων; gen.: Φάωνος) was a mythical boatman of Mytilene in Lesbos. He was old and ugly when Aphrodite came to his boat. She put on the guise of a crone. Phaon ferried her over to Asia Minor and accepted no payment for doing so. In return, she gave him a box of ointment. When he rubbed it on himself, he became young and beautiful. Many were captivated by his beauty.

According to Athenian Theater, Sappho fell in love with him. He lay with her but soon grew to resent her and devalue her. Sappho was so distraught with his rejection that she threw herself into the sea under the superstition that she would be either cured of her love, or drowned. She was drowned. Aelian says that Phaon was killed by a man whom he was cuckolding.

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Lesbos Island in the context of Terpander

Terpander (Ancient Greek: Τέρπανδρος Terpandros), of Antissa in Lesbos, was a Greek poet and citharede who lived about the first half of the 7th century BC. He was the father of Greek music and through it, of lyric poetry, although his own poetical compositions were few and in extremely simple rhythms. He simplified rules of the modes of singing of other neighboring countries and islands and formed, out of these syncopated variants, a conceptual system. Though endowed with an inventive mind, and the commencer of a new era of music, he attempted no more than to systematize the musical styles that existed in the music of Greece and Anatolia. Terpander is perhaps the earliest historically certain figure in the music of Ancient Greece.

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Lesbos Island in the context of Pramnian

Lesbian wine is wine made on the Greek island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea. The island has a long history of winemaking dating back to at least the 7th century BC when it was mentioned in the works of Homer. During this time the area competed with the wines of Chios for the Greek market. An apocryphal account details one of the brothers of the poet Sappho as a merchant trading Lesbian wine with the Greek colony of Naucratis in Egypt. The most noted Lesbian wine was known as Pramnian which draws similarities today to the Hungarian wine Eszencia. The popularity of Lesbian wine continued into Roman times where it was highly valued along with other Aegean wines of Chios, Thasos and Kos.

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Lesbos Island in the context of Antissa

Antissa (Ancient Greek: Ἄντισσα) was a city of the island Lesbos (Lesvos), near to Cape Sigrium, the western point of Lesbos. The place had a harbour. The ruins found by Richard Pococke at Calas Limneonas, a little NE. of cape Sigri, may be those of Antissa. This place was the birthplace of Terpander, who is said to be the inventor of the seven-stringed lyre. According to the local historian Myrsilus of Methymna, local tradition held that the head of Orpheus had floated south from the Hebros after he was decapitated and floated south to land on the shore of Antissan territory: the spot was marked by a tomb where, according to Myrsilus, the nightingales sang more sweetly than they did elsewhere.

Antissa exists nowadays as a village on Lesbos. Nearby the village is the cave of Orpheus. The village has an alternative old name, it is called "Τελώνια" which may be translated as sprite.

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