Lemnos
Lemnos or Límnos (in Greek old Λῆμνος , in Greek modern Λήμνος ) is a Greek island the North-East of the Aegean Sea, located between the peninsula of the Mont Athos at the west, the islands of Thasos and Samothrace in north, the Turkey (and the Turkish island of Gökçeada) in the east, Lesbos in south-east, Agios Efstrátios and the Sporades in south-west. It is attached to the names Lesbos.
Its surface is of 482 km, and its population of approximately: 15000 inhabitants. It culminates to 430 m of altitude. Its main resources come from agriculture (Vigne, fruit and vegetables).
The port and main city of the island east Mýrina ( Μύρινα : 5100 h.), on the west coast. One finds in Límnos several archeological sites, of which the sanctuary of the Cabires, where the Grands Gods were venerated before Samothrace does not take over.
Límnos constitutes a strategic position vis-a-vis the Turkey and shelters an air military base.
The Iliade allots the qualifier of " to him; at the coasts without accesses " (It., XXIV, 753).
Mythology
In the Greek Mythology, Lemnos was the residence of Héphaïstos, the god blacksmith. According to Homère ( Iliade , I, 589), it that the god fails, is projected there out of the Olympe by Zeus to have wanted to interpose in an argument between Héra and him. It then continues to live in Lemnos, where the local population, the Sintien S, builds a temple to him, and where its forging mill is.
Thoas, wire of ARIANE and Dionysos, father-in-law of Jason, is said, in Iliade, is associated there (It., XXIII, 745).
During their voyage towards the Colchide, the Argonautes find the island populated women having killed their husbands, and controlled by the queen Hypsipyle. Some of the heroes are linked with these women to give rise to the people of the Minyens, which then were driven out by the Pélasges.
Achille sold to with it wire of the king Priam, after having captured them (version of the Iliade), just as with Imbros and Samos (It., XXIII, 751-753). And it is of this same island that the repurchase came from Lycaon, wire of Priam, thanks to Eunée, wire of Jason (cf description of the vase given, It., XXIII, 746-747).
At the time of the Trojan War, the island was a stage between Greece and the Asian coast. For this reason Ulysses decided to give up Philoctète there: this last, bitten with the foot by a snake, pushed moanings and released a stink which upset his/her travelling companions. On the island, presented like deserted by Sophocle in its tragedy, it can survive while driving out thanks to the magic arc of Héraclès. However these weapons are indispensbles with the victory of the Greeks over Troyens; this is why Ulysses returns with Néoptolème to seize some by the trick. One can always see, in Lemnos, the cave of Philoctète.
According to the old authors, experienced by the French traveller Belon oyster with the XVIe century the evening of the summer solstice the shade of the Mount Athos, however distant from 70km, extends until the place from Myrina, on which in Antiquity the statue of a bronze ox was. Plutarque quotes even worms ( ̉ Άθως καλύψει πλευρά Λημνίας βοός : the Athos mount will cover the side of ox of Lemnos) which had become proverbial, applying to those which sought to darken the glory and the reputation of the others by their calumnies.
| Random links: | Canton of Argelès-Gazost | Biathlon with the Olympic Games of 1968 | Stigmata (film, 1999) | Universal review | 5709 (Hebraic year) | 423_AVANT_JÉSUS_CHRIST |