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Lesbos and Mytilene

The great Aeolian island off Asia Minor and its chief city, under Persia 6th-5th century BCE

In the game: Level 2: The Spear-bearer, Level 6: The Bridge of Boats

Lesbos is a large island off the Aeolian coast of Asia Minor. Herodotus counts five cities on it, of which Mytilene was the greatest. Its ships sailed for Cambyses in Egypt and for Darius at the Ister, its tyrant Coes advised Darius, and at Lade its seventy ships deserted.

In the game: Mytilene's ship carries the King's herald up the Nile in the Memphis level, Coes of Mytilene advises the King at the Ister, and the Lesbians desert at Lade in the Sardis level.

The ship of Mytilene

Ancient account

When the Egyptians shut themselves in Memphis, Herodotus says, Cambyses sent a ship of Mytilene up the river with a Persian herald to call them to terms. They poured out, destroyed the ship and tore its crew to pieces. Cambyses later killed ten Egyptian nobles for each man of Mytilene.

Herodotus 3.13-14

Coes at the bridge

Ancient account

At the Ister Darius meant to break his bridge and take its guards on with him. Coes son of Erxander, commander of the Mytilenaeans, advised him to leave it standing. On his return Darius made Coes tyrant of Mytilene; in 499 the rebels gave him to the Mytilenaeans, who stoned him.

Herodotus 4.97, 5.11, 5.37-38

Seventy ships at Lade

Ancient account

In the Ionian line at Lade the Lesbians held seventy ships, next to the Samians at the western end. When the Samians sailed away, Herodotus says, most of the Lesbians followed, and the line broke. The next year the Persian fleet took Lesbos with Chios and Tenedos and swept the islands for their people.

Herodotus 6.8, 6.14, 6.31

Aeolian cities and poets

Ancient account

Herodotus counts the five Lesbian cities among the Aeolians and says the islanders had less to fear from Cyrus than the mainland. Lesbos was the home of the poets Sappho and Alcaeus about 600, and Herodotus tells how Sappho's brother Charaxus ransomed Rhodopis at Naucratis.

Herodotus 1.151, 2.135