Lemnos

“ And at dawn before them as they journeyed rose Athos, the Thracian mountain, which with its topmost peak overshadows Lemnos, even as far as Myrine, though it lies as far off as the space that a well-trimmed merchantship would traverse up to mid-day. ”

“ Lemnos, or Limni, is the largest island of Thracia, and at the same time the least elevated and the most barren. You may walk for hours there without seeing a tree. Even olive-trees are not met with in the fields, and the village gardens can boast but of few fruit trees. Timber has to be procured from Thasos or the continent. Lemnos, in spite of all this, is exceedingly fertile; it produces barley and other cereals in plenty, and the pastures amongst its hills sustain 40,000 sheep. ”

“ The name Lemnos is said by Hecataeus (ap. Steph. Byz.) to have been a title of Cybele among the Thracians, and the earliest inhabitants are said to have been a Thracian tribe, called by the Greeks Sinties, i.e. “the robbers.” According to a famous legend the women were all deserted by their husbands, and in revenge murdered every man on the island. From this barbarous act, the expression Lemnian deeds, Λήμνια ἔργα, became proverbial. The Argonauts landing soon after found only women in the island, ruled over by Hypsipyle, daughter of the old king Thoas. ”

“ True, it was a rule only in name, for any Athenian who came alone to Lemnos would soon be cleaving the air from the highest cliff-top. But the thought irked his pride, and he gloated over the Persians' coming. The Great King from beyond the deserts would smite those outrageous upstarts. Atta would willingly give earth and water. It was the whim of a fantastic barbarian, and would be well repaid if the bastard Hellenes were destroyed. They spoke his own tongue, and worshipped his own gods, and yet did evil. ”

“ IX. THE LEMNIAN MAIDENS
And now the Argonauts were no longer on a ship that was being dashed on by the sea and beaten upon by the winds. They had houses to live in; they had honey-tasting things to eat, and when they went through the island each man might have with him one of the maidens of Lemnos. It was a change that was welcome to the wearied voyagers.
They helped the women in the work of the fields; they hunted the beasts with them, and over and over again they were surprised at how skillfully the women had ordered all affairs. ”

“ The Thracian mountain: its topmost peak’s dark shadow it throws
Far as a merchantman goodly-rigged in a day might win,
Even to Lemnos’ isle, and the city Myrinê therein.
And the wind blew all that day till the folds of the darkness fell,
Blew ever fresh, and the sail strained over the broad sea-swell.
Howbeit the wind’s breath failed them at going down of the sun:
So to Lemnos the craggy, the Sintian isle, by rowing they won.
There all the men of the nation together pitilessly
By the violent hands of the women were slain in the year gone by ”

“ The pillaging northmen had crushed his folk out of the mainlands and most of the islands, but in Lemnos they had met their match. It was a family story how every grown male had been slain, and how the women long after had slaughtered their conquerors in the night. "Lemnian deeds," said the Hellenes, when they wished to speak of some shameful thing: but to Atta the shame was a glory to be cherished for ever. He and his kind were the ancient people, and the gods loved old things, as those new folk would find. Very especially he hated the men of Athens. ”

“ My uncle, Philip of Spain, twice sent you to my court, where I gave you such-and-such private interviews." Staggered by this intimate knowledge of his past life, De Lemnos hesitated for a minute or two, but at last ordered the gaoler to remove his prisoner, adding to his command the remark, "He is a rank impostor,"—a remark which called forth the stern rebuke, "No, Sir; I am no impostor, but the unfortunate King of Portugal, and you know it full well. A man of your station ought at all times to speak the truth or preserve silence!" ”

“ But even these strangers were not suffered to remain; quarrels arising either about the land which the Pelasgi had obtained on the slopes of Hymettos, or on account of violence offered to certain Athenian maidens descending to the fountain of Callirrhoë for water. The emigrants were expelled and took refuge in Lemnos. In revenge for what they regarded as an injury, they carried away a number of Attic virgins who were celebrating the festival of Artemis at Brauron, which led in after times to the capture of Lemnos by Miltiades. ”

“ Hypsĭpy̆le, a queen of Lemnos, daughter of Thoas and Myrine. During her reign, Venus, whose altars had been universally slighted, punished the Lemnian women, and rendered their mouths and breath so extremely offensive to the smell, that their husbands abandoned them, and gave themselves up to some female slaves, whom they had taken in a war against Thrace. This contempt was highly resented by all the women of Lemnos, and they resolved on revenge, and all unanimously put to death their male relations, Hypsipyle alone excepted, who spared the life of her father Thoas. ”

“ The first women of Lemnos were altogether beautiful, but they had some peculiarities which did not recommend them to their contemporaries, and indeed their husbands were accustomed occasionally to hoist sail and bask in the smiles of the damsels of the Thracian coast. The Lemnian women, to avoid any legal difficulties, such as arise nowadays when a woman asserts her right to slay her partner, killed all their husbands, and set up an Amazonian state which they maintained with pride and splendor, permitting no man to set foot on the island. ”

“ As the inhabitants were blacksmiths, the poets have taken occasion to fix the forges of Vulcan in that island, and to consecrate the whole country to his divinity. Lemnos is also celebrated for a labyrinth, which, according to some traditions, surpassed those of Crete and Egypt. Some remains of it were still visible in the age of Pliny. The island of Lemnos, now called Stalimene, was reduced under the power of Athens by Miltiades, and the Carians, who then inhabited it, were obliged to emigrate. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 8, li. 454.—Homer, Iliad, bk. ”

“ But the children of the Attic women took on airs over their superior birth, which the Pelasgian women resented, and the latter finally removed all cause of dispute by murdering all the mothers of Attica and their offspring. These events gave the ladies of Lemnos a formidable reputation in the ancient world, and furnish an illustration of what society would be without the refining and temperate influence of man. ”

“ Except in Lemnos and Attica, there are few indications of any cult of Hephaestus. His association with Lemnos can be traced from Homer to the Roman age. A town in the island was called Hephaestia, and the functions of the god must have been wide, as we are told that his Lemnian priests could cure snake-bites. Once a year every fire was extinguished on the island for nine days, during which period sacrifice was offered to the gods of the underworld and the dead. ”

“ But neither could Palamedes, the son of Nauplius, defend a crime so great, and so manifest; nor did you only hear the charges against him, but you witnessed them, and in the bribe itself the charge was established. Nor have I deserved to be accused, because Lemnos, the isle of Vulcan, still receives Philoctetes, the son of Pœas. Greeks, defend your own acts! for you consented to it. Nor yet shall I deny that I advised him to withdraw himself from the toils of the warfare and the voyage, and to try by rest to assuage his cruel pains. He consented, and still he lives. ”

“ Thus the women of Lemnos, having omitted to perform these sacrifices of Venus, are believed to have brought down on themselves the most serious anger of the goddess, and this they are accounted not to have done with impunity. For the goddess, as is related, caused such a foul odour to arise among the women, that they were scorned by their husbands. ”

“ They stopped at the island of Lemnos, where they remained two years, and raised a new race of men from the Lemnian women who had murdered their husbands. See: Hypsipyle. After they had left Lemnos, they visited Samothrace, where they offered sacrifices to the gods, and thence passed to Troas and Cyzicum. Here they met with a favourable reception from Cyzicus the king of the country. The night after their departure, they were driven back by a storm again on the coast of Cyzicum, and the inhabitants, supposing them to be their enemies, the Pelasgi, furiously attacked them. ”

“ Aristophanes gives them names, purely fancy ones—Draces, Strymodorus, Philurgus, Laches. ↑ Cleomenes, King of Sparta, had in the preceding century commanded a Laccdæmonian expedition against Athens. At the invitation of the Alcmæonidæ, enemies of the sons of Peisistratus, he seized the Acropolis, but after an obstinately contested siege was forced to capitulate and retire. ↑ Lemnos was proverbial with the Greeks for chronic misfortune and a succession of horrors and disasters. Can any good thing come out of Lemnos? ↑ That is, a friend of the Athenian people ”

“ Ask a bribe of her; and shouldst thou hold thy tongue, she has a favour which she may grant to thee.
Around and above the bed, Muleiber disposes the hidden toils; the work, by its fineness, escapes their eyes. He pretends a journey to Lemnos; the lovers come, according to the appointment; entangled in the toils, they both lie naked. He calls the Gods together; the captives afford a spectacle. People believe that Venus could hardly restrain her tears. They cannot conceal their faces; they cannot, in fact, veil their modesty with their hands. ”

“ The fourth or trade pageant is worth quoting. It is described as “The Lemnion Forge.” In it are Vulcan the Smith of Lemnos, with his servants (the Cyclopes) , whose names are Pyracmon, Brontes, and Sceropes, working at the anvile. “Their habite are wastcoates and leather aprons, their hair black and shaggy, in knotted curles. ”

“ But the recollections of Lemnos and Marathon, and the sight of the fallen general, who lay stretched on a couch before them, pleaded successfully in mitigation of punishment, and the sentence was commuted from death to a fine of fifty talents. This was paid by his son, the afterward illustrious Cimon, Miltiades dying, soon after the trial, of the injury which he had received at Paros. ”

“ Now, as the Trojans were fighting more bravely than before, under Deiphobus, a brother of Hector, the Greeks went to Calchas for advice, and he told them that they must send Ulysses and Diomede to bring Philoctetes the bowman from the isle of Lemnos. This was an unhappy deserted island, in which the married women, some years before, had murdered all their husbands, out of jealousy, in a single night. The Greeks had landed in Lemnos, on their way to Troy, and there Philoctetes had shot an arrow at a great water dragon which lived in a well within a cave in the lonely hills. ”

“ In time this absolute freedom became a little tedious, and when the Argonauts came that way, the women advanced to meet the heroes with garlands, and brought them wine and food. This conduct pleased the Argonauts, who made Lemnos their headquarters and celebrated there many a festive combat. Their descendants, the Minyæ, were afterwards overcome by the Pelasgians, from Attica, who, remembering with regret the beautiful girls of their home, returned and brought back with them the willing and the lovely. ”

“ IV. The seven chiefs set out against Thebes. The army suffers from thirst, but Hypsipyle, a Lemnian princess, appears, and shews them a river (1495) .
V. Hypsipyle relates the story of 'the furies of Lemnos,' i. e. of the Lemnian women who killed all the men in the island except Thoas, her father, whom she saved. (See Leg. of Good Women, 1467, and note.) While she is speaking, a snake, sent by Jupiter, kills her infant, named Archemorus. ”

“ Chremes and Demipho are two aged Athenians, brothers. Nausistrata, the wife of Chremes, is a wealthy woman, possessed of large estates in the island of Lemnos. Chremes, who goes thither yearly to receive the rents, meets with a poor woman there, whom he secretly marries, and has by her a daughter called Phanium: while engaged in this intrigue, Chremes passes at Lemnos by the name of Stilpho. By his wife, Nausistrata, at Athens, Chremes has a son, named Phædria, and his brother has a son, named Antipho. ”

“ Σηπεδόνας, ταύρους, ὄρνεα, Λημνιάδας.
(Neither the Chimaera of Homer had so ill a smell, nor yet the herd (as the story goes) of fire-breathing bulls, not all Lemnos, not the foulest of the Harpies, nor even Philoctetes’ putrefying foot. So you see, Telesilla, you outdo—the vote is unanimous,—Chimaeras, putrefactions, bulls, birds, Lemnian women!) The stench of Telesilla outdid, we see, all known evil smells, even that of the Lemnian women, etc. Also in Valerius Flaccus, bk. II. 99-241., is found this myth of the Lemnian women. ”

“ Which Hypsipylê spake unto him when she sent and bade him come.
And with little ado the maidens drew the heroes home
To their halls; for sweet desire did the Lady of Cyprus awake, {850}
For a grace to Hephaistus the Lord of Craft, that Lemnos might take
New life, and unruined be peopled of men once more for his sake.
Now into Hypsipylê’s royal palace Aison’s son
Hath passed, and the rest, as it happed unto each man, so are they gone,
Save Herakles only; for still with the ship would the hero abide,
For he willed it so, and a few his chosen comrades beside. ”

“ They were naturally attracted towards the northeast, first by the islands that lay before the entrance of the Hellespont, and then by the shores of the Propontis and its two straits. Their successive colonies, or spots signalised either by hostilities or peaceful transactions with the natives, would become the landing-places of the Argonauts. That such a colony existed at Lemnos, seems unquestionable; though it does not follow that Euneus, the son of Jason, who is described in the Iliad as reigning there during the siege of Troy, was a historical personage. ”