Mithymna () (, also sometimes spelled Methymna) is a town and former municipality on the island of Lesbos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2019 local government reform it is part of the municipality of West Lesbos, of which it is a municipal unit. Before 1919, its official name was Μόλυβος - Molyvos;Name changes of settlements in Greece that name dates back to the end of the Byzantine Era, but is still in common use today.
Geography
It is located NE of Eressos, N of Plomari and NW of Mytilene.
The town (pop. 1,399 at 2011 census) is on the northern part of the island, just some 6 km north of the popular beach town of Petra. One of the most noticeable features of the town is the old Genoese fortress on the hill in the middle of the town. The town's agora is located on the uphill road to the fortress and is popular among tourists, with many historic shops, cafés and restaurants.
The municipal unit of Míthymna stretches eastward from the town along the northern part of the island; it is the island's smallest municipal unit in land area at 50.166 km². Its population was 2,255 at the 2011 census. The next largest towns in the municipal unit are Árgennos (pop. 240) and Sykaminéa (207).
Molyvos Beach is one of the Blue Flag beaches in Lesbos. The shoreline is pebbled, but the seabed consists entirely of soft sand and remains shallow for a considerable distance. The agora and fortress are visible from the beach.
History As Methymna, the city was once the prosperous second city of Lesbos, with a founding myth that identified an eponymous Methymna (Greek: Μήθυμνα), the daughter of Macar and married to the personification of Lesbos. In epic tradition, the hero Achilles besieged Methymna during the time of the Trojan War, and was assisted by the Methymnian princess Pisidice who opened the city gates in exchange for him marrying her. Achilles then sacked Methymna with Pisidice's help, but afterwards he had her stoned by his soldiers for treason.
Archaic Period
Very little is known about Methymna in the Archaic period. The story of Arion and the dolphin, which involves the Corinthian tyrant Periander and is evidently set at the turn of the 7th century BCE, suggests that Methymna was already a prominent city with far-reaching contacts across the Greek world at this period.Herodotus 1.23-24. Herodotus tells us that at some point in the Archaic period, Methymna enslaved the city of Arisba on Lesbos: this will have greatly increased the territory of Methymna, as well as giving it access to the fertile land around the Gulf of Kalloni.Herodotus 1.151.2, cf. Strabo 13.1.21. Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis 5.139 instead says that Arisba was destroyed by earthquake. We are also told by a local historian, Myrsilus of Methymna, who wrote in the first half of the 3rd century BCE, that Methymna founded the city of Assos which was on the coast of Asia Minor opposite Methymna.Myrsilos FGrHist 477 F 17 = Strabo 13.1.58. However, another local historian, Hellanicus of Lesbos, writing in the mid-5th century BCE, instead simply says Assos was an Aeolian foundation and does not specify a particular city as its founder.Hellanicus FGrHist 4 F 160 = Strabo 13.1.58. This has led some historians to doubt Myrsilus, and instead suggest that this is an example of "local Methymnaean manipulation of the past", although this could equally be true of Hellanicus.C. Constantakopoulou, Dance of the Islands (2007) 240 n. 51. A further complication is that Alexander Polyhistor FGrHist 273 F 96 = Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Ἀσσός says that Assos was a colony of Mytilene. However, the editor of Stephanus, Augustus Meineke, commenting on this passage believed this was an error in the manuscript, and thought it originally said Assos was a colony of Methymna.
Classical Period Methymna had a long-standing rivalry with Mytilene, and during the Peloponnesian War it sided with Athens during the Mytilenaean revolt in 428 BCE when all the other cities of Lesbos sided with Mytilene.Thucydides 3.2.1, 3.5.1. When the Athenians put down the revolt the following year, only Methymna was spared from having its territory turned into a cleruchy.Thucydides 3.50.2, Diodorus Siculus 12.55.10. After 427, Methymna and Chios were the only members of the Delian League to remain self-governing and exempt from tribute, indicating the privileged position Methymna held within the Athenian Empire.Thucydides 6.85.2, 7.57.5, 8.100.5. Methymna was briefly captured by the Spartans in summer 412, before quickly being retaken by the Athenians: in describing this episode, the historian Thucydides indicates that the Methymnaeans were much more inclined to side with Athens than Sparta.Thucydides 8.23.4-6. This was likewise the case in 411, when a group of Methymnaeans who were in exile at Cyme in Aeolis attempted to return to Methymna by force, but were rebuffed by the population.Thucydides 8.100.2-3. When the Spartan commander Kallikratidas besieged Methymna in 406, the city stayed loyal to its Athenian garrison and held out until it was betrayed by several traitors.Xenophon, Hellenica 1.6.12-15, Diodorus Siculus 13.76.5-6.
Our knowledge of the history of Methymna in the 4th century is limited, but its prominence as a polis is firmly attested by the city's silver and bronze coinage. By at least the 340s BCE, the tyrant Kleommis had expelled the city's democrats and remained in power for the next decade.Isocrates, Epistles 7.8-9 (ca. 346/5?), Theopompus FGrHist 115 F 227 = Athenaeus 10.442f-443a, IG II2 284 + Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 54.132. We do not know what happened to Kleommis after this, although it is likely that he was expelled when the island fell to Philip II's generals Parmenion and Attalus in 336.P. J. Rhodes and R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions, 404–323 BC (2003) 416–17. The political history of the following four years are poorly attested: we know that Lesbos changed hands several times between the Macedonian forces of Alexander the Great and the Persian forces of Memnon of Rhodes, that Memnon captured Methymna in 333 BCE, and that when Alexander's admiral Hegelochus recaptured Methymna in 332 BCE its tyrant was Aristonicus not Kleommis.Diodorus Siculus 17.29.2, Arrian, Anabasis 3.2.4. However, it is not clear whether Aristonicus was made tyrant when the Persians recaptured Methymna in 335, or whether Kleommis was re-installed and Aristonicus only made tyrant in 333. Whatever the case, in 332 Alexander gave Aristonicus over to the newly restored Methymnaean democracy to try, and he was found guilty and put to death by torture.Capture at Chios: Arrian, Anabasis 3.2.4, Curtius 4.5.19. Execution: Curtius 4.8.11.
Hellenistic Period In c. 295 BCE, Methymna struck silver drachms for King Lysimachus, indicating that the city was part of his kingdom at this time.Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum Kayhan 4. However, by the 250s BCE at the latest, Methymna had come under the sway of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. P. Brun, 'Les Lagides à Lesbos: essai de chronologie' Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 85 (1991) 99-113 has suggested an earlier date in the 270s, but this has not been accepted by scholars: Ph. Gauthier, Bulletin épigraphique (1992) no. 343. During this period, a festival in honour of the Ptolemies, the Ptolemaia, was instituted, and public documents produced by the city were dated by the regnal years of the Ptolemies.IG XII (2) 498 (ca. 221-205). Worship of Sarapis, an Egyptian cult patronized by the Ptolemies, was probably introduced to Methymna at this period, and remained an important part of the city's life for several centuries.List of Sarapiastai: IG XII (2) 511 (1st century BC).
In the 2nd century BCE Methymna increasingly pursued a policy of seeking closer ties with the emerging power of Rome. Methymna remained loyal to Rome during the Macedonian Wars, and in 167 BCE it was rewarded when the Romans punished neighbouring Antissa for disloyalty and transferred its territory to Methymna.Livy 45.31.13-14, Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis 5.139, H. J. Mason, 'The end of Antissa' American Journal of Philology 116.3 (1995) 399-410. The territory of Methymna was ravaged by King Prusias II of Bithynia along with several other cities in this region in ca. 156 BCE, but the Romans later compelled Prusias to pay reparations of 100 talents for the damage done.Polybius 33.13.8. In 129 BCE, an inscription from Methymna shows that the city formed a formal alliance with Rome.IG XII (2) 510. A dedication to the Galatian princess Adobogiona (fl. c. 80 - 50 BCE), who was the mistress of Mithridates VI of Pontus, a long-standing enemy of Rome, may indicate a cooling of relations between Methymna or Rome or simply political expediency.IG XII (2) 516.
Roman Period Methymna gained a particular reputation among Romans for viticulture during the Imperial period. Virgil speaks of the vines of Methymna as the best and most numerous on Lesbos, while Ovid invokes them as an example of something which is proverbially numerous and bountiful.Virgil, Georgics 2.89-90, Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.57-9. The distinctive strong taste of Methymnaean wine is mentioned by Silius Italicus, and Propertius uses this as a point of reference when describing another Greek wine.Silius Italicus, Punica 7.209-11, Propertius 4.8.38. When Virgil and Silius wished to indicate the exceptional quality of Falernian wine, Methymnaean wine is among the vintages which they say it surpasses.Virgil, Georgics 2.89ff, Silius Italicus, Punica 7.209-11. We also learn from Horace that Methymnaean grapes were equally prized for the excellent vinegar which could be produced from them and which he describes accompanying a sumptuous eel dish.Horace, Satires 2.8.49-50. The medical writer Galen, who was a native of nearby Pergamon, considered all the wines of Lesbos to be excellent, but ranked that of Methymna the first in quality, that of Eresos second, and that of Mytilene third.Galen 10.832, 13.405, 13.659 Kühn. At 14.28-29 Kühn he instead places Eresian wine above that of Methymna. In the novel Daphnis and Chloe, thought to be by the Mytilenaean aristocrat Longus and set in the region of Lesbos between Methymna and Mytilene, the vine harvest is the most important time of the agricultural year, and the Mytilenaean owner of the land in this region times his annual visit to coincide with the end of this harvest when the year's profit can be established.Longus, Daphnis and Chloe.
Byzantine Period
The first attested bishop of Methymna was Christodoros in 520 CE.Patrologia Latina 63 cols. 483-5, A. Kaldellis and S. Efthymiadis, The Prosopography of Byzantine Lesbos 284-1355 AD (2010) no. 10. In 640, Methymna was mentioned in the Ecthesis, pseudographically attributed to Epiphanius of Salamis, as an autocephalous archdiocese, and around 1084, it was made a metropolitan see under Alexius I Comnenus. The Fourth Crusade brought Latin control, on the strength of which the Roman Catholic Church maintains a purely titular see of Methymna; there were 40 Roman Catholics in 1908.