Editing Lemnos (section)

===Antiquity===
According to Homer, Lemnos was inhabited by the [[Sintians]].<ref>Homer. The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924: Il. 1.594.</ref><ref>Homer. The Odyssey. Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. Samuel Butler. Based on public domain edition, revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy. A. C. Fifield, London. 1900: 8.5.</ref> Thucydides mentions [[Tyrrhenians]] as the [[Pre-Greek substrate|pre-Greek]] inhabitants.<ref>Thucydides. [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0003.tlg001.perseus-grc1:4.109 Historiae in two volumes]. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1942.</ref>

[[Homer]] speaks as if there were one town in the island called Lemnos. In Classical times there were two towns, [[Myrina, Greece|Myrina]] (also called Kastro) and [[Hephaistia]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/550569 |title=Hephaistia |date=May 2019 |publisher=Pleiades, directory of Ancient Places}}</ref> which was the chief town. Coins from Hephaestia are found in considerable number, and various types including the goddess Athena with her owl, native religious symbols, the caps of the [[Dioscuri]], [[Apollo]], etc. Few coins of Myrina are known. They belong to the period of Attic occupation, and bear Athenian types. A few coins are also known which bear the name of the whole island, rather than of either city.

A trace of the [[Lemnian language]] is found on a 6th-century inscription on a funerary stele, the [[Lemnos stele]]. Lemnos later adopted the [[Attic Greek|Attic dialect]] of Athens.

Coming down to a better authenticated period, it is reported that Lemnos was conquered by [[Otanes]], a general of [[Darius I of Persia|Darius Hystaspis]]. But soon (510 BC) it was reconquered by [[Miltiades the Younger]], the tyrant of the Thracian Chersonese. Miltiades later returned to [[Athens]] and Lemnos was an Athenian possession until the [[Macedon]]ian empire absorbed it. By 450 BC, Lemnos was an Athenian [[cleruchy|''klēroukhia'']] (or cleruchy, i.e. a dependency subject to direct rule by Athens). The Athenian settlers brought with them Athenian drama, dated to at least 348 BC. However, the tradition of theater seems to date back to the 5th century, and recent excavations at the site Hephaisteia suggest that the theater dated to the late 6th to early 5th century.

On a barren island near Lemnos there was an altar of [[Philoctetes]] with a brazen serpent, bows and breastplate bound with strips, to remind of the sufferings of the hero.<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0551.tlg014.perseus-grc1:11.77 Appian, Mithridatic Wars, 11.77]</ref>

In 197 BC, the Romans declared it free, but in 166 BC gave it over to Athens which retained nominal possession of it until the whole of Greece was made a province of the [[Roman Republic]] in 146 BC. After the division of the [[Roman Empire]] in 395, Lemnos passed to the [[Byzantine Empire]].

[[Pliny the Elder]] writes about a labyrinth on Lemnos which was built by the Lemnian architects Zmilis, Rhoecus, and Theodorus.<ref>[https://topostext.org/work/153#36.19.3 Pliny the Elder, Natural History 12–37, 36.19.3]</ref>