Lesbos, or MYTILENE, a Turkish island in the Ægean Sea, lies 10 miles from the coast of Asia Minor, north of the Gulf of Smyrna. It is triangular in shape, with two deep inlets on the south-east and south-west, and is for the most part mountainous, reaching 3079 feet in Hagios Elias (Olympus). The soil is fertile and yields good crops of olives, the oil being the chief export. In ancient times wine was a specialty. The climate is delightful. The chief drawback of the island is the earthquakes, which occur pretty frequently. Area, 676 sq. m.; pop. 36,000, mostly Greeks. The ancient capital was Mitylene (on coins Mitylene); the existing town, called Castro, 'a straggling dirty village,' has a population of about 12,000. It stands on a peninsula on the east coast, is defended by a medievale castle, and has a shallow harbour. Other ancient cities were Methymna, Pyrrha, Antissa, and Eresus. The modern town of Agiasso has 7000 to 8000 inhabitants. The island was early colonised by Æolian immigrants. Between 700 and 500 B.C. it was the flourishing home of poets and literary men, as the names of Alcæus, Sappho, Terpander, Pittacus, Theophrastus, Theophanes, and others will attest. The Lesbians made themselves masters of considerable territory on the opposite mainland of Asia Minor. But in the 6th century B.C. it was for about sixty years subject to Persia. In 476 it joined the Athenian league, but, revolting in 429, was promptly reduced to obedience again. Then it belonged successively to Macedonia, Pontus, Rome, and Byzantium. From 1355 to 1462 it was owned by a Genoese merchant family, who lost it to Sultan Mohammed II. Off its shores the Turks were defeated by the Venetians in 1690 and 1698, and by the Greeks in 1821. The island has been called Mitylene from the middle ages down to the present time.
See Couze, Reise auf Lesbos (1865); C. T. Newton, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant (2 vols. 1865); Koldewey, Die antiken Baureste der Insel Lesbos (1890); and Tozer, Islands of the Ægean (1890).