History of Lesbos island

The word /lazpa/ ({la-az-pa-} is marked as a place in two cuneiform documents from around 1300 BCE (KUB 5.6: ii, 57, 60; CTH 191). In one, the Hittite King consults an oracle about the Deity of Lazpa; in the other, the ruler of “Seha” complains to the King that his opponents have attacked Lazpa and abducted the King’s temple-servants. Scholars who study the Hittite documents have identified Lazpa with the island called Lesbos in Greek, and concluded that the island was under Hittite control, but scholars who work with Greek texts, even if they know about the Hittite documents, have not considered the implications of a Hittite period in the island’s history.
In the Bronze Age, Lesbian ceramic traditions show close affinities to north-west Anatolia and the Troad, but unlike Troy, Lesbos has so far produced no distinctively Hittite artefacts.  What is Anatolian is the toponymy. Lesbos has no Greek etymology; Lazpa looks convincingly Anatolian, most likely Luwian; other names with /e/ in Greek and /a/ in cuneiform, such as Ephesos~Apasa and Perge~ Parha, are in Luwian areas. Lazpa finds a close phonetic match in the border town Gazpa/Kazapa, and -pa is an extremely common suffix for place names. The first syllable, laz-, recalls the adjective lazzi- “auspicious, desirable,” which finds an echo Pliny’s alternative names for Lesbos (HN 5.139), Himerte and Lasia. Individual Lesbian citiy-names are also distinctively Anatolian: Mathumna has the common Hittite ethnic suffix –umna, while Mutilena recalls the royal and divine name Muwatalli, derived from muwa, “might;” the next ruler of Seha was married to the sister of Muwatalli II.
Lazpa is labelled as both KUR and URU, “land” and “city,” typical of a Hittite realm. There was no Greek city of Lesbos, only the independent poleis like Mytilene. But Homer describes Lesbos as both a city and a land. In Iliad 9. 129, Achilles captured “well-built” (ἐϋκτιμένην) Lesbos, which looks like a city; in Iliad 24. 543-545, “Makar” is king of a unified Lesbos, described as his “seat” in most manuscripts, but his polis in a citation by Strabo (13.1.7 ). Around 1300, the coastal site of Thermi was both fortified and large enough to dominate the whole island.
Homer’s Makar has an apparently Greek name (“blessed”), and was supposed to have come from Peloponnesian Achaia according to Diodorus Siculus (5.81.4). But there is much about him that seems Anatolian. Diodoros also reports (5.82.3) that he wrote a law that called “Lion,” because of the beast’s courage and strength. Written law, and a King as law-writer, seem more appropriate to 2nd-millennium Hittite culture, than to the Greek Bronze Age; and lion imagery, common to many cultures, is especially marked in the Hittite world. However, a law called  “Lion,” seems  distinctly odd, and suggests that a Hittite or Luwian term has been misunderstood. The first ruler of Seha had the name Muwa-UR.MAḪ; or in Luwian, Muwawalwi,  “might of a lion.” Is there a possible Anatolian meaning for “Makar?” The Greek Makaria is interpreted as both “happy land” or “land of Makar.” The simple noun makari/magari occurs  only in one text (KUB 24: 89; CTH  677), and so far as I know has not convicingly interpreted.

KUB 5.6: ii. 57, 60 names a “Divinity of Lazpa” consulted by Mursili II (1321-1295). KUB 19.5 + KBo 19.79 (Houwink ten Cate 1983-84: 38-40), from the reign of Muwatalli II (1295-1271), describes an attack on Lazpa in which workers “belonging to the God” were transported off the island. If one accepts the identity of Lazpa and Lesbos, with whom should this God be identified?
According to Alkaios (G1), the “Aeolian goddess” was worshipped with Zeus and Dionysus at a common Lesbian shrine, probably Messa (Spencer 1995: 22, site 103); but her title suggests a connection with Aeolian Greek settlers, and there are no Bronze Age remains at Messa.
The cult of Apollo Maloeis, outside Mytilene (Thuc. 3.3.3), has been connected with protogeometric finds at Odhos Longou (Archontidou 1993: 410). Mytilene appears Hittite in form (based on muwa “might”) and Pliny (HN 5. 39. 139) calls the city per MD annos potens, which suggests a second millennium foundation. Apollo was known to the Hittites in documents associated with Troy/Wilusa, and his local name maloeis “rich in apples” conforms to an Anatolian pattern, as in Wiyanawanda/Oenoanda “rich in vines.” Hittites might have been the transmitters of apple cultivation from its source in Central Asia to the Aegean region.
Artemis Thermia was worshipped at Hot Baths 12 km north of Mytilene, close to Lesbos’ best-known prehistoric site (Spencer 1995: 6, sites 8 and 11). Several cities, such as Ephesos, that had been in the Hittite sphere of influence recognized Artemis as their state cult, which is what I take the “divinity of Lazpa” to mean. Although there are no remains in the Thermi area that can be identified as Hittite, Artemis Thermia may be the best candidate.

Both the date and source of the Aeolian migration to Asia Minor are far from clear; in CAH3 2.2, Hammond (706) dated it with some precision to around 1100 BCE, but Cook (778) placed it anywhere between 2300 BC and 1000BC. There is little material evidence for the influx of a new population into the region at the end of the Bronze Age; Lesbian monochrome gray ware was produced without interruption from the Bronze Age to the 7th century. The origin of the Aeolians is also debated: (1) their dialect is closest to Thessalian; (2) Strabo and Pausanias say that the migration was led by Penthilos, son of Orestes, i.e. from Peloponnesos; (3) when Mytilene sought support for its revolt from Athens, it asserted kinship with the Boiotians (Thuc. 3.2.3); (4), in Iliad 24, 543-545, Lesbos is called the seat of Makar, who is described as Aiolion in the Hymn to Apollo (37), but Diodorus Siculus (5.81.4) traced his ancestry to (Peloponnesian) Achaia.
According to Hittite documents, Lesbos and the Kaikos valley were ruled around 1300 by an Anatolian (Luwian) dynasty; evidence from Troy suggests that the predominant culture in North-Western Anatolia was still Luwian around 1150. On the other hand, Makar’s epithet Aiolion, and the Lesbian cult of the “Aeolian Goddess,” supposedly honoured by the Atreidae on their return from Troy (Lyrica Graeca Selecta 127, 196), suggest that Lesbos was perceived by the Greeks to have been “Aeolian” before the fall of Troy. Traditions of Aeolian settlement both before and after the Trojan War can be combined if the migration was a continuous process over several hundred years. The beginning of the process is likely marked by the resettlement of Thermi on Lesbos around 1300, at which point Greeks were probably a minority in a predominantly Anatolian culture. The date provided by the “Herodotean” Life of Homer (540) for the establishment of cities on Lesbos, 130 years after the fall of Troy, corresponds fairly well to Strabo’s narrative of Penthilos and also to the first appearance of Proto-Geometric pottery. This suggests that it was in the 10th century, with the formation of poleis, that Greeks became the predominant element in the population.
Although Asiatic Aeolian dialects are closest to Thessalian, the Thessaloi did not move into Thessaly until the end of the second millennium; hence the Aeolians may not have shared space with the Thessalians in Thessaly, but rather in a region of the Northern Aegean such as the Macedonian plain. Strabo’s narrative of the Aeolian migration does not mention Thessaly, but rather Thrace (where Penthilos died). Lesbos had close ties with the North Aegean, especially with the Thracian cult of Orpheus, and material evidence may point in the same direction; protogeometric pottery from Troy finds its closest parallels in the Northern Aegean and “Aeolian” monochrome ware has been reported from Bulgarian Thrace.

Aristotle spent two years in Mytilene, on the Greek island of Lesbos. It is believed
that he carried out his biological research on Lesbos, ‘prowling’ around the lagoon
of modern Kalloni, identified with the euripus of Pyrrha, a locality frequently
mentioned in his works and situated far away from his residence in Mytilene. Here
I argue that this identification is an erroneous one, and through an analysis of place
names and ichthyological information given by Aristotle, I determine the true
location of the euripus of Pyrrha. In addition, the identification of the true location
of the euripus of Pyrrha, permits the exact positioning on the isle of Lesbos of the
ancient kōmē of Aegeiros, a kōmē mentioned by Strabo, but until now, ambiguously
placed.

The generic term marmor Lesbium occurs quite often in the archaeological literature, though the cases where it is commented with more than one or two text lines are no more than four or five, as many as the ancient written testimonia on the subject, both philological and epigraphic. The analysis of those sources shall constitute the first part of our paper, since the passages of Pliny and Philostratus, albeit clear in themselves, become difficult to interpret when compared to the each other, but appear more interesting when combined with the content of two inscriptions, one building account from Mytilene and one decree of the Nesiotic League, coming from the opposite Asia Minor coast. The second part shall be dedicated to the modern scholarship, the results of the field work on the production center (Lesbos) and, finally, the evidence for its use inside and outside the island, which appears to fully explain its reference in Diocletian's Edict. Local stones other than marble used in ancient Lesbos are also examined.

The setting of Daphnis and Chloe is the “real” island located around the coordinates 39o N and 26o E; but this paper asserts that “Lesbos” was also a place of the imagination as significant as the “Thebes” of Athenian tragedy  (Zeitlin 1990), or the “Arcadia” of pastoral. This can be seen in Catullus’ choice (poem 51) of the pseudonym Lesbia for his lover, of whom Havelock claimed (1967, 130), that the “aura of Lesbos was round her head.” This “aura” recalled principally the island’s status as πασέων ἀοιδοτάτη, where the nightingale always sings sweetest (Phanokles 1, 22 as cited in Powell 1925, 107), and poetry and music have been especially at home since the arrival of the head and lyre of Orpheus. Within the realm of ancient fiction, the same aura informs the portrayal of the island in King Apollonius of Tyre (33-47), in the Mytileneans’ appreciation of Tarsia for her lyre-playing, education, and singing, which enables her to escape degradation in the brothel and leads to her integration with her father.  In Longus, Lesbos’ role as the home of poetry and song is emphasised in examples of the “Orpheus-like” control of the physical world by music and poetry.

The state of preservation of the Roman aqueduct at Moria makes it unlikely that it was built before the earthquake that virtually destroyed Mytilene under the proconsul Antonius Albus (Aristides 49.38), probably in 148 CE. On Lesvos several springs and wells ceased to function after the earthquake
of February 23, 1867; similar damage would have prompted
the construction of a new water supply after 148. SEG 29 (1979) 241, under Antoninus Pius (reigned 138-161), honours Pompeius Macrinus "Neos Theophanes" (consul 118)
for benefactions to Mytilene that caused him to be called "ktistes" and "euergetes." I propose that the aqueduct was his gift to the city, and that the Nymphaeum dedicated to his son-in-law Gavius Orphitus (cos165) (IG 12.2.129 and Supplementum) was part of the same new water system.

In Odes 1.7, Horace compares a list of Greek cities unfavourably with Tibur. The list begins with Rhodes and Mytilene, although neither was reputed to be the most beautiful or most famous city in Greece. However, each was famous as a city of exile for prominent Roman politicians; the focus on exile is confirmed by the end of the poem, with the myth of Teucer’s departure for Salamis in Cyprus, and by Epistles 1.11.17.
Mytilene and Rhodes, which had been leading supporters of Pompey and Antony, had been able to maintain their freedom and mainland holdings by the same skills (adaptability and flattery) that the dedicatee of the poem, L. Munatius Plancus (cos 42), had employed in surviving in a revolutionary era.
The date of 1.7 is not established with any certainty, but in the year when the Odes are supposed to have been published (23), Mytilene was again topical as the chosen destination of Agrippa, whether as the location of a voluntary exile or as the centre of his eastern command.
Dans son Ode 1.7,  Horace nomme des cités en Grèce et Asie auxquelles il préfère les plaisirs de Tibur. La liste commence avec Rhodes et Mytilène, bien qu’elles ne soient ni les plus belles ni les plus renommées poleis de l’ Orient. Mais depuis Cicéron, on les connaît comme lieux d’exil pour les hommes d’état romains. Que l’exil soit en question, on le perçoit du mythos de Teucros à la fin du poème, et de l’ Épître 1.11.17.
Mytilène et Rhodes avaient été des partisans de Pompée et d’ Antonius. Ils ont néanmoins retenu la liberté et les peraia (possessions en Asie) par diplomatie, « flexibilité » et flatterie, les mêmes talents qu’ avait L. Munatius Plancus (cos 42), humillimus assentator, auquel Horace consacra son poème.
On ne connaît pas la date précise de l’ Ode 1.7, mais dans l’ année proposée pour la publication des livres 1-3, (23), Mytilène fut encore le sujet d’ interêt à Rome à cause de l’ainsi-dit Mytilenense secretum de M. Agrippa.

When the narrator’s father praises Vasilis for his first brave act, he calls him an antreiomenos Ellinas, a brave Hellene (Myrivilis 1990, 27). In pre-liberation Lesvos, the use of Ellinas rather than Romios for a Greek-speaking Christian would mean either (1), a citizen of the new Greek kingdom, or Palioelladitis, or (2), an ancient “pagan” Greek. Neither meaning initially seems appropriate, but Vasilis will later receive the favour of the Crown Prince for his services in Macedonia, while his acts of bravery recall ancient narratives about Herakles and Alexander. Myrivilis’ portrayal of Vasilis as “Hellene” is also affected by his narrative of Vasilis’ ambiguous relationship to the National Struggle, and by the implicit comparison with other “Hellenes” on the island, such as the teacher Anagnostou and the painter Theophilos.  Vasilis’ surname, which means both “stubborn” and “Albanian,” (i.e., an Albanian speaker in Greece, not a citizen of Albania) points to a little-discussed aspect of multiculturalism in 19th century Greece, although there was no Albanian-speaking minority on Lesvos.
When Myrivilis’ portrait of inter-communal hostilities is compared with Panselinos’ claim (1970: 30) that “to tell you the truth, there wasn’t much hostility between Mytileneans and Turks before the Liberation,” we have a context for Vasilis’ curious relationship with the Turks. Vasilis and his Turkish rival Sabri, like many inhabitants of the island, were comfortable in the other’s language; Vasilis’ code switching serves as a marker of his many changes of allegiance (from the Macedonian resistance to the Young Turks, for and against the tobacco monopoly of the Régie). The representative of the Regie, Michel, a Frankolevantinos from Smyrna, reminds us of another feature of pre-liberation Mytilini; according to Tériade, the town provided him with enough French culture at home and school that he had no difficulty studying at the Sorbonne or participating fully in avant-garde French artistic circles. Vasilis’ fight with the priest, and the “unbelievable” presence of two zeibeks leading the funeral of a Christian (Myrivilis 1991:111), reveals a religious environment that went beyond the Christian/Islam opposition. Besides the unorthodox sect of Zeibeks, Lesvos was also home to a nomadic, non-Islamic population called the Yuruks; while the fight (1877-1883) over control of the Leimoniada School shows that Vasilis was far from the only figure on the island who opposed the power of the Orthodox Church.

References
Myrivilis, Stratis. 1991. O Vasilis O Avanitis, 13th edition. Athens: Estia.
Panselinos, Asimakis. 1997. Tote Pou Zousame, 25th edition. Athens: Kedros.
Tériade, E. 1996. Tériade; écrits sur l’art. Paris: Biro.

The Lines of Passage (in medias res) book accompanied the exhibition which demonstrated a variety of connections among narratives of memory and expressions of differing intensities and approaches through artworks selected from the permanent collection of the Elgiz Museum in Istanbul.

ISBN: 978-605-62509-1-0

The artists selected from the collection were Pinar Yolaçan, Oleg Dou, Cindy Sherman, Azade Köker, Bedri Baykam, Bengü Karaduman, Ferhat Özgür, Gilbert & George, Hale Tenger, Tracey Emin, Mateo Mate, Burak Delier, Gülsün Karamustafa, İhsan Oturmak, Kendell Geers, Komet, Nan Goldin, Nilbar Güres, Özlem Günyol, Rebecca Horn, Tomur Atagök, Veljko Zejak, Ola Kolehmainen, Benji Boyadgian and Hera Büyüktasçiyan

Lines of Passage (in medias res) formed a constellation reflecting on the trajectories of memory and perception. Within the exhibition, potential encounters between the selected artworks and spaces designated an ever-changing dynamic which was based on personal narratives, consciousness, psychological and cognitive recognition. The exhibition suggested various paths of understanding through its scenography and potential dialogues of historically and politically charged geographies. It was nurtured by a selection of core works encompassing a cross-section of narratives. Each work in the exhibition connected to another with non-linear narratives employing the in medias res, either through content-based or form-based links.

Lupus in Fabula, seriously? Traps and Fables in Daphnis and Chloe 1. 11-12 This paper is about a lupus (strictly speaking a lupa) in Longus' Daphnis and Chloe, a text which might very well have been termed a fabula in Latin. The kind of fabula I will be discussing today is called fable in English and French, as in Aesop, La Fontaine, and the Brothers Grimm. In such fabulae, Wolves, of course, play a big part, as in this delightful version of wolf-fables (Alley, Zoe and R.W. 2008).

This study traces the works of the great folk painter Theophilos Hadjimichael of Lesvos,
guided by the lights of history, literature, tradition, art and culture, especially in those paintings
which place their source of inspiration in the epic poetry of Homer.
A story teller grandfather, a “magician”, who "knew how to use words to narrate and plain
boards of wood to produce icons of saints", becomes the origin where literature’s
experimental approach takes flesh and blood in order to create masterpieces. These works
of art had themes taken from grandfather’s stories which allowed the child's mind to imagine
heroes, fights and controversies. All these were later imprinted on the canvas of the popular
painter. The association of Theophilos with the great epic poet Homer, outlines a tour in
places, spaces, verses and paintings starting with the child's experiences, hearings and
readings.
The main purpose of the suggested tour being to prove the power of the pragmatic experience
and to show an imaginary and scientific connection and correlation in the work of the two
creators. The themes in several Theophilos' paintings and the verses and intertextual events
of the ancient poet seem to be relevant. The testimonies of the personal behavior and social
appearance of the unconventional painter reinforce this hypothesis.

Sull'isola di Lesbo, in Grecia, c'è il più grande hotspot d'Europa: il Moria Camp. Istituito nel 2015 per far fronte agli sbarchi di migranti che attraversano l'Egeo per raggiungere l'Europa dalle coste turche, è attrezzato per ospitare fino a circa 3000 persone per un breve periodo di tempo, in attesa che siano smistate. La situazione oramai si è cronicizzata e ad agosto 2019 il numero degli abitanti del campo ha superato le 11.000 unità. La permanenza lì prevista per ciascuno di loro è di almeno un anno. Tra le nazionalità maggiormente presenti c'è quella proveniente dall'Afghanistan (circa 33%) e quella proveniente dalla Repubblica Democratica del Congo (circa 12%). I maschi adulti complessivi sono circa il 40%, il 25% sono femmine e il 35% sono minori. Dei minori, circa il 20% non è accompagnato ed è costituito prevalentemente da maschi. La situazione, come già esposto da molti, è drammatica sotto molti punti di vista, non ultimi quello igienico-sanitario e quello psichiatrico. Durante la mia permanenza ho collaborato con una ONG accreditata che fornisce assistenza legale gratuita ai richiedenti asilo. Come psicologo clinico ho fatto colloqui agli assistiti dietro invio degli avvocati o del Protection Officer, e l'incontro si svolgeva con la presenza di un interprete. Lo scopo dei colloqui era prevalentemente quello di ottenere un'indicazione di diagnosi da aggiungere al fascicolo per l'intervista con l'Ufficiale dell'Immigrazione e/o accelerare la presa in carico del paziente da parte delle autorità locali, in particolare dei casi di vulnerabilità (disturbi psichiatrici, vittime di tortura, violenza sessuale…) non ancora individuati. I casi da me osservati sono stati prevalentemente di adulti provenienti dall'Afghanistan e dalla Repubblica Democratica del Congo, con una percentuale di maschi e femmine pressoché equivalente. Gli incontri, della durata di un'ora circa, erano complicati da alcuni fattori:-Invio poco chiaro o comprensione limitata/fraintesa da parte dell'assistito del contesto e dello scopo del colloquio.-Condizioni ambientali al limite della sopportabilità: temperature altissime all'interno del container usato come ufficio, spazi ridotti, colloqui in altre lingue udibili attraverso i divisori.-Difficoltà a interpretare toni, gesti e mimica degli assistiti, data la grande distanza culturale.