Antissa () was a city of the island

Lesbos Lesbos or Lesvos ( ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of , with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, eighth largest ...

(Lesvos), near to Cape Sigrium, the western point of Lesbos. The place had a harbour. The ruins found by Richard Pococke at Calas Limneonas, a little NE. of cape Sigri, may be those of Antissa. This place was the birthplace of

Terpander Terpander ( ''Terpandros''), of Antissa in Lesbos Island, Lesbos, was a Ancient Greece, Greek poet and citharede who lived about the first half of the 7th century BC. He was the father of Greek music and through it, of lyric poetry, although his o ...

, who is said to be the inventor of the seven-stringed

lyre The lyre () (from Greek λύρα and Latin ''lyra)'' is a string instrument, stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the History of lute-family instruments, lute family of instruments. In organology, a ...

. According to the local historian Myrsilus of Methymna, local tradition held that the head of

Orpheus In Greek mythology, Orpheus (; , classical pronunciation: ) was a Thracians, Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet. He was also a renowned Ancient Greek poetry, poet and, according to legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in se ...

had floated south from the Hebros after he was decapitated and floated south to land on the shore of Antissan territory: the spot was marked by a tomb where, according to Myrsilus, the nightingales sang more sweetly than they did elsewhere. Antissa exists nowadays as a village on

. Nearby the village is the cave of

. The village has an alternative old name, it is called "Τελώνια" which may be translated as sprite.

Foundation

Almost nothing is known about the early history of Antissa. The late 1st century AD writer Herennius Philo claimed that Antissa was named after the homonymous daughter of Macar, the legendary king of Lesbos. An anonymous scholiast commenting on Homer alternatively claimed that the Antissa in question was Macar's wife. Since the practice of positing mythical figures to explain the origins of otherwise unexplained toponyms was common - for example, the same is claimed of Methymna, Mt. Lepetymnos,

Mytilene Mytilene (; ) is the capital city, capital of the Greece, Greek island of Lesbos, and its port. It is also the capital and administrative center of the North Aegean Region, and hosts the headquarters of the University of the Aegean. It was fo ...

, Eresos and

itself - this tradition about Macar and a female relative named Antissa only indicates that the Greeks themselves did not know the origin of the name. An alternative tradition attempted to etymologize (''Antissa'') as (''ant' Issa''), exploiting the meaning 'opposite to' of the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

preposition Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...

(''anti''). Re-dividing toponyms to yield explanations for their origin was a common practice, and in this region we encounter it, for example, in the mythological tradition for Antandros in the Troad. This tradition appears to originate with Myrsilus, a local historian from neighbouring Methymna who wrote in the first half of the 3rd century BCE. He wrote that Antissa was formerly an island, so called because it was 'opposite Issa', which at that time, he claims, was the name of Lesbos. This tradition appears to reflect the situation of Antissa's promontory, which was located on a low rise (elevation ~13 metres) jutting out to sea a short distance from its acropolis. The excavator of Antissa, Winnifred Lamb, noted that subsistence was a problem in the low-lying land between the promontory and the acropolis, and so the tradition may relate to an actual change in the landscape; alternatively, it could be the product of learned speculation. Another interpretation is that the name Antissa comes from the Hittite words "hanti iša", meaning "near the face", in the sense "near the port".

History

Antissa joined the Mytilenaeans in their revolt from

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

in 428 BCE during the

Peloponnesian war The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War (), was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek war fought between Classical Athens, Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Ancien ...

, and successfully defended itself against the Methymnaeans who attacked it. But after Mytilene had been compelled to surrender to the Athenians, Antissa was recovered by them also. In 371 the Athenian general Iphicrates fled to Antissa, and later to Drys, after he fell out with his father-in-law Cotys, King of the Thracians, when he refused to besiege the strongholds of his fellow Athenians in the Thracian Chersonese. In the 330s BCE was ruled by a tyranny which also controlled the neighbouring city of Eresos until it was overthrown by the forces of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

in 332. Antissa was destroyed by the Romans after the defeat of Perseus, king of Macedonia in 168 BCE because the Antissans had received in their port and given supplies to Antenor, the admiral of Perseus. The people were removed to Methymna. Archaeological excavations carried out by Winifred Lamb for the British School of Archaeology at Athens revealed parts of the city wall and Iron Age buildings including an apsidal structure.W. Lamb, 'Antissa' ''The Annual of the British School at Athens'' 32 (1931-1932) 42-8. The original island site is now joined to the mainland by a sandy isthmus; its most conspicuous remains are those of a medieval castle. Traces of the harbour mole may also be seen on the eastern side of the city.

In popular culture

Antissa is the name of the first song in the first album by the band E.S. Posthumus, ' Unearthed'. All of the songs in that album are named after historical cities.

References

{{West Lesbos div Populated places in Lesbos West Lesbos Cities in ancient Greece Former populated places in Greece Places in Greek mythology Populated places in the ancient Aegean islands