Listed 16 sub titles with search on: Mythology for destination: "LEMNOS (LIMNOS) Island NORTH AEGEAN".
There (at Naxos) Dionysus fell in love with Ariadne and carried her
off; and having brought her to Lemnos he enjoyed her, and begat Thoas, Staphylus,
Oenopion, and Peparethus.
Commentary
Homer's account of the fate of Ariadne is different. He says (Hom. Od. 11.321-325)
that when Theseus was carrying off Ariadne from Crete to Athens she was slain
by Artemis in the island of Dia at the instigation of Dionysus. Later writers,
such as Diodorus Siculus identified Dia with Naxos, but it is rather the little
island, now Standia, just off Heraclaion, on the north coast of Crete. Theseus
would pass the island in sailing for Athens. Apollodorus seems to be the only
extant ancient author who mentions that Dionysus carried off Ariadne from Naxos
to Lemnos and had intercourse with her there.
These with Jason as admiral put to sea and touched at Lemnos. At that
time it chanced that Lemnos was bereft of men and ruled over by a queen, Hypsipyle,
daughter of Thoas, the reason of which was as follows. The Lemnian women did not
honor Aphrodite, and she visited them with a noisome smell; therefore their spouses
took captive women from the neighboring country of Thrace and bedded with them.
Thus dishonored, the Lemnian women murdered their fathers and husbands, but Hypsipyle
alone saved her father Thoas by hiding him. So having put in to Lemnos, at that
time ruled by women, the Argonauts had intercourse with the women, and Hypsipyle
bedded with Jason and bore sons, Euneus and Nebrophonus.
Commentary
The Lemnian traditions have been interpreted as evidence of a former custom of
gynocracy, or the rule of men by women, in the island. Every year the island of
Lemnos was purified from the guilt of the massacre and sacrifices were offered
to the dead. The ceremonies lasted nine days, during which all fires were extinguished
in the island, and a new fire was brought by ship from Delos. If the vessel arrived
before the sacrifices to the dead had been offered, it might not put in to shore
or anchor, but had to cruise in the offing till they were completed.
You are said to have reached the Thessalian coasts in your returning
bark, enriched with the prize of the golden fleece. I congratulate your safety,
as far as I am permitted: but I ought to have known this by a letter from yourself.
For, though unfavorable winds might have hindered you from landing in my kingdom,
had you even desired it, yet a letter might have been sealed and sent: surely
Hypsipyle deserved this testimony of your love.
Why as fame the first messenger of your success? Why did I first hear
from report, that the bulls sacred to the stern god of war had submitted to the
yoke, -that harvests of armed men sprang from the sowing of the dragon's teeth,
and did not want your right hand to cut them off, - that the yellow fleecy spoils,
though guarded by a vigilant dragon, were yet a prey to your valiant arm? If I
could assure those who believe with diffidence, that all this was confirmed to
me by a letter from yourself, how great would be my happiness! Why do I complain
that my husband by so long an absence has failed in the respect he owes me? If
your heart continues mine, I have still all I ask.
You are said to have brought with you a barbarian enchantress, and
admitted her to a share of that bed which you had promised to me. Love is credulous
and full of fears. I wish it may be found that I have rashly charged my husband
with false crimes. A stranger lately arrived here from Thessaly: scarcely had
he touched the threshold, when I enquired how my Jason was. He, overcome with
shame, stood silent, and fixed his eyes upon the ground. Impatient, I ran up to
him; and in wild distraction tearing his coat from his breast, Tell me, I cried,
does he still live, or has Fate determined also to end my days? He lives, said
he. I forced the intimidated stranger to confirm the statement by an oath, and
could scarcely be convinced of your existence even by the testimony of a God.
After recovering from my surprise, I began to enquire of your exploits. He tells
me how the brazen-footed bulls of Mars turned up the furrowed plain; that the
teeth of the dragon were thrown into the earth for seed, and a sudden crop of
armed men sprang up; and that these earth-born heroes, cut off by civil broils,
had filled up the short span of life allotted to them by Fate. Upon hearing of
the serpent overcome. I again asked if Jason still lived; my heart beating alternately
with hope and fear. While he proceeds in recounting one thing after another, in
the current of his discourse, he at last discovers the wounds made in your heart.
Alas! where is now your promised faith? where are now the nuptial
ties? and Hymen's torch, fitter to have lighted up my funeral pile? I was not
known to you by stealth. Juno was witness to our vows; and Hymen also, having
his temples bound with garlands. But neither Juno nor Hymen, but cruel Erinnys,
bore in procession the inauspicious torch. What concern had I with the Argonauts?
what with the ship of Pallas? Why did your pilot Tiphys think of touching at this
coast? Here was no ram to entice you by his golden spoils; nor had Aeetes his
royal palace at Lemnos. I had determined (but my unhappy destiny overruled me)
to expel the strangers with a female band. The Lemnian ladies have too glaringly
shown themselves an overmatch for men. My life and peace ought to have been defended
by so trusty a band.
I allowed Jason to enter my city, and admitted him into my house and
heart. Here two summers and two winters rolled away. It was now the third harvest,
when, forced to unfold the spreading sails, with tears in your eyes you uttered
these soft and tender words.
"Alas! I am torn from you, Hypsipyle; but, if Heaven grant me a safe
return, as I depart thine, so will I ever remain thine, Let the pledge of our
mutual love, that you now carry about in your teeming womb, be fondly cherished,
that it may prove the joy and blessing of its parents." Thus far you spoke, while,
the tears trickling down you deceitful checks, grief deprived you of the power
to proceed. You were the last to ascend the sacred ship: she flies, and a favorable
wind fills the swelling sails. The sea-green waves recede from before the stemming
prow; your eyes are fixed upon the shore, while mine follow you through the deep.
An adjacent tower opens a prospect on all sides towards the sea. Thither I bend
my course, my face and bosom bedewed with tears. I view you through my tears;
and my eyes, favoring the eagerness of my mind, carry forward my sight beyond
its usual bounds. I address Heaven with chaste prayers and timorous vows,--vows
to the performed, now that you are safe. Must I then pay vows for the triumphs
of Medea? My heart yields to grief, and my love flames into rage. Shall I carry
offerings to the temples, because Jason lives, and lives for another? Are victims
to be slain in return for my disappointments?
I was indeed always diffident, and dreaded that your father might
choose a daughter-in-law from some city of Greece. I feared the Greeks, but suffer
from a barbarian harlot, and am wounded by an unexpected hand. She has not charmed
you by her beauty, or won you by her accomplishments. She holds you by her enchantments,
and cuts the baneful herbs with a magic sickle. She endeavours to charm the reluctant
moon from her orb, and involve the chariot of the sun in darkness. She bridles
the waves, stops the winding currents, and removes from their seats the woods
and banging rocks. She wanders through the tombs with her hair disheveled, and
collects bones from the yet smoking pyres. Her witchcraft affects even the absent;
she moulds the images of wax, and gores the wretched liver with torturing needles.
Add a multiplicity of other magic artifices, which I am better unacquainted with.
Love should be gained by merit and beauty, not by berbs and philtres. How can
you receive her into your embraces, or quietly trust yourself in her treacherous
arms? As formerly the bulls, so has she forced you also to submit to the yoke,
and bound you with the same fetters wherewith she before chained the dragons.
Add that she boasts of having contributed to your success, and that of your companions;
and the fame of the wife eclipses that of the husband. Those of the Pelian faction
ascribe all to sorcery; and the malicious world is too ready to believe them.
"It was not Jason, (say they,) but Medea of Colchis, that bore away the rich fleece
of the consecrated ram."
Commentary
Pelias, the son of Neptune, was warned by an oracle, that his death
would approach, when one barefooted should come to him as he was sacrificing:
it happened that, as he was engaged in the celebration of some annual sacred rites,
Jason the son of Aeson, having left his shoe in the mud of the river Anaurus,
and hastening to be present at the sacrifice, met him. Pelias, mindful of the
oracle, endeavoured to persuade Jason to undertake an expedition to Colchis, in
order to make himself master of the golden fleece, hoping he would never return,
because he had heard it was a work beyond human power to accomplish. Jason, a
youth of great courage and magnanimity, readily engaged in the attempt; and, having
associated with him a great number of gallant adventurers, set sail in the ship
Argo from Thessaly, and soon after arrived at the isle of Lemnos. Not long before
this, the women had with common consent murdered, in one night, all the men in
the island, except one. Hypsipyle, the daughter of Thoas, had saved her father
by the pretence of having killed him, and was at this time queen of the Lemnians.
She, conceiving a passion for Jason, admitted him both to her house and bed. After
continuing here two years, his companions urged him to proceed on the promised
expedition; he left Hypsipyle pregnant, and set sail for Colchis. Medea, the king's
daughter, having an amorous regard for him, by her magic art lulled asleep the
vigilant dragon, and tamed the brazen-footed bulls; by which means he obtained
the golden fleece; and, leaving Colchis, carried off Medea also, who desired to
follow him. Hypsipyle, enraged that Medea was preferred to her, sends this letter,
congratulating Jason on his safe return. Afterwards exposing the cruelty and enchantments
of Medea, she endeavours to bring her into contempt, and make him sensible of
her own superior merit. Lastly, she loads both him and Medea with imprecations.
The story of Jason's quest appears in Pindar's Pythian 4 and in the Argonautica
of Apollonius of Rhodes. The episode of the Lemnian Women is summarized in Apollodorus
1.9.17.
Son of Poeas, suitor of Helen, leader of the Olizonians against Troy, bitten by a snake in Tenedos, put ashore and abandoned by the Greeks in Lemnos.
Editor’s Information:
The plot of "Philoctetes", the tragedy written by Sophocles, of which the e-text(s) is (are) found in Greece (ancient country) under the category Ancient Greek Writings, is taking place in the island of Lemnos.
The Lemnian Pallas, so named because it had been dedicated by the Athenian colonists in Lemnos. The attractions of this statue won for it the name of "the Beautiful". It was of bronze; being a representation of Athene as the goddess of peace, it was without a helmet.
Cadmilus, Casmilus or Cadmus (Kadmilos, Kadmilos, or Kadmos), according to Acusilaus (ap. Strab. x.) a son of Hephaestus and Cabeiro, and father of the Samothracian Cabeiri and the Cabeirian nymphs. Others consider Cadmilus himself as the fourth of the Samothracian Cabeiri. (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. i. 917)
The blinded hero (Orion) contrived to reach Lemnos, and came to the forge of Hephaestus, who, taking pity on him, gave him Cedalion (Guardian), one of his men, to be his guide to the abode of the Sun. Placing Cedalion on his shoulder, Orion proceeded to the East; and there, meeting the sun-god, was restored to vision by his beams.
Son of Jason by Hypsipyle
Polyxo. The nurse of queen Hypsipyle in Lemnos, and celebrated as a prophetess.
Aeschylus makes him (Prometheus) son of Themis, by whom he is put in possession of all the secrets of the future. In the war with the Titans, his advice assisted Zeus to victory. But when the god, after the partition of the world, resolved on destroying the rude human race, and to create other beings in their stead, Prometheus alone concerned himself with the fate of wretched mortals, and saved them from destruction. He brought them the fire he had stolen from Hephaestus at Lemnos, the fire that was to become the source of all discoveries and of mastery over nature; and raised them to a higher civilization by his inventive skill and by the arts which he taught mankind. For this he was punished by being chained on a rock beside the sea in the wilds of Scythia.
The blinded hero contrived to reach Lemnos, and came to the forge of Hephaestus, who, taking pity on him, gave him Cedalion (Guardian), one of his men, to be his guide to the abode of the Sun. Placing Cedalion on his shoulder, Orion proceeded to the East; and there, meeting the sun-god, was restored to vision by his beams.
Some of the Pelasgi from Lemnos took up their abode on this peninsula, and they were divided into five cities, Cleonae, Olophyxis, Acrothoi, Dium, Thyssus. (Strabo Fr. 35)
The descendants of the crew of the Argo were driven out by the Pelasgians
who carried off the Athenian women from Brauron;
after being driven out of Lemnos by them, they sailed away to Lacedaemon,
and there camped on Teugetum
and kindled a fire. Seeing it, the Lacedaemonians sent a messenger to inquire
who they were and where they came from. They answered the messenger that they
were Minyae, descendants of the heroes who had sailed in the Argo and put in at
Lemnos and there begot their race. Hearing the story of the lineage of the Minyae,
the Lacedaemonians sent a second time and asked why they had come into Laconia
and kindled a fire. They replied that, having been expelled by the Pelasgians,
they had come to the land of their fathers, as was most just; and their wish was
to live with their fathers' people, sharing in their rights and receiving allotted
pieces of land. The Lacedaemonians were happy to receive the Minyae on the terms
which their guests desired; the chief cause of their consenting was that the Tyndaridae
(Castor and Polydeuces) had been in the ship's company of the Argo; so they received
the Minyae and gave them land and distributed them among their own tribes. The
Minyae immediately married, and gave in marriage to others the women they had
brought from Lemnos.
But in no time these Minyae became imperious, demanding an equal right
to the kingship, and doing other impious things; hence the Lacedaemonians resolved
to kill them, and they seized them and cast them into prison. (When the Lacedaemonians
execute, they do it by night, never by day.) Now when they were about to kill
the prisoners, the wives of the Minyae, who were natives of the country, daughters
of leading Spartans, asked permission to enter the prison and each converse with
her husband; the Lacedamonians granted this, not expecting that there would be
any treachery from them. But when the wives came into the prison, they gave their
husbands all their own garments, and themselves put on the men's clothing; so
the Minyae passed out in the guise of women dressed in women's clothing; and thus
escaping, once more camped on Teugetum.
Now, about this same time, Theras, a descendant of Polynices through
Thersander, Tisamenus, and Autesion, was preparing to lead out colonists from
Lacedaemon. This Theras was of the line of Cadmus and was an uncle on their mother's
side to Aristodemus' sons Eurysthenes and Procles; and while these boys were yet
children he held the royal power of Sparta as regent; but when his nephews grew
up and became kings, then Theras could not endure to be a subject when he had
had a taste of supreme power, and said he would no longer stay in Lacedaemon but
would sail away to his family. On the island now called Thera,
but then Calliste, there were descendants of Membliarus the son of Poeciles, a
Phoenician; for Cadmus son
of Agenor had put in at the place now called Thera during his search for Europa;
and having put in, either because the land pleased him, or because for some other
reason he desired to do so, he left on this island his own relation Membliarus
together with other Phoenicians. These dwelt on the island of Calliste for eight
generations before Theras came from Lacedaemon.
It was these that Theras was preparing to join, taking with him a
company of people from the tribes; his intention was to settle among the people
of Calliste and not drive them out but claim them as in fact his own people. So
when the Minyae escaped from prison and camped on Teugetum, and the Lacedaemonians
were planning to put them to death, Theras interceded for their lives, that there
might be no killing, promising to lead them out of the country himself. The Lacedaemonians
consented to this, and Theras sailed with three thirty-oared ships to join the
descendants of Membliarus, taking with him not all the Minyae but only a few;
for the greater part of them made their way to the lands of the Paroreatae and
Caucones, and after having
driven these out of their own country, they divided themselves into six companies
and established the cities of Lepreum,
Macistus, Phrixae, Pyrgus,
Epium, and Nudium in the
land they had won; most of these were in my time taken and sacked by the Eleans.
As for the island Calliste, it was called Thera after its colonist.
Commentary
The descendants of the Argonauts were Minyae of Thessaly
living near the Pagasaean gulf.
This extract is from: Herodotus. The Histories (ed. A. D. Godley, 1920), Cambridge. Harvard University Press. Cited Dec 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
... But the word has other sources of derivation, either from the people who went
forth with Chloris, the mother of Nestor, from the Minyeian Orchomenus, or from
the Minyans, who, being descendants of the Argonauts, were first driven out of
Lemnos into Lacedaemon, and thence into Triphylia, and took up their abode about
Arene in the country which is now called Hypaesia, though it no longer has the
settlements of the Minyans. Some of these Minyans sailed with Theras, the son
of Autesion, who was a descendant of Polyneices, to the island which is situated
between Cyrenaea and Crete ( "Calliste its earlier name, but Thera its later,"
as Callimachus says), and founded Thera, the mother-city of Cyrene, and designated
the island by the same name as the city.
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