The name Eresos has its roots in mythology. Macar or Macareus, the mythical leader of the Pelasgian people, was the first founder and king of Lesbos. Perhaps this is why Homer called Lesbos “Makaria”. According to mythology, Makar had five daughters: Mytilene, Issa, Antissa, Methymna and Arisbe after whom the five cities were named. The King also had four sons: Kydrolaus, Neandros, Leuchippus and Eresus. Eresos was named after the latter who was the city’s first king.

Personalities of Eresos

Sappho

Lyric poetess who lived on Lesbos during the later half of the 6^th Century b.C. According to prevailing evidence, Sappho was the daughter of a renown family in Eresos of Lesbos, where she spent her childhood years. Her father is said to have been Scamandronymus and her mother Cleus. She most probably married Cercylas, a wealth man from Andros, by whom she gave birth to a daughter. Sappho named her daughter after her grandmother.

A contemporary of Alcaeos and Pittacus, Sappho did not remain untouched by the political unrest that shook Lesbos during the Archaic Times. It was this political turmoil that forced Sappho to go into exile in Sicily for a while. When she returned, now a widow, Sappho settled in Mytilene where she created a circle of young girls many of whom originated from the neighbouring towns of minor Asia. These girls lived with her and were taught the art of music, the savoir faire and domestic tasks and returned home only when they were to be married. Sappho’s lyrics inform us that there were similar educational institutions in Mytilene at the time.

Lyric poetry which is an hymne to human life, nature, love and personal feelings and experiences identifies Sappho as one of its most worthy representatives. Sappho’s world is the world of women.. Her poetry does not relate to acts of heroism or political events, but to the joys and pains of the small circle of those girls. With the exeption of the ‘Greek Epithalamium’, a song sung strictly by young men and maidens before the bridal chamber (wedding songs as we would call them today), all other lyrics she wrote are about subjects which are personal to Sappho: the sorrow of parting, when the girls of her circle got married or left, her nostalgia, when she reminisced the lovely days they spent together. Sappho wrote in the vernacular language of Lesbos, the aeolic dialect.

Plato praised Sappho, naming her the tenth muse, while the Alexandrian scholars included her in the precept of the nine great lyric poets. During the Hellenistic Era a large number of poetesses who were considered the successors of Sappho. - Corinna of Tanagra, Praxilla of Sicyon, Anyte of Tegea, Erinna. However, from the end of the first and beginning of the second millennium our knowledge of Sappho is based on indirect tradition and mainly odes one and two.

Most fragments of Sappho’s poems were found as late as 1898 by the discovery of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri in Egypt.

Theophrastus
Theophrastus (372 - 987 b.C.). Theophrastus, born in Eresus, is one of the most eminent personalities that rose to prominence on Lesbos during the antiquity. He was the par excellence disciple, collaborator and successor of Aristotle, whom he succeeded as scholarch of the Peripatos School which he worthily directed for 34 years, lecturing to over 2.000 pupils from all over Greece.

Theophrastus shone in all fields of wisdom, Metaphysics, Logic, Ethics, Rhetoric but above all the natural sciences.

His writings were a colossal work. Of the 240 books which are attributed to him, with the exception of the ‘botanist’ and the ‘Characters’, only fragments of his work were saved. Nonetheless, these fragments are sufficient enough to give us a clear picture of his personality.

In his two essays on botanological issues “Plant - Researches” and “Plant-Aetiology” Theophrastus attempts a systematic and detailed classification of plant-life. These works are of exceptional significance since they contributed to the establishment of the respective scientific fields and to the systemization for the first time of empirical research in its totality. They also provide evidence of the wisdom of the researcher and intellectual that Theoprastus of the valleys and mountains of Eresus was.

Another side of Theophrastus’ personality is presented in “Characters”. It is a collection of thirty descriptive sketches, a superb display of norms of behaviour. Theophrastus had the unique ability to distinguish the details of mental cases. Thus “Characters” is a masterpiece, unrivalled in its type.

This type of writing was brought to the theatre. Theophrastus inaugurated the great series of famous “Characters”, the greatest theatrical masterpiece created from antiquity until today.

Phanias
Phanias was born in Eresos of Lesbos during the 4^th century b.C. He was the disciple of Aristotle, whom he met while the latter was living in Mytilene between 345 - 344 b.C and was the collegue of Theophrastus.

Phanias wrote historal, philosophical and political works and an essay on plants. Furthermore he studied critique and music (¨Poets¨). Unfortunately, none of his works were saved, merely fragments.

Phania made a significant contribution to the science of Logic which was being founded at that time, with Plato and Aristotle as the first founders.

Titles of his works include:

• ‘Poets’
• ‘Prytanesof Eresus’
• ‘Socratics’
• ‘Accusations’

etc.

Historical Overview

The first settlers of Eresus in the pre-hellenic times were probably the Pelasgians, while major population shifts of the hellenic, Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian tribes took place during the 11^th and 9^th century b.C. The city of Eresus was built on the present-day coastal location of Skala Eresos by the Achaean or seafaring Aeolian settlers.

A multitude of scattered ruins all over the ancient city indicate the brilliant and majestic constructions that once existed: the Agora, the Stadium, the Theatre and the Prytaneum. The city was an important centre of trade and its fine products reached as far as Egypt. Apart from trade and shipping the city’s population also took to the cultivation of the land. Eresus barley and sesame seed were amongt the finest, and this accounts for the ear of barley, the emblem which appears on the first coins of Eresus.

In 540 b.C. Eresus was forced under Persian vassalage. The Persians turned the naval force of Eresus to their advantage during their expeditions.

Thoughout the long struggle between the two great powers, Athens and Sparta, Eresus repetedly ranged itself on one side of the battlefield or the other and finally acceded to the 2^nd Athenian Alliance in 377 b.C. In the years that followed, the town experienced political instability and the tyrants began to play an important role.

Duing the Roman Times, Eresus knows particular prosperity, however during the Byzantium it suffers the consequences of the Piracy of the Saracens, the Venetians etc, who plunder Lesbos. In 1462 Lesbos falls into the hands of the Turks and during the 17^th century Eresos relocates to the midlands, to the north-east of the old city and at a distance of 4 kilometres from the coastline.

In 1821, the first year of the Greek war of Independence, Eresos becomes associated with a major naval tour de force, the first of the war for freedom. Liberation arrives in 1912 and the beautiful town follows the fate of the rest of the island and is at last incorporated in the national body (Modern Greece).

Coins of the city
It seems that Eresus minted its own coins which bore the inscription OF ERESUS. However there is another coin as well, portraying the whole body or just the head of Sappho. This is ample evidence that confirms Sappho did indeed originate from Eresus. Yet, the representative coin of the city was a coin which depicted a spike of wheat on one side, a symbol of cereal productivity, and the head of Hermes or Apollo on the other side, which once again clearly indicates the worship of Hermes and Apollo..