«Λήμνος γαιάων απασέων φιλτάτη…» Homer
Homer praised the island of Lemnos as the most beloved of lands that provided grain and wine to the entire ancient world. It’s amazing to think that this volcanic island on the northeastern Aegean has been inhabited since 4,000 BCE. Archeologists have discovered at least 14 neolithic settlements with the most important one being the prehistoric settlement of Poliohni, which dates back to 3,000 BCE and is part of the same civilization of the famous Troy on Asia Minor.
The island, also known as Vulcania, was where the god Hephaestus landed according to Greek mythology, when his dad Zeus threw him from the top of the mountain Olympos. Apparently, Zeus and his wife Hera were having one of their monumental fights (probably because of the constantly growing number of babies Zeus produced outside of wedlock) and Zeus got so angry that he grabbed the first thing he saw in front of him (his baby boy Hephaistos) and threw him at his wife. Hera ducking to avoid the blow (!) and Zeus being the god of lightning with unmeasurable strength, the baby flew some 200 km away landing on the island of Lemnos. Luckily the baby was also a god and survived this forceful display of fatherly affection suffering only a broken leg. The people of the island took care of him and when Hephaestus grew up to become the god of fire, he set up his workshop on the local volcano and expressed his gratitude by teaching the locals the art of metallurgy.
Many stories and legends are connected to the island of Lemnos and its famous sacred Kavirian sacraments with the many ceremonies of fire worshiping, but the most interesting one is of course connected with the women of this island: The first king of the island was Thoadas, son of the god Dionysus and Ariadni (the daughter of King Minos from Crete). He married Mirina and they had a daughter called Ypsipili. During his reign the women of the island neglected their duties honoring the goddess Aphrodite and understandably, the seductive goddess of love and beauty was furious. She was admittedly very ingenious with her punishment of the undeserving women, bestowing on their bodies an unbearable stench! The men being unable to come close to their women decided to solve the problem by bringing to the island other women from Thrace. Now, obviously any marriage counsel could have told them how their solution was a singularly bad idea. The women from Lemnos took matters in their own hands and killed all the men by throwing them down the cliff of Petasos. One would think that the male physic would be enough to overcome the women’s terrible rage, but apparently the collective anger of the female population overpowered any male resistance.
With all the men in the bottom of the sea, Lemnos was an all-women island for some time, until Aphrodite’s anger was eventually spent. That’s when Jason and the Argonauts reached the island on their way to Kohlida to retrieve the golden fleece. The Argonauts asked to disembark their ships and get onto the island, but the women denied them access to the land. According to legend there were strenuous negotiations between Jason and queen Ypsipili and they reached an agreement. The Argonauts would be allowed on the island under one condition: they had to satisfy all the women regardless of appearance or age (given that the women after their murderous rage were living for many years on their own, we can safely assume that the young were not so young and the age would be a factor only as an impediment to overcome to deliver the agreed upon performance!) Jason married Ypsipili and they had two sons. The Argonauts stayed at the island for some years and that’s how Lemnos was repopulated.
It is truly amazing how with all these stories in our myths and legends, the female gender ever came to be referred as the “weak” sex at any point of our history!
Adventures on Spruzzo 