Mitilini

Mitilini 

a city in Greece, the chief port of the island of Lesvos (Lesbos) in the Aegean Sea. Population, 23,400 (1971). Local products include olive oil, wine, tobacco, textile goods, leather, and soap; fruit is grown mainly for export.

Called Mytilene in antiquity, the city was a major polis, or city-state. In 493 B.C., during the Greco-Persian wars, it was captured by the Persians. Mytilene joined the Delian League after 478–477. In 428 the citizens of Mytilene rose up against Athenian hegemony. Athens cruelly punished Mytilene; 1,000 people were executed, the city’s walls were razed, part of its territory was confiscated for settlement by some 3,000 Athenian cleruchs (lot holders), and Mytilene’s fleet was handed over to Athens. The city declined during the period of Hellenism and revived only in the period of the early Roman Empire. Mytilene was the birthplace of the poets Alcaeus and Sappho.