From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Methymna is also an archaeological site in the prefecture of Chania. See Methymna, Crete

Mithymna  (Μήθυμνα)
Location
Coordinates	39°22′N 26°10′E / 39.367, 26.167Coordinates: 39°22′N 26°10′E / 39.367, 26.167
Time zone:	EET/EEST (UTC+2/3)
Elevation (center):	51 m (167 ft)
Government
Country:	Greece
Periphery:	North Aegean
Prefecture:	Lesbos
Mayor:	Stélios Karantónis
Population statistics (as of 2001[1])
City Proper
- Population:	2,433
- Area:[2]	50.166 km² (19 sq mi)
- Density:	48 /km² (126 /sq mi)
Codes
Postal codes:	811 08
Area codes:	22530
License plate codes:	MY
Website
mithymna.gr

View from the hill in the middle of the city (2006)

Mithymna (Greek:Μήθυμνα), ancient form Methymna, is the second most important town on Lesbos. Mithymna is also the seat of the municipality as well as the province. It is also known by the name Molyvos or Molivos used under the Ottoman Empire (CE). Mithymna is located NE of Eressos, N of Plomari and NW of Mytilene.

The town (pop. 1,497 at 2001 census) is on the northern part of the island, just some 6 km north of the popular beach town of Petra. One of the most noticeable features of the town is the old Genoese fortress on the hill in the middle of the town.

The Municipality of Míthymna stretches eastward from the town along the northern part of the island; it is the island's smallest municipality in land area at 50.166 km², and the second-smallest in the prefecture (after Ágios Efstrátios). Its population was 2,433 at the 2001 census. The next largest towns in the municipality are Árgennos (pop. 240) and Sykaminéa (207).

As Methymna, the city was once the prosperous second city of Lemnos, with a founding myth that identified an eponymous Methymna (Greek: Μήθυμνα), the daughter of Macar and married to the personification of Lesbos; this mythologized social geography appears on the city's coinage [1].) In the Peloponnesian War, Methymna played an important role (Thucydides, III, ii, 18; vi, 85; vii, 57; Xenophon, Hellen., I, vi, 14). The poets praised the excellent wine of Methymna (Virgil, Georgics, II, 90; Ovid, Ars Amatoria, I, 57; Horace, Satire II, 8, 50; Odes, I, 17, 21). Methymna was the birthplace of the legendary poet Arion and probably also of the historian Myrsilus. Here was the shrine of the hero Palamedes, mentioned in the early third-century AD Life of Apollonius of Tyana (book v.13).

As a Christian city, Methymna was the seat of a bishop. In 640, Methymna was mentioned in the Ecthesis, pseudographically attributed to Epiphanius of Salamis, as an autocephalous archdiocese, and around 1084, it was made a metropolitan see under Alexius I Comnenus. The Fourth Crusade brought Latin control, on the strength of which the Roman Catholic Church maintains a purely titular see of Methymna; there were 40 Roman Catholics in 1908. (CE)

The fortress was probably constructed after the mid-13th century, as a defense against Franks and Turks alike.

The Ottomans took the city in 1462. As Molivo under the Ottoman Empire, the city was a kaza of the sanjak of Metelin in the vilayet of Rhodes. After the defeat of the Ottomans in the First Balkan War (1913), Greece annexed Lesbos in 1914.

• Official website (English) (German) (Greek)
• http://lesvos.com/molyvos.html
• Methymna Fortress
• Ancient coinage of Lesbos: Metthymna
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Methymna (cited as CE)

• Mapquest - Mithymna, street map not yet available
• Coordinates: 39°10′25″N, 26°22′0″E

• Communities of the Lesbos prefecture