Lemnos

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Herodotus, which provided the Athenian general Miltiades with a pretext for his conquest of the island.

The walled city of Poliokhni, dated to the beginning of the third millennium B.C., belonged to the same pre-Greek culture as Troy and Thermoi (on Lésbos). The first Greeks came to Lemnos about 800 B.C., but a century later gave way to the Tyrsenoi from Asia Minor, whose language, on the evidence of inscriptions found at Kamínia, was related to Etruscan. This provides some support for the theory, first put forward by Herodotus, that the Etruscans originally came from the region of Lydia in Asia Minor. The island was resettled by Greeks after the Athenian conquest at the end of the sixth century B.C. It was celebrated for the cult of Hephaistos, centered on an "earth fire" near the city of Hephaisteia in the north of the island. In the A.D. fourth century Hephaisteia became the see of a bishop, but the bishopric was later transferred to Myrina on the west coast. After the fourth Crusade the island was occupied by the Venetians. A hundred years later it was recovered by the Byzantines, and was then granted to the Gattelusi family of Lésbos as a fief. It was held by the Turks from 1479 to 1912. During the Orlov rising of 1770 it became a Russian naval base. In WWI, Moúdros Bay was the Royal Navy's base during the Gallipoli campaign.

An airfield is located 25 km/15 mi northeast of Myrina and the island is also serviced by boat.