2008-07-25, 07:11 PM
Acim Wrote:Just lol. People are stupid, sometimes. And why the hell is the island named Lesbos?
The second paragraph might answer some of it.
Quote:Les·bos (lĕz'bŏs, -bōs) also Lés·vos (-vôs)
An island of eastern Greece in the Aegean Sea near the northwest coast of Turkey. An important Aeolian settlement, Lesbos was noted for its lyric poets, including Sappho, in the seventh century B.C. After occupation by various powers, the island was annexed by Greece in 1913.
According to Classical Greek mythology, Lesbos was the patron god of the island. Macar is reputed as being the first king whose many "daughters" bequeathed their names to some of the present larger towns. In Classical myth his "sister", Canace, was killed to have him made king. The place names with female origins are likely to be much earlier settlements named after local goddesses, who were replaced by gods. Homer refers to the island as "Macaros edos", the seat of Macar. Hittite records from the Late Bronze Age name the island Lazpas and must have considered its population significant enough to allow the residents to "borrow their gods" (presumably idols) to cure of their king when the local gods were not forthcoming. It is believed that emigrants from mainland Greece, mainly from Thessaly, entered the island in the Late Bronze Age and bequeathed it with the Aeolic dialect of the Greek language, whose written form survives in the poems of Sappho, amongst others.