Antissa

Antissa (Ancient Greek: Ἄντισσα) was a city of the island Lesbos (Lesvos), near to Cape Sigrium, the western point of Lesbos. The place had a harbour. The ruins found by Richard Pococke at Calas Limneonas, a little NE. of cape Sigri, may be those of Antissa. This place was the birthplace of Terpander, who is said to be the inventor of the seven-stringed lyre. According to the local historian Myrsilus of Methymna, local tradition held that the head of Orpheus had floated south from the Hebros after he was decapitated and floated south to land on the shore of Antissan territory: the spot was marked by a tomb where, according to Myrsilus, the nightingales sang more sweetly than they did elsewhere.

Almost nothing is known about the early history of Antissa. The late 1st century AD writer Herennius Philo claimed that Antissa was named after the homonymous daughter of Macar, the legendary king of Lesbos. An anonymous scholiast commenting on Homer alternatively claimed that the Antissa in question was Macar's wife. Since the practice of positing mythical figures to explain the origins of otherwise unexplained toponyms was common - for example, the same is claimed of Methymna, Mt. Lepetymnos, Mytilene, Eresos and Lesbos itself - this tradition about Macar and a female relative named Antissa only indicates that the Greeks themselves did not know the origin of the name.

An alternative tradition attempted to etymologize Ἄντισσα (Antissa) as ἀντ’ Ἴσσα (ant' Issa), exploiting the meaning 'opposite to' of the Greek preposition ἀντί (anti). Re-dividing toponyms to yield explanations for their origin was a common practice, and in this region we encounter it, for example, in the mythological tradition for Antandros in the Troad. This tradition appears to originate with Myrsilus, a local historian from neighbouring Methymna who wrote in the first half of the 3rd century BCE. He wrote that Antissa was formerly an island, so called because it was 'opposite Issa', which at that time, he claims, was the name of Lesbos. This tradition appears to reflect the situation of Antissa's promontory, which was located on a low rise (elevation ~13 metres) jutting out to sea a short distance from its acropolis. The excavator of Antissa, Winnifred Lamb, noted that subsistence was a problem in the low-lying land between the promontory and the acropolis, and so the tradition may relate to an actual change in the landscape; alternatively, it could be the product of learned speculation.

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