DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.748#0081
66 ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE.
daily of portions of its sculptured decoration, by the present
excavations, may add somewhat to our knowledge of the
development of the Doric style and of the early Greek stone-
carving, which stood in undeniable relationship to the artistic
spirit and methods of Mesopotamia.
The Southern Troad, once occupied by Leleges and Thra-
cian Mysians, may be considered as sharing in some degree
the aspirations and advance of the ethnographically allied
Hellenic race. It was wholly and forever united to those
interests by the jEolic colonization of Assos. In the latter
half of the eleventh century the yEolian Greeks possessed the
neighboring islands of Lesbos, Tenedos, and the Hecaton-
nesi. The commanding site of Assos, famed for its strategic
and commercial advantages, appears to have been occupied
by them about the same time.
It is not strange that the Greek settlers of Assos should
have been reputed a colony of Methymna,1 close as is the
intercourse which the city is destined by nature to maintain
with that opposite port. Methymna, the home of Arion, and
at one period the chief city of Lesbos, retained in its name a
reminiscence of the Ionian colonization of the island, which
had preceded that of the ^Eolians. It is the site upon the
northern coast of Lesbos, naturally corresponding to the
Acropolis of Assos in the Troad ; and, as offering similar
advantages, must have been occupied from the earliest ages.
The strait which separates the island from the continent is
only ten kilometres broad, the distance between Methymna
and Assos less than twenty. On calm days the passage is
often made by row-boat; the winds prevalent during the
greater part of the year, though heavy, are regular, and sel-
dom raise a dangerous sea in so confined a channel.
1 Myrsilos, quoted by Strabo, xiii. 610.
daily of portions of its sculptured decoration, by the present
excavations, may add somewhat to our knowledge of the
development of the Doric style and of the early Greek stone-
carving, which stood in undeniable relationship to the artistic
spirit and methods of Mesopotamia.
The Southern Troad, once occupied by Leleges and Thra-
cian Mysians, may be considered as sharing in some degree
the aspirations and advance of the ethnographically allied
Hellenic race. It was wholly and forever united to those
interests by the jEolic colonization of Assos. In the latter
half of the eleventh century the yEolian Greeks possessed the
neighboring islands of Lesbos, Tenedos, and the Hecaton-
nesi. The commanding site of Assos, famed for its strategic
and commercial advantages, appears to have been occupied
by them about the same time.
It is not strange that the Greek settlers of Assos should
have been reputed a colony of Methymna,1 close as is the
intercourse which the city is destined by nature to maintain
with that opposite port. Methymna, the home of Arion, and
at one period the chief city of Lesbos, retained in its name a
reminiscence of the Ionian colonization of the island, which
had preceded that of the ^Eolians. It is the site upon the
northern coast of Lesbos, naturally corresponding to the
Acropolis of Assos in the Troad ; and, as offering similar
advantages, must have been occupied from the earliest ages.
The strait which separates the island from the continent is
only ten kilometres broad, the distance between Methymna
and Assos less than twenty. On calm days the passage is
often made by row-boat; the winds prevalent during the
greater part of the year, though heavy, are regular, and sel-
dom raise a dangerous sea in so confined a channel.
1 Myrsilos, quoted by Strabo, xiii. 610.