The story is repeated of Dionysus; he is torn in pieces, and his head is carried down to Lesbos.
It is possible that the floating of the head of Orpheus to Lesbos has reference to the fact that the island was the first home of lyric poetry, and may be symbolical of the route taken by the Aeolian emigrants from Thessaly on their way to their new home in Asia Minor.
The German Archaeological Institute, founded in 1874, has carried out excavations at Thebes, Lesbos, Paros, Athens and elsewhere; it has also been associated in the great researches at Olympia, Pergamum and Troy, and in many other important undertakings.
Chios, Lesbos and Samos alone furnished ships; all the rest had commuted for a money payment.
Even though we admit that Chios, Lesbos and Samos (up to 440) retained their oligarchic governments and that Selymbria, at a time (409 B.C.) when the empire was in extremis, was permitted to choose its own constitution, there can be no doubt that, from whatever motive and with whatever result, Athens did exercise over many of her allies an authority which extended to the most intimate concerns of local administration.
