LESBOS, SAPPHO, ORIGIN OF LESBIANISM, LESBIANS!

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ORIGIN OF LESBIANISM

Lesbos is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea; its inhabitants are called Lesvonians (rather than Lesbians) or Lesviotians. Lesbos is part of the Lesbos Prefecture. It is the third largest Greek island and the seventh largest in the Mediterranean. It has an area of 1630 km² (630 square miles) with 320 kilometres (230 miles) of coastline.

Its population is approximately 108,000 about a third of which live in the Capitol City, Mytilene, located in the southeastern part of the island. The remaining population is distributed in small towns and villages. The largest towns are Kalloni, Plomari, Ayassos, Eressos, and Molyvos, the ancient Mythymna. Mytilene was founded ca 1050 BC by the family Penthilides who arrived from Thessaly in mainland Greece and ruled the city until the popular revolt (590-580 BC) led by Pittacus .

The word "lesbian" is derived from the island. This developed from the poems of Sappho of Lesbos, in which love between women was celebrated in song. Because of this association, Lesbos has today become a frequent travel destination of lesbians. This is seen with much skepticism from the Lesvonian authorities, and passenger ships were in part earlier denied entry. Today, the heart of the lesbian scene is located in the town of Eressos, the birthplace of Sappho.

Sappho was an Ancient Greek lyric poet said by some to have been born in Eressos on the island of Lesbos. In history and poetry texts, she is most often associated with Mytilene, (now the capital city of Lesbos), which was a major city even in the 7th century BCE, when the island was a significant cultural centre. She was born sometime between 630 BC and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC. The bulk of her poetry is now lost, but her reputation is immense.

Sappho is believed to be the daughter of Scamander and Cleïs and had three brothers. She was married (Attic comedy says to a wealthy merchant, but that is apocryphal), the name of her husband being in dispute. Some translators have interpreted a poem about a girl named Cleïs as being evidence that she had a daughter by that name. It was a common practice of the time to name daughters after grandmothers, so there is some basis for this interpretation. But the actual Aeolic word pais, was more often used to indicate a slave or any young girl, rather than a daughter. In order to avoid misrepresenting the unknowable status of young Cleïs, translator Diane Rayor and others, such as David Campbell, chose to use the more neutral word "child" in their versions of the poem.

Sappho was born into an aristocratic family, which is reflected in the sophistication of her language and the sometimes rarified environments which her verses record. References to dances, festivals, religious rites, military fleets, parading armies, generals, and ladies of the ancient courts abound in her writings. She speaks of time spent in Lydia, one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries of that time. More specifically, Sappho speaks of her friends and happy times among the ladies of Sardis, capital of Lydia, once the home of Croesus and near the gold-rich lands of King Midas.

A violent coup on Lesbos, following a rebellion led by Pittacus, toppled the ruling families from power. For many years, Sappho and other members of the aristocracy, including fellow poet Alcaeus, were exiled. Her poetry speaks bitterly of the mistreatment she suffered during those years. Much of her exile was spent in Syracuse on the island of Sicily. Upon hearing that the famous Sappho would be coming to their city, the people of Syracuse built a statue of her as a form of welcome. Much later, in 581 BC, when Pittacus was no longer in power, she was able to return to her homeland.

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Because some of her love poems were addressed to women, she has long been considered to have homosexual inclinations. The word lesbian itself is derived from the name of the island of Lesbos from which she came. (Her name is also the origin of its much rarer synonym sapphic). The narrators of many of her poems do in fact speak of infatuations and love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) for various women but descriptions of actual physical acts between women are few and subject to debate. Whether these poems are meant to be autobiographical is not known, although elements of other parts of Sappho's life do make appearances in her work, and it would be compatible with her style to have these intimate encounters expressed poetically, as well.

During the Victorian Era, it became the fashion to describe Sappho as the head-mistress of a girl's finishing school. As Page DuBois (among many other experts) points out, this attempt at making Sappho understandable and palatable to the genteel classes of Britain was based more on conservative sensibilities than evidence. In fact, there are no references to teaching, students, academies, or tutors in any of Sappho's admittedly scant collection of surviving works. Nonetheless, the notion that Sappho was in charge of some sort of academy persists.
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