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[593] Lemnos was sacred to Hephaistos on account of what was called the ‘Lemnian Fire’ on Mount Mosychlos. This is commonly taken to mean that Mosychlos was a volcano. But the present state of the island forbids the assumption of volcanic agency, and the fire was probably only a jet of natural gas, such as may have existed for a time and then disappeared. (See de Launay in Rev. Arch. for 1895, pp. 304-25. For the references to the Lemnian Fire see Jebb on Soph. Phil. 800, and pp. 242-5. The supposed disappearance of the ‘volcano’ Mosychlos is geologically untenable.) The “Σίντιες” are named as inhabitants of the island by Hellanikos fr. 112, while Thuk. ii. 98, 1 speaks of the “Σίντοι” as a tribe on the coast of Thrace. What their connexion may have been with the ‘Pelasgian’ inhabitants of Lemnos expelled by Miltiades about 500 B.C., or with the authors of the (Etruscan?) inscription recently discovered on the island, we naturally cannot say.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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  • Commentary references from this page (2):
    • Sophocles, Philoctetes, 800
    • Thucydides, Histories, 2.98.1
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