Having said so much on the subject of the leading Greek cities of Asia Minor, or rather of some of them, we shall notice, but as briefly as possible, the principal islands adjacent to its shores; and as the space at our disposal compels us to contract our narrative within the closest limits, we shall refer only to _Lesbos_, _Samos_, _Chios_, _Rhodus_, and _Cyprus_. _Crete_, as a matter of fact, is generally attached, geographically, to the continent of Greece, but, in any case, would require a volume to itself that adequate justice should be done to its ancient and modern story. LESBOS, which lay off the coast of Mysia, indeed, about seven miles from Assos, was celebrated in ancient times for its high cultivation of poetry and music, and for the many men of literary eminence it produced. To Lesbos we owe Terpander and Arion of Methymna, Alcæus, and Sappho; and Pittacus, Theophrastus, and Cratippus were also born there. More than one passage in Homer, and especially Il. xx. 544, and Odyss. iv. 342, show that many of the towns in the island had large populations, even in remote times, and owned, also, a considerable extent of territory on the mainland opposite. Lesbos displayed a personal love for freedom, which contrasted well with their kinsmen on the continent; for, though crushed, for a while, by Polycrates of Samos, and submitting, perhaps, wisely, to Harpagus, the general of Cyrus, the Lesbians were among the most active seconders of the revolt of Aristagoras, suffering severely in the end, as did Chios and Tenedos, when the Persians won the day. So, too, at Salamis, they stoutly supported the Greek cause. Their subsequent history was that of most of the islands in the Ægæan. Sometimes they were for, perhaps more often against, Athens; paying often dearly enough for their love of freedom; and being, in the end, chiefly under Athens, which, while strenuously advocating the so-called sacred cause of freedom, took good care to divide their lands among her own citizens. In later days, they struggled against Roman aggrandisement, but, of course, in vain. The Romans, however, do not seem to have treated the island with severity, and, as late as Commodus, we have a coin reading ΚΟΙΝΟΝ Λεσβίων, which implies some amount of self-government. We may mention, incidentally, that, at Lesbos, Julius Cæsar received a civic crown for saving the life of a soldier (Livy, Epit. 87; Sueton. c. 2); that, in A.D. 802, Irene, the Byzantine empress, here ended her strange life; and, that four centuries later, John Palæologus gave Lesbos, as her dowry, to his sister, when about to marry Francis Gateluzio, in whose hands the island remained till overwhelmed by the Turks.