Of these twelve Æolic towns, it appears that all except Kymê were small and unimportant. Thucydidês, in recapitulating the dependent allies of Athens at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, does not account them worthy of being enumerated.[344] Nor are we authorized to conclude, because they bear the general name of Æolians, that the inhabitants were all of kindred race, though a large proportion of them are said to have been Bœotians, and the feeling of fraternity between Bœotians and Lesbians was maintained throughout the historical times; one etymology of the name is, indeed, founded upon the supposition that they were of miscellaneous origin.[345] We do not hear, moreover, of any considerable poets produced by the Æolic continental towns; in this respect Lesbos stood alone,—an island said to have been the earliest of all the Æolic settlements, anterior even to Kymê. Six towns were originally established in Lesbos,—Mitylêne, Mêthymna, Eresus, Pyrrha, Antissa, and Arisbê: the last-mentioned town was subsequently enslaved and destroyed by the Methymnæans, so that there remained only five towns in all.[346] According to the political subdivision usual in Greece, the island had thus, first six, afterwards five, independent governments, of which, however, Mitylênê, situated in the south-eastern quarter and facing the promontory of Kanê, was by far the first, while Mêthymna, on the north of the island over against Cape Lekton, was the second. Like so many other Grecian colonies, the original city of Mitylênê was founded upon an islet divided from Lesbos by a narrow strait; it was subsequently extended on to Lesbos itself, so that the harbor presented two distinct entrances.[347] [344] Thucyd. ii, 9. [345] Strabo, ix, p. 402; Thucyd. viii, 100; Pseudo-Herodot. Vit. Homer, i. Ἐπεὶ γὰρ ἡ πάλαι Αἰολιῶτις Κύμη ἐκτίζετο, συνῆλθοι ἐν ταύτῳ παντοδαπὰ ἔθνεα Ἑλληνικὰ, καὶ δὴ καὶ ἐκ Μαγνησίας, etc. Etymolog. Magn. v, Αἰολεῖς. [346] Herodot. i, 151; Strabo, xiii, p. 590. [347] Diodor. xiii, 79; Strabo, xiii, p. 617; Thucyd. iii, 6.