Lesbos or Lesvos is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of 1,633 km2, with approximately 400 km of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece and the eig
Mytilene
Coin of Lesbos under the Achaemenid Empire, c. 510–480 BC
Sappho listens as the poet Alcaeus plays a kithara. (Painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1881)
View of the Roman aqueduct
Hayreddin Barbarossa, also known as Hayreddin Pasha, Hızır Hayrettin Pasha, and simply Hızır Reis, was an Ottoman corsair and later admiral of the Ottoman Navy. Barbarossa's naval victories secured Ot
Lesbos
…from Rumelia and Anatolia, and encouraged his Janissaries to settle there and take local wives. Among them was Yakub, the father of the pirate admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa. Named Midilli (مدللى) after its capital, Mytilene, the island became a sanjak (province) of the Eyalet of Rumelia, and after 1534 of the Eyalet of the…
A portrait of Hayreddin Barbarossa
Admiral of the fleet Hayreddin Barbarossa, engraving by Agostino Veneziano (c. 1490 – c. 1540)
Western depiction of Hayreddin Barbarossa. His trident is meant as an allegory of sea-power. (Anon, 16th century).
Bird's-eye view of Algiers in the 16th century, showing the Peñón attached to the city by a dam.