Skyros

Skyros (Σκύρος, ˈs̠ci.ro̞s̠), in some historical contexts Latinized Scyros (Σκῦρος, skŷː.ros), is an island in Greece. It is the southernmost of the Sporades, an archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Around the 2nd millennium BC, the island was known as The Island of the Magnetes; later, it was consecutively known as Pelasgia, Dolopia and finally Skyros. At it is the largest island of the Sporades, and has a population of about 3,000 (in 2011). The municipality Skyros is part of the regional unit of Euboea. Apart from the island Skyros, the municipality consists of the small inhabited island of Skyropoula and a few smaller uninhabited islands. The total area of the municipality is . One account associates the name Skyros with skyron or skiron, meaning "stone debris". The island had a reputation for its decorative stone. File:Skyros Satellite.jpg|Satellite photo of Skyros and [[Skyropoula]] File:Map of Skyros - Bordone Benedetto - 1547.jpg|Map of Skyros by [[Benedetto Bordone]], 1547 According to Greek mythology, Theseus died on Skyros when the local king, Lycomedes, threw him from a cliff. The island is also famous in the myths as the place from where Achilles set sail for Troy after Odysseus discovered him in the court of Lycomedes. Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, was from Skyros (or Scyros, as its name is sometimes transliterated), as told in Book Nineteen of the Iliad (lines 326-327) and in the play by Sophocles, Philoctetes (line 239). A small bay named Achili on the east coast of the island is said to be the place from where Achilles left with the Greeks, or rather where Achilles landed during a squall that befell the Greek fleet following an abortive initial expedition landing astray in Mysia. In 475 BC, according to Thucydides (1.98), Cimon defeated the Dolopians (the original inhabitants) and conquered the entire island. From that date, Athenian settlers colonized it and it became a part of the Athenian Empire. The island lay on the strategic trade route between Attica and the Black Sea (Athens depended on supplies of grain reaching it through the Hellespont).