Lemnos

Lemnos was a large island in the Thracian Sea (northern Aegean).

The island was famous in Greek myth because the Lemnian women ruled the island. At the time, Thoas ruled it. Thoas was the son of the wine-god Dionysus and Ariadne, daughter of Minos. The Lemnian women were punished by Aphrodite for not worshipping her. She made it so the Lemnian women gave off such a strong odour that their husbands sought female companionship from Thrace. When the Lemnian women discovered their husbands' infidelity, they murdered the entire male population of Lemnos and the Thracian women. Only Thoas had somehow escaped, with his daughter's help.

When the Argonauts arrived in Lemnos, at first the women were fearful that the heroes were Thracians who came to punish them for the murders. When the Lemnian women realised the Argonauts were not from Thrace, the women invited them to their homes, and the women entertained the heroes. Each woman became pregnant with a child or two, to one of the heroes. Hypsipyle, queen of Lemnos, became mother by Jason of Euneüs and Nebrophonus.

Lemnos was also the island on which the Greek leaders abandoned Philoctetes, because he was bitten by a water-snake, and because the venom made his injury smell so bad. According to Apollodorus, Philoctetes was bitten in Tenedos while sacrificing to Apollo, but they left Philoctetes on Lemnos afterward. Philoctetes was the owner of the bow of Heracles. The Greek leaders heard one of the prophecies about Troy, that Troy couldn't be taken without the Bow of Heracles. So Odysseus together with Neoptolemus had to entice Philoctetes to rejoin the Greek army.