Scyros
Scyros is the easternmost and largest island in the Northern Sporades archipelago, situated in the Aegean Sea, approximately twelve miles from the coast of Euboea. This island holds significant cultural and historical importance in Greek mythology, particularly as the place where Achilles was disguised as a girl by his mother, Thetis, to avoid the Trojan War. However, he was ultimately lured to battle by Odysseus. Scyros is also noted as the upbringing location for Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, and the site of the treacherous death of Theseus, who was pushed off a cliff by King Lycomedes. Archaeological findings indicate that Scyros has been inhabited since the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, with remnants such as ancient tombs and pottery linking it to early Greek civilization. Historically, Scyros faced periods of piracy and conquest, with notable events including its enslavement by the Athenian Cimon in 476 BC and subsequent control by the Macedonians and Romans. The island's capital features a high terrace dominated by an acropolis and retains remnants of a medieval Venetian castle. Additionally, the poet Rupert Brooke, known for his contributions during World War I, is buried near Scyros, adding a layer of modern historical significance to the island.
Scyros
Skyros
The easternmost and largest of the Northern Sporades archipelago in the Aegean, seventeen miles long (with a deeply indented coastline) and twelve miles from the coast of Euboea. It was here, according to Greek mythology, that Achilles, disguised as a girl, was sent by his mother Thetis to the court of Lycomedes, so that he could avoid going to fight in the Trojan War; but Odysseus lured him to Troy, where he eventually met his death. Achilles' son Neoptolemus or Pyrrhus, who had been brought up on Scyros, was also taken to Troy by Odysseus. It was on this island, too, that Lycomedes was said to have killed Theseus king of Athens, who had sought refuge at his court, by treacherously pushing him off a cliff.
Traces of Neolithic and Bronze Age habitation have now been found, and tombs of the tenth, ninth and eighth centuries BC have yielded plentiful jewelery; Scyros was on the fringe of the territory to which the Protogeometric style of pottery, developed at Athens, was able to penetrate. The island also became notorious for its piracy, but in 476 the Athenian Cimon conquered and enslaved its inhabitants, and planted Athenian settlers; he also discovered the alleged bones of Theseus, of heroic dimensions, which he ceremoniously conducted to Athens and installed in the Theseum. In 322 the Macedonians took Scyros from the Athenians, but in 196 their King Philip V was forced by Rome to give it back to them. Strabo comments on the island's valuable goats, and its variegated marble was also prized and exported.
The capital, Scyros, was on the northeast coast, on a high terrace dominated by an acropolis (Castro) which recalls Homer's epithet for the city, `steep,’ and was identified with the cliff from which Theseus was hurled. The substructures of the medieval Venetian castle, and a few sections of the town wall, date from the fifth century BC. (The poet Rupert Brooke, who died off Trebuki Bay on board a French hospital ship, while on his way to fight at Gallipoli in 1915, is buried a mile from the shore.)