This area was first settled in dark preneolithic years. Scattered groups oh hunters and primitive farmers descended from the surrounding, gentle hills, from Panayia to the Fairy stone grottoes of the eastern Mesopetriou range, covered in the virgin vegetation of tall pines, wild olive and thick bushes, to the sea to taste the salty oysters and limpets, whose shells they used to decorate their meagre, stone tombs.
In the course of time, over the years' slow, almost static progression, there appeared an important lonian race the Elopes, who settled in this area around 2000 B.C. later on, the Achean race in the Post Helladic years despite their difficult living conditions, managed to create art forms in clay and used Mycenean spirals and shapes to decorate the primitive goblets, the goat skin bags in the Historical archive of Limni.
During those years the Greek military forces, the Danaoi, appalled by the rape of Helen, formed a united front and sailed with the Achaean leaders to troy.
At this time Euboean affairs were controlled by the long - haired rearguard, the Avantes; many other Euboeans including our neighbouring Kirinthians, with Chalkidean leaders at their bead, sailed past the native Makistio Poseidon of Aiges and his brilliant palaces, praised by Homer.
It was the hour of the town in this area, for Elymnion and Aiges had been founded in ancient times.
Elymnion, whose etymology is still unknown, but known as Nymphiko from the pre-matrial relatinship which took place between Zeus and Hera, took part with the Chalkideans to the fore in the second Euboean colonization, and up on Mount Athos placed one of its colonies, Kleones. Aiges was lauded by Homer as the seat of the Aegean Poseidon and, as Strabo notes later, of the Roman Empire (when the town no longer existed).
An earthquake in 426 B.C. mentioned by Thucydides, destroyed nearby ancient Orovies and may have caused the disappearance of Aiges and Elymnion.
To this day there is confusion about these two towns, and many hold the view that there was an older and later perhaps a newer name: Aiges - Elymnion.
Fifty years ago the local historian N. Bellaros advocated the differentiation of the two towns, but confusion still remains. Homer, Heraclitus, Sophocles, Arsistophanes, Strabo and later, Modern Greek and foreign researchers have referred to the ancient sites in this area.
We learn from them that here the Royal couple Zeus and Hera were worshipped along with the Great Poseidon, Apollo, Aphrodite and Dionysus.
According to some scholars, somewhere near here was Nysa, the lost town and birthplace of that pleasure loving and riotous god.
With the passage of time and the decline of Alexander's Macedonia we learn that Elymnion was subordinated to Istiaia, and then there is silence until Roman times, when mosaic clues from their baths here support the argument for the area's being inhabited, although there is no written evidance except for Strabo's reference to the temple of Poseidon at Aiges.
A little later, in the Early Christian era, and apparently under justinian, an improsing Basilica to the glory of the Life giving Source was erected on the same spot, and still remains a place of worship.
From the rich decoration of the church and other evidence uncovered by three two year archaeological excavations, it has been concluded that Byzantine Elymnion, which was Christian from an early, prospered from the earnings of its powerful fleet.
All this went until in the ninth century A.D. (and possibly under Leo VI the Wise), Algerian corsairs invaded by night, and they, jealous of the wealth and glory of the beautiful little town, destroyed and looted it.
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