Hellenistic and Roman Periods

With the end of the Peloponnesian War in 401 BC, the island passed to the authority of Sparta and the Athenians left, to return in 387 BC, when they regained power. In the ensuing years, Lemnos was attacked and plundered many times. It became a bone of contention between Athenians, Macedonians, the king of Thrace Lysimachos, and the Successors to Alexander the Great (336-166 BC).

According to the ancient historian Diodorus Siculus (19, 68.3), in 314/313 BC, Myrina was besieged unsuccessfully by 20 ships of the forces of the Macedonian monarch Kassander, led by Admiral Aristotle, in their attempt to recapture the city because it had allied with Antigonos I Monophthalmos. The siege is confirmed also by the sling-shots that have been found on the slopes of the kastro, which are incised with the name ΔΙΟΝΥ, an abbreviation associated with Dionysos of Mounichia. As noted by the ancient authors Polybius and Livy (XVIII, 44.4, 48.2 / XXVIII, 5,1 ), until the liberation of Myrina from Macedonian rule in 196 BC, when Philip V was vanquished by the Romans, there was a Macedonian garrison in the city. The Romans granted Lemnos its freedom, on condition that they would keep a Roman garrison on the island. In 188 BC, the Romans returned it to the Macedonians and finally, in 167/6 BC, they left the administration to the Athenians, until the end of the second century AD.

For Lemnos the Roman period was a time of peace, calm and cultural heyday, which continued even when the Empire was later divided and Lemnos became part of the Eastern Roman State. The physician Galen visited Myrina in AD 167 and notes that it was enjoying a period of prosperity.

Archaeological remains from Roman times are visible at various points in the modern city of Myrina. It is suspected that there are some in the area of the kastro, such as cisterns, but this remains to be documented after study and excavation.

Several foreign travellers identified and mentioned remains-testimonies of the ancient past. The German archaeologist Carl Fredrich, during his visit to the castle in 1904, had observed in the fortifications repairs and renovations from Hellenistic, Roman and later times, as well as marble spolia built into the fabric of the walls. The British historian Sealy, when he visited the castle in 1918, saw close to its top many marble spolia, among them two marble columns, each 0.30 m in diameter and 3 m long, column bases and marble plaques, incorporated both in the floor and the walls. Pieces of columns were observed also by the British traveller Tozer, who had come to the castle in 1889 and stresses that these, together with a marble sarcophagus, were the only interesting objects he had seen there.

It is worth mentioning that a marble head of a child statue, of Roman times, now in the Archaeological Museum of Myrina, was found in the vicinity of the kastro.