Philoktitis Cave

Philoctetes’ Cave lies beneath one of Lemnos’ most important archaeological sites, the Kabeirion, in the island’s northeast. It is accessible either from land or sea. This coastal cave, with two entrances, is directly linked to the mythical hero Philoctetes, to whom Heracles entrusted his bow and arrows. According to tradition, Philoctetes was bitten by a venomous snake during the resupply of the Greek fleet on Lemnos before the Trojan expedition. The unbearable pain and the stench of the wound forced his comrades to abandon him in the cave. There, he lived alone for ten years, healed thanks to Lemnian Earth. When an oracle revealed that only with his help and Heracles’ weapons would Troy fall, the Greeks returned to Lemnos to persuade him to take part in the war again—a story that later inspired Sophocles’ tragedy Philoctetes.