EILE´SIUM(Εἰλέσιον), a town of Boeotia, of uncertain site, mentioned by Homer, the name of which, according to Strabo, indicates a marshy position. (Hom. Il. 2.499; Strab. 9. p. 406; Steph. B. s v.;Leake, Northern Greece, vol. 2. p. 469.)
EÏON.
1. （Ἠϊών: Eth. Ἠϊωνεύς, Steph. B.), a town and fortress situated at the mouth of the Strymon, 25 stadia from Amphipolis, of which it was the harbour. (Thuc. 4.102.) Xerxes, on his return after the defeat at Salamis, sailed from Eïon to Asia. (Hdt. 8.118.) The Persian Boges was left in command of the town, which was captured, after a desperate resistance, by the Athenians and their confederates, under Cimon. (Hdt. 7.107; Thuc. 1.98; comp. Paus. 8.8.2.) Brasidas attacked it by land and by boats on the river, but was repulsed by Thucydides, who had come from Thasos with his squadron in time to save it. (Thuc. 4.107.) It was occupied by Cleon; and the remains of his army, after their defeat at Amphipolis, mustered again at Eïon. (Thuc. 5.10.) Extensive ruins of thick walls, constructed of small stones and mortar, among which appear many squared blocks in the Hellenic style, have been found on the left bank of the Strymon beyond the ferry. These ruins belong to the Byzantine period, and have been attributed to a town of the Lower Empire, Κομιτίσση, which the Italians have converted into Contessa. These remains at the ferry stand nearly, if not exactly, on the site of Eïon on the Strymon. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. 3. p. 172.)
2. A town of Pieria. (Steph. B. s. v.;Eustath. ap. Hom. Il. 2. p. 287.)
3. A colony of the Mendaeans, which was betrayed to the Athenians, and retaken by the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, B.C. 425 (Thuc. 4.7); which Eustathius (l. c.) placed in the Chersonesus, but, as this is much too remote for the Chalcidians to have marched thither to recover a town, Arnold ( ap. Thuc. l. c. ) supposed there might have been a fourth Eïon, on some point of the long and winding coast which extends from the Strymon to the Axius. [E.B.J]