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One of the five city-states of ancient Lesvos, Eressos, is believed to have taken its name from Eressus, the son of the mythical colonizer of the island, Makarea.

Ancient Eressos was built around the 11th to 9th century BC by settlers of Achaeans or Aeolians. According to the historian and geographer Strabo, the ancient city was built on and around the "Mastos peri kymonas". It is a hill that today is called Vigla.

The city experienced a lot of wealth as it was a great commercial and naval center and its products, figs, wheat, wine and bread, which were very nice, even reached Egypt. Apart from trade and shipping, the inhabitants of Eressos were also engaged in the cultivation of the land, while in its first coins, the emblem was the ear.

Important personalities of ancient Eressos were Sappho, who was born around 617-612 BC and is one of the most important poets of the ancient world and Theophrastus born in 400 BC, a student of Aristotle, a philosopher and father of botany.

Eressos was conquered in 540 BC by the Persians and in 377 BC it became a member of the Second Athenian Alliance. The following years were characterized by political instability, until the Roman era, when the city flourished.

During the Byzantine period, the islands of the eastern Aegean (including Lesvos) due to the weakening of the Byzantine Empire (especially after 1200 AD) were exposed to looting by Saracen pirates, Turks and Venetians. During this period Eressos was plundered many times.

In 1355 emperor John V Palaiologos ceded Lesvos as a dowry to the Genoese Francis Gatteluzo, who married the emperor's sister Maria. The purpose of the surrender of the island was to have a force that would protect the island from the various forces that threatened it and above all to keep the Turks away. The Gattelouzoi dominated the island until 1462, the year when Lesvos fell into the hands of the Ottoman Empire. During the rule of the Gotelouzoi, Eressos experienced great prosperity while ruins of the castle they built can still be seen today by the visitor on the hill of Vigla.

Eressos was moved in the 17th century AD to a place hidden among mountains and sheltered from pirates who threshed the seas, four kilometers north of the beach. In this location remains to this day.

On May 27, 1821, in the sea area of Eressos, Dimitrios Papanikolis blew up a Turkish warship, the legendary ''Fermadignemez''.

The liberation took place in 1912, the year in which Lesvos was incorporated into the national body.

Sources: Association of Philologists N. Lesvos, History of Lesvos, Mytilene 2006 (VII edition).