Island
Leuce
Koufonissi
Listen to the story
Leuce sits as a name above a small island, but most of it has faded: only a final e can still be read with confidence, and older copies give the full name. The Roman writer Pliny places an island called Leuce southeast of Crete, where it is identified with Koufonissi. Yet the spot on the map seems to fit better with his Leucae, five small islands and a few reefs off the northeast coast of Lesbos, whose southern islets are still known as the white islands. One older copy even drew two further islands beside it, one labelled Lemnos, of which no trace survives.