Airai (Ionia)

Airai was a town of ancient Ionia near Erythrae, mentioned by Thucydides as a polis and a member of the Delian League that appears in Athenian tribute records between 454 and 427 BC. In 411 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, the Chians incited Airai and Lebedus, until then Athenian allies, to revolt, and the Athenian commander Diomedon attacked Airai with ten ships but failed to take it. By Strabo's time it had become a small town belonging to Teos. Silver and bronze coins of Airai from the fourth century BC, bearing the inscription of the Airaians, survive.