[2][3] The municipal unit of Eresos–Antissa contains five other villages: Messotopos, Vatoussa, Chidira, Sigri and Pterounda located in the west and most barren part of the island.

Skala Eresou is a centre for international tourism and is a favorite spot of Greek families, young people as well as gay women.

With its long beautiful beach with dark volcanic sand and its crystal-clear unpolluted water, Skala Eressou was awarded Blue Flag status by the Foundation for Environmental Education.

Stephanus of Byzantium, a lexicographer of the 6th century AD, claimed that the city was named after Eresos, a son of the mythical king of Lesbos, Macar.

[6] In addition, the oldest Greek inscription on the island, which dates to the 6th century BCE, has been found in the hills above Eresos, and is thought to have belonged to a temple.

[7] The remains of defensive towers and large enclosures thought to have had a religious purpose built in the decorative Lesbian polygonal style and located at the edges of Eresian territory suggests a certain degree of wealth and prosperity in the Archaic period.

[17] About 371, Theophrastus, remembered as the "father of botany", was born at Eresos; he spent his entire career at Athens, where he succeeded Aristotle as head of the Peripatetic school.

This family and their descendants remained in power until 336, when Attalus and Parmenion campaigned in the region against the Persians at the behest of Philip II of Macedon.

[23] In spring 334, Alexander the Great invaded Asia Minor, and it is assumed that the cities of Lesbos (including Eresos) went over to the Macedonian forces soon after his victory at the Battle of the Granicus in May 334; again, the tyrants will have been expelled and the Eresian democrats re-installed.

[24] In 333, the admiral Memnon of Rhodes again attacked the island of Lesbos: he seized all the cities except for Mytilene and installed a new pair of tyrants at Eresos, Eurysilaus and Agonippus.

It is unclear what role Eresos played in the Mithridatic Wars against Rome (88-63 BCE) and whether, like Mytilene, it subsequently suffered for its anti-Roman stance following victory over Mithridates VI of Pontus.

[37] A fragmentary inscription indicates that Eresos successfully petitioned Augustus in 12 BCE on an unknown matter, while in c. 7-4 BCE Publius Quinctilius Varus, the Roman senator and friend of Augustus later defeated at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE, may have visited Eresos on his way to Syria and conferred Roman citizenship on one of the city's prominent families.

[38] In addition, numerous funerary epitaphs and other monuments indicate the existence of a permanently resident Roman population form the 1st century BCE onwards.

In the chapter entitled "The Third Whale", Skala Eressou is described as a seaside town with concrete buildings and a beach of coarse grey sand.