Arsinoe (
Greek: ) was a city of
ancient Crete
The history of Crete goes back to the 7th millennium BC, preceding the ancient Minoan civilization by more than four millennia. The palace-based Minoan civilization was the first civilization in Europe.
After the Minoan civilization was devastat ...
controlled by
Lyctus
Lyctus or Lyttos (Greek: or ), was one of the most considerable cities in ancient Crete, which appears in the Homeric catalogue. Lyttos is now a village in the municipality of Minoa Pediada.
Lyctus in mythology
According to Hesiod, ''Theogo ...
according to the
Stephanus of Byzantium. This town is believed to belong to the
Hellenistic period
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...
. According to some scholars, it was adjacent to (and perhaps overlaying) the older city of
Rhithymna
Rhithymna or Rithymna ( grc, Ῥίθυμνα) or Rhithymnia (Ῥιθυμνία), was a town of ancient Crete, Greece, which is mentioned by Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder as the first town on the north coast to the east of Amphimalla, and is spoken o ...
, but this identification is not really certain.
The city was named after
Arsinoe II of Egypt
Arsinoë II ( grc-koi, Ἀρσινόη, 316 BC – unknown date between July 270 and 260 BC) was a Ptolemaic queen and co-regent of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of ancient Egypt. She was given the Egyptian title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt", making ...
, sister and wife of
Ptolemy Philadelphus. It was under Ptolemaic influence, along with
Itanos city.
Berkelius supposes that an error had crept into the text, and that for we should read . Its identification with
Rhithymna
Rhithymna or Rithymna ( grc, Ῥίθυμνα) or Rhithymnia (Ῥιθυμνία), was a town of ancient Crete, Greece, which is mentioned by Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder as the first town on the north coast to the east of Amphimalla, and is spoken o ...
was first proposed by
Eckhel
Joseph Hilarius Eckhel (13 January 1737 – 16 May 1798) was an Austrian Jesuit priest and numismatist.
Biography
Eckhel was born at Enzersfeld, in Lower Austria.
His father was farm-steward to Count Zinzendorf, and he received his early educ ...
.
Georges Le Rider in 1968 established from numismatic evidence that the city of
Rithymna was refounded at some point in the 3rd Century BCE as Arsinoe. The evidence entails similar series of coins with the names of each city as well as find spots for the Arsinoe coins being in the regions around
Rithymna. The exact refoundation date is less sure but Le Rider puts it in the reign of Ptolemy Philometer.
Roger S. Bagnall
Roger Shaler Bagnall (born August 19, 1947 in Seattle) is an American classical scholar. He was a professor of classics and history at Columbia University from 1974 until 2007, when he took up the position of first Director of the Institute for th ...
notes that this may be the same Arsinoe that appears as a Cretan city in a Magnesian inscription (I. Magn. 21 8) of 200 BCE. Bagnall says that the city of Rithymna reverted to its original name by the time of the Delphic ''Theorodoktoi'' lists of the early 2nd century BCE.
There remains a possibility of another place being the Arsinoe in Crete as per the testimony of Stephanus of Byzantium, noted in Le Rider's article. Getzel M. Cohen suggests some other possible locations.
[Getzel M. Cohen]
''The Hellenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands, and Asia Minor''
(Volume 17 of Hellenistic culture and society). University of California Press, 1995 p132
References
Populated places in ancient Crete
Port settlements in ancient Crete
Hellenistic Crete
Former populated places in Greece
Ptolemaic colonies
{{AncientCrete-geo-stub