|
Polyrrhenia
Polyrrhenia or Polyrrenia ( grc, Πολυρρηνία; modern el, Πολυρρηνία, Polyrrinia), Polyrrhen or Polyrren (Πολύρρην) or Polyren (Πολύρην), or Pollyrrhenia or Pollyrrenia (Πολλύρρηνα),''Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax'', p. 18 or Polyrrenion (Πολυρρήνιον) or Polyrrhenium, was a town and ''polis'' (city-state) in the northwest of ancient Crete, whose territory occupied the whole western extremity of the island, extending from north to south. It was an important Archaic Period settlement co-temporaneous with Lato and Prinias. Strabo describes it as lying west of Cydonia, at the distance of 30 stadia from the sea, and 60 from Phalasarna, and as containing a temple of Dictynna. He adds that the Polyrrhenians formerly dwelt in villages, and that they were collected into one place by the Achaeans and Lacedaemonians, who built a strong city looking towards the south. In the civil wars in Crete in the time of the Achaean League, 219 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kissamos
Kissamos ( el, Κίσσαμος) is a town and a municipality in the west of the island of Crete, Greece. It is part of the Chania regional unit and of the former Kissamos Province which covers the northwest corner of the island. The town of Kissamos is also known as Kastelli Kissamou and often known simply as Kastelli after the Venetian castle that was there. It is now a port and fishing harbour, with a regular ferry from the Peloponnese via Kythira. A town museum is located in the old Venetian governor's palace and there have been important archaeological finds in the town, including fine mosaics, dating from the Roman city of Kisamos (, Latinized as Cisamus). The head town of the municipality () is Kastelli-Kissamos itself. History Strabo said that ancient Cisamus was dependent on Aptera and was its naval arsenal. The Peutinger Table distinguishes two port towns in Crete called Cisamus, Modern Kissamos (at 35°29′38″N 23°39′25″E) is much further west than whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyttian War
The Lyttian War was an internal conflict fought from around 220 BC to about 216 BC between two coalitions of Cretan city-states, led by Cnossus and Polyrrhenia respectively. The events of the war are recorded by the historian Polybius. It is considered "the greatest war in Cretan history" during Antiquity. Prelude The prelude to the conflict in Crete was the commercial war between the cities of Rhodes and Byzantium about the toll introduced by the Byzantines for all ships passing through the Bosporus on their way to the Pontus Euxinus. Posing a huge threat to Hellenistic trade, the conflict was ended in 220 BC with a compromise. Outbreak Meanwhile in Crete the allied cities of Cnossus and Gortys had gained control of the whole island, except for the Spartan colony of Lyttos which alone resisted. When the Rhodian navarch Polemocles returned from the war against Byzantium, the Cnossians thought that he could be helpful to their efforts against Lyttos. So they asked the Rhodians ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cisamus
Detail of a Roman mosaic found at Cisamus Statue of emperor Hadrian from Cisamus Cisamus or Kisamos ( grc, Κίσαμος) was town of ancient Crete. It appears as one of two towns of the name in the Peutinger Table 32 M.P. to the west of Cydonia. The name appears as Cisamum in Pliny the Elder. Its site is located under modern Kastelli-Kissamou, where travelers in the 19th century observed 14 or 15 fragments of shafts of marble and granite columns, an Ionic capital, and remains of walls, indicating that there once existed upon this site a flourishing and important city. The town was one of the two harbours of Polyrrhenia Polyrrhenia or Polyrrenia ( grc, Πολυρρηνία; modern el, Πολυρρηνία, Polyrrinia), Polyrrhen or Polyrren (Πολύρρην) or Polyren (Πολύρην), or Pollyrrhenia or Pollyrrenia (Πολλύρρηνα),''Periplus of Pseudo- .... The other harbour was Phalasarna. In 69–67 BC the latter city was destroyed by the Romans and Cisamus beca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phalasarna
Phalasarna or Falasarna ( grc, Φαλάσαρνα) is a Greek harbour town at the west end of Crete that flourished during the Hellenistic period. The currently visible remains of the city include several imposing sandstone towers and bastions, with hundreds of meters of fortification walls protecting the town, and a closed harbor, meaning it is protected on all sides by city walls. The harbor is ringed by stone quays with mooring stones, and connected to the sea through two artificial channels. Notable finds in the harbor area include public roads, wells, warehouses, an altar, and baths. Most of these structures were revealed by excavations that began in 1986. The acropolis is built on a cape that rises 90 meters above the harbor and juts into the sea. The acropolis has many remains, including a temple dedicated to goddess Dictynna, fortification towers, cisterns, wells, and watchtowers that could have been used to guard sea routes. Today Phalasarna is an agricultural area an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cnossus
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city. Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the name Knossos survives from ancient Greek references to the major city of Crete. The palace of Knossos eventually became the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace was abandoned at some unknown time at the end of the Late Bronze Age, c. 1380–1100 BC; the reason is unknown, but one of the many disasters that befell the palace is generally put forward. In the First Palace Period (around 2000 BC), the urban area reached a size of as many as 18,000 people. Spelling The name Knossos was formerly Latinized as Cnossus or Cnossos and occasionally Knossus, Gnossus, or Gnossos but is now almost always written Knossos. Neolithic period The site of Knossos has had a very long history of human habitation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 devastated by the Thera eruption, Crete developed an Ancient Greece-influenced organization of city-states, then successively became part of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Venetian Republic, the Ottoman Empire, an autonomous state, and the modern state of Greece. Prehistoric Crete In 2002, the paleontologist Gerard Gierlinski discovered what he claimed were fossil footprints left by ancient human relatives 5,600,000 years ago, but the claim is controversial. Excavations in South Crete in 2008–2009 revealed stone tools at least 130,000 years old. This was a sensational discovery, as the previously accepted earliest sea crossing in the Mediterranean was thought to occur around 12,000 BC. The stone tools found in the ''Pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prinias
Prinias (ancient Rizinia) is an archaeological site in Crete that has revealed a seventh-century BCE temple with striking similarities to ancient Egyptian architecture, including an Egyptianised seated goddess. It is southwest of Iraklion, about halfway between Gortyn and Knossos. Above the site is a peak sanctuary, a sub-Minoan survival. Prinias developed at a similar time frame with Lato and Polyrrhenia as an Archaic Period settlement, colonised by Greeks from the mainland. The site contains vestiges of "the first stone buildings since the fall of the Mycenaean kingdoms". Temple A, dated to around 625 BCE, is the earliest known Greek temple decorated with sculpture. Although its plan follows the Mycenaean model, the building had a flat roof and three massive piers on the façade. The most remarkable surviving detail is a limestone lintel bearing two monumental statues of goddesses, seated facing each other. The figures, whose identification is disputed, each wear a long skirt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kydonia
Kydonia or Cydonia (; grc, Κυδωνία; lat, Cydonia) was an ancient city-state on the northwest coast of the island of Crete. It is at the site of the modern-day Greek city of Chania. In legend Cydonia was founded by King Cydon (), a son of Hermes or Apollo and of Akakallis, the daughter of King Minos. According to Pausanias he was son of king Tegeates. Diodorus Siculus mentions that the city was founded by King Minos. The editors of the '' Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World'' suggest that the city also bore the name Apollonia ( grc, Ἀπολλωνία). Prehistoric period The name of the city is first mentioned in Linear B tablets from Knossos (ku-do-ni-ja). At Kastelli hill, which is the citadel of Chania's harbor, archaeological excavations have discovered ceramic sherds, which date back to Neolithic era. Scarce finds such as walls and ground floors confirm that the systematic habitation of the hill began during Early Minoan (EM) II period. A Minoa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knossos
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city. Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the name Knossos survives from ancient Greek references to the major city of Crete. The palace of Knossos eventually became the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace was abandoned at some unknown time at the end of the Late Bronze Age, c. 1380–1100 BC; the reason is unknown, but one of the many disasters that befell the palace is generally put forward. In the First Palace Period (around 2000 BC), the urban area reached a size of as many as 18,000 people. Spelling The name Knossos was formerly Latinized as Cnossus or Cnossos and occasionally Knossus, Gnossus, or Gnossos but is now almost always written Knossos. Neolithic period The site of Knossos has had a very long history of human habitation b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dictynna
Britomartis (; grc-gre, Βριτόμαρτις) was a Greek goddess of mountains and hunting, who was primarily worshipped on the island of Crete. She was sometimes believed to be an oread, or a mountain nymph, but she was often conflated or syncretized with Artemis and Aphaea, the "invisible" patroness of Aegina. She is also known as Dictynna (Δίκτυννα; derived by Hellenistic writers as from δίκτυα 'diktya'' "hunting nets"). Many writers have related her to the presumed mother goddess of much earlier Minoan religion; however, there is no evidence from archaeology for this. In the 16th century, the naming of a character identified with English military prowess as "Britomart" in Edmund Spenser's knightly epic ''The Faerie Queene'' (probably just because "Brit" seemed to fit well with "Britain", with "mart" from Mars, the god of war) led to a number of appearances by "Britomart" figures in British art and literature. Etymology According to Solinus, the name 'Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macedon
Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal Argead dynasty, which was followed by the Antipatrid and Antigonid dynasties. Home to the ancient Macedonians, the earliest kingdom was centered on the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula,. and bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south. Before the 4th century BC, Macedonia was a small kingdom outside of the area dominated by the great city-states of Athens, Sparta and Thebes, and briefly subordinate to Achaemenid Persia. During the reign of the Argead king PhilipII (359–336 BC), Macedonia subdued mainland Greece and the Thracian Odrysian kingdom through conquest and diplomacy. With a reformed army containing phalanxes wielding the '' sarissa'' pi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Crete
Crete and Cyrenaica ( la, Provincia Creta et Cyrenaica, Ancient Greek ) was a senatorial province of the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire, established in 67 BC. It comprised the island of Crete and the region of Cyrenaica in present-day Libya. Apion's will and Roman rule of Cyrenaica Ptolemy Apion, the last king of the Hellenistic Kingdom of Cyrenaica left his kingdom to the Roman Republic when he died childless in 96 BC. Rome readily accepted this inheritance from Ptolemy Apion but preferred to leave the administration to local rulers, rather than enforcing direct control. However, by the 70s BC, civil uprisings by Jewish settlers began to destabilise the province and the Senate was forced to take action. In 74 BC, they sent a low level official, the quaestor Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, to officially annex Cyrenaica as a Roman province and restore order. That the Senate sent such a low-ranking official indicates the political difficulty the Republic had in govern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Kissamos")
