Listed 7 sub titles with search on: Ancient literary sources for wider area of: "CHANIA Town CRETE" .
KYDONIA (Ancient city) CHANIA
...Then the Samians took from the men of Hermione, instead of money, the island
Hydrea which is near to the Peloponnesus, and gave it to men of Troezen for safekeeping;
they themselves settled at Cydonia in Crete, though their voyage had been made
with no such intent, but rather to drive Zacynthians out of the island. Here they
stayed and prospered for five years; indeed, the temples now at Cydonia and the
shrine of Dictyna are the Samians' work; but in the sixth year Aeginetans and
Cretans came and defeated them in a sea-fight and made slaves of them; moreover
they cut off the ships' prows, that were shaped like boars' heads, and dedicated
them in the temple of Athena in Aegina. The Aeginetans did this out of a grudge
against the Samians; for previously the Samians, in the days when Amphicrates
was king of Samos, sailing in force against Aegina, had hurt the Aeginetans and
been hurt by them. This was the cause.
POLICHNI (Ancient city) CHANIA
Minos, it is said, went to Sicania, which is now called Sicily, in search for Daedalus, and perished there by a violent death. Presently all the Cretans except the men of Polichne and Praesus were bidden by a god to go with a great host to Sicania.
Commentary: If the men of Polichne and Praisos took no part with Minos, then presumably they were no subjects of his. Polichne was near Kydonia (Kanea) but not on good terms with it (in 429 B.C.); cp. Thuc. 2. 85. 5 (though possibly friends with Gortyn).
KYDONIA (Ancient city) CHANIA
Some say that the Jews were fugitives from the island of Crete, who
settled on the nearest coast of Africa about the time when Saturn was driven from
his throne by the power of Jupiter. Evidence of this is sought in the name. There
is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida; the neighbouring tribe, the Idaei, came
to be called Judaei by a barbarous lengthening of the national name.
City in Crete, founded by Samians, named after Cydon, besieged by Phalaecus.
And neither is Callimachus right, they say, when he says that Britomartis, in her flight from the violence of Minos, leaped from Dicte into fishermen's "nets," and that because of this she herself was called Dictynna by the Cydoniatae, and the mountain Dicte; for Cydonia is not in the neighborhood of these places at all, but lies near the western limits of the island. However, there is a mountain called Tityrus in Cydonia, on which is a temple, not the "Dictaean" temple, but the "Dictynnaean."
Cydonia is situated on the sea, facing Laconia, and is equidistant, about eight hundred stadia, from the two cities Cnossus and Gortyn, and is eighty stadia distant from Aptera, and forty from the sea in that region. The seaport of Aptera is Cisamus. The territory of the Polyrrhenians borders on that of the Cydoniatae towards the west, and the temple of Dictynna is in their territory.
There are several cities in Crete, but the greatest and most famous are three: Cnossus, Gortyna and Cydonia.
For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortys, who was Proxenus of the Athenians,
had persuaded them to sail against Cydonia, promising to procure the reduction
of that hostile town; his real wish being to oblige the Polichnitans, neighbors
of the Cydonians. He accordingly went with the ships to Crete, and, accompanied
by the Polichnitans, laid waste the lands of the Cydonians; and, what with adverse
winds and stress of weather, wasted no little time there. While the Athenians
were thus detained in Crete...
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
