MARATHI
(“Minoa”) Kydonia district, Crete.
A small harbor town near Sternes on SE side of Akrotin peninsula, N side of entrance to Suda Bay, opposite
Aptera. It is generally thought to have been the second
port of Aptera, but from the 3d c. at least it was controlled by Kydonia. It may once have been independent,
but since no coins are known, it was probably no longer
so by the 4th c. It is mentioned only by geographers
(Plin.
HN 4.12.59; Ptol. 3.15.5;
Stad. 344).
Remains have been excavated (1939) of a building
with 12 rooms, a cistern, and a well (1st-2d c. A.D.)
behind a shore embankment and promenade, incorporating much reused material, which run for a further 60 m
to the W, with traces of other buildings on the landward
side. This is only part of a larger settlement occupying
at least the E half of the Marathi valley, and supplied
with water by an open aqueduct. Pre-Roman settlement
is shown by the reused material. In the hillside bordering
the plain on the N, by the rock shelter of Marathospilio, was an important open-air sanctuary (of Diktynna?) from at least archaic to Roman times (Faure).
An alternative location was suggested by Spratt:
Limni, S of Sternes, where on the peninsula enclosing
from the S a shallow, almost circular bay there are
houses, Classical-Roman sherds and tombs of the Roman
period; on the ridge above to the E is a circular tower
(lighthouse or watch-tower) of Classical date, connected
to the shore by a fortified road 500 m long. A small fishing settlement and probably dependent on the Marathi
site, it may possibly have been early Minoa. But it may
first have been made into a harbor by the Venetians
(Porto Nuovo, 1594).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Pashley,
Travels in Crete I (1837,
repr. 1970) 42-53; T.A.B. Spratt,
Travels and Researches
in Crete II (1865) 130-31; Fiehn, “Minoa (4)”
RE XV.2
(1932) 1858; M. Guarducci,
RivFC NS 14 (1936) 158-62; id.,
ICr II (1939) 10-11; V. D. Theophanidis,
ArchEph 89-90
Chronika (1950-51) 1-13
PI; P. Faure,
Fonctions des cavernes crétoises (1964) 186-87.
D. J. BLACKMAN
