POIKILASION
(Voukoliasi) Greece.
Small
city in the Sphakia district on the S coast of W Crete,
E of Syia and W of Tarrha. On a small bay cut off from
the interior by the White Mountains, it is barely accessible except by sea and has little agricultural land. Little
is known of its history; in the 3d c. B.C. it was a member
of the league of Oreioi, and its gods are mentioned in
the league's treaty with Magas of Kyrene (see Lisos). It
is mentioned only by Ptolemy (3.15.3: site wrongly placed
E of Tarrha) and a coastal pilot (
Stadiasmus 330:
Poikilassos, a city with an anchorage and water). No
coins can definitely be ascribed to it, and it may never
have been an independent city. A Temple of Serapis was
consecrated or reconsecrated in the 3d c. A.D.
A few remains of houses survive on ancient terraces
on the inland side of the valley at the mouth of the
Tripiti gorge, about 1.6 km from the sea; there is now
no safe anchorage, but if the relative sea level was some
6 m higher in antiquity there would have been at least
a sheltered creek at the river mouth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Pashley,
Travels in Crete II (1837;
repr. 1970) 263-64; T.A.B. Spratt,
Travels and Researches
in Crete II (1865) 244-46; G. De Sanctis,
MonAnt 11
(1901) 513-15; J.D.S. Pendlebury,
Archaeology of Crete
(1939) 371; M. Guarducci,
ICr II (1939) 230-32; E.
Kirsten, “Orioi,”
RE xvIII, 1 (1942) 1063-65; id., “Poikilasion” & “Poikilassos,” ibid. XXI, 1 (1951) 1191; H. van Effenterre,
La Crète et le monde grec de Platon à Polybe (1948) 120-26; S. G. Spanakis,
Kriti II (nd.)
303-4.
D. J. BLACKMAN
