DIKTYNNAION
Kisamos district, Crete.
Temple of Diktynna on E side of what was the Tityros
peninsula in antiquity, 4 km SE of Cape Spatha (ancient
Psakon). On N side of Menies Bay a sheer cliff provides a sheltered anchorage; on SW side is a small coastal
plain at the mouth of two streams which join just above;
on S side a short peninsula, 20 m high, projects N, with
two descending flat terraces. On the lower N terrace is
the main temple of Diktynna.
The site is clearly identified (
Stad. 340-42 and inscriptions). Herodotos (
3.59) ascribes the building of the
temple to the Samians at Kydonia (ca. 524-519), but it
was probably not the first temple. The site was probably
controlled originally by Kydonia (but see Skylax 47),
probably by Polyrrhenia in early 3d c. (cf.
ICr II. 131-3
no. 1), certainly by Kydonia in the 2d-early 1st c., and by
Polyrrhenia after the Roman conquest of Kydonia (69
B.C.). This was the scene of the miraculous passing of
Apollonios of Tyana (1st c. A.D.: Philostr.
VA 8.30). The
site is otherwise mentioned only by geographers (Skylax
47;
Strab. 10.4.12,13; Pompon. Mela, 2.113; Ptol. 3.15.5;
Rav. Cosm. 5.21). Possible civic status (and issue of
coins) in the Roman period is a matter of dispute.
The sanctuary seems to have flourished especially under Hadrian and his successors, when the road down the
peninsula to the sanctuary was built or rebuilt (it can
be traced still in places along the peninsula, 6 m wide,
and winding down to Menies with concrete terrace
walls). The work was financed from the temple treasury,
as were other public works in Crete in the 2d c. (an
indication of its wealth). To the Hadrianic period, and
perhaps connected with an imperial visit to Crete, belongs
the temple of which scanty remains have been found
(1942): amphiprostyle (14 x less than 33.50 m: Welter
& Jantzen; 9.17 x 27.80 m: Faure) and apparently of
rather hurried workmanship, with an altar to the SW,
it stood in a paved courtyard surrounded on the three
seaward sides by stoas resting on the retaining walls of
the terrace (55 x 50 m), and on the SW side by the
higher terrace, approached by steps, on which lies a row
of four massive cisterns (20.10 x 11.75 m overall). Pieces
of a Doric peripteral temple, apparently planned in the
Augustan period but not erected, were reused in the
Hadrianic temple; the terrace probably goes back to the
earlier period. By the entrance propylon at the W corner
of the terrace is a Roman storage building. To the SW
of this and W of the cisterns may lie the site of an earlier
(late 7th c.) temple. Of this and of the late 6th c. temple only sima fragments have been found, but excavation
was limited to Roman levels; the earliest find is a 9th c.
sherd.
In the valley below to the W and by the bay are remains (Hadrianic or later) of buildings to accommodate
pilgrims, smaller houses, an odeum (?), and an agora
complex (?) with a room for the imperial cult. There are
remains of an aqueduct.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Pococke,
Description of the East
II.1 (1745) 244-45
M; T.A.B.Spratt,
Travels and
Researches in Crete II (1865) 196-200
I; J.-N. Svoronos,
Numismatique de la Crète ancienne (1890; repr. 1972)
121-24, 343; L. Savignoni,
MonAnt 11 (1901) 295-304
M;
G. De Sanctis, ibid., 494-98; M. Guarducci,
ICr II (1939)
128-40; G. Welter & U. Jantzen, “Das Diktynnaion,” in
F. Matz (ed.)
Forschungen auf Kreta, 1942 (1951) 106-17
MPI; E. Kirsten, “Polyrrhenia,”
RE XXI (1952) 2530-48; P. Faure,
BCH 82 (1958) 498; R. F. Willetts,
Cretan Cults and Festivals (1962); W. Fauth, “Diktynna,”
Kleine Pauly 2 (1969) 27-29.
D. J. BLACKMAN
