KLEITOR
(Kato Klitoria) Arkadia, Greece.
This was the first city in Arkadia to produce coins, the
mint being active from ca. 500 to 460 B.C. The site has
been identified with ancient remains at the point where
the Kleitor River joins the Karnesi. The acropolis wall
is double-faced of bulging, roughly quadrangular blocks,
and is strengthened with semicircular towers. There are
remains of more walls and towers in the plain on the
N and W; the other sides are bounded by the two
streams. The cavea of a theater is preserved on the W
slope of the acropolis. Pausanias saw Sanctuaries of
Demeter, Asklepios, and Eileithya at Kleitor, which Curtius and Leake identified at three locations occupied by
churches built with ancient blocks. West of the city, the
foundations of a large building with columns may belong to Pausanias' Temple of the Dioskouroi. The Temple of Athena Koria he described as on the top of a
mountain 30 stades (5.77 km) distant: it probably lay
to the N.
The relief of the soldier-historian Polybios found at
Kleitor has been separated from its inscription and is
now less well preserved than a cast in the Berlin Museum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Paus. 5.23.7, 8.4.5, 8.18.8, 8.21.1; Polyb.
Hist. 4.288; Vitr. 8.3.21; E. Dodwell,
A Classical and
Topographical Tour through Greece II (1819) 447f; W. M.
Leake,
Morea (1830) II 257f
P; E. Curtius,
Peloponnesos
(1851-52) I 377; J. G. Frazer,
Paus. Des. Gr. (1898) IV
266; R. T. Williams,
The Confederate Coinage of the Arcadians (1965). Sculpture: H. Mobius in
JdI 49 (1934)
52f
I; M. Bieber,
Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age (1955)
161f.
M. H. MC ALLISTER
