RHITHYMNA
(Rhethymno) Crete.
An
ancient city in W central Crete ca. 40 km E-SE from
Khania. Little is known of its history. It is mentioned
mainly by geographers (Plin.
HN 4.12.59; Ptol. 3.15.5;
cf. also Lycoph.
Alex. 76; Steph. Byz. s.v.). If the
emendation ‘Rhithymna’ is correct in Aelian (
NA
14.20), there was a temple of Artemis Rhokkaia at or
near the site, at that time (early 3d c. A.D.) a mere
village. It is not mentioned in Hierokles or the
Notitiae.
The city itself is not mentioned in inscriptions (e.g.
the mid 3d c. agreements with Miletos or the treaty with
Eumenes, 183), but only individual citizens. It probably
developed links with the Ptolemies in the 3d c., and
seems to have been refounded as Arsinoe, probably in the
late 3d c.; the old name was in use again by the early
2d c. (Le Rider). Coinage started in the 4th c. Athena
seems to have been the chief deity. Inscriptions in
Rhethymno Museum (mostly gravestones of the Roman
and Early Christian periods) are from Rhethymno
province, and few of them certainly from Rhethymno.
The site was settled before the end of the Bronze
Age (LM III tombs from SE suburb of Mastaba). Very
iew remains of the ancient city have been found: part
of a Late Roman house with columns was found under
Kiouloubasi Square; mosaics found during construction
of the Customs House (1931) were lost without study.
The acropolis must have been on the high promontory
(Fortetsa) where the Venetian fort was later built; here
Belli (late 16th c.) claims he saw remains of a temple.
The city and harbor lay below to the SE; SW of
Fortetsa on the shore are remains of rock-cut slipways,
probably ancient, and a fish-tank now barely awash (only
a slight change in sea level is apparent here).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
T.A.B. Spratt,
Travels and Researches
in Crete II (1865) 111-13; J.-N. Svornonos,
Numismatique de la Crète ancienne (1890; repr. 1972) 309-12; Bürchner, “Rhithymna,”
RE I A1 (1914) 923-24;
M. Guarducci,
ICr II (1939) 268-77; K. D. Kalokyris,
I arkhaia Rhithymna (1950)
MI;
KretChron 7 (1953)
490; G. Le Rider,
Monnaies crétoises du Ve au Ier siècle av. J.C. (1966) 242-45
I; S. G. Spanakis,
Kriti II (n.d.) 314-25 (in Greek)
M; D. J. Blackman,
BSA forthcoming (slipways at Rhithymna).
D. J. BLACKMAN
