APTERA
or Aptara (Palaiokastro, near Megala Choraphia) Apokoronas district, Crete.
On a steep-sided plateau (231 m) just inland from Kalami on the
S side of entrance to Suda Bay. Various attempts were
made in antiquity to explain the name: e.g., that this was
the site of the song contest of the Muses and Sirens; the
latter lost their wings when defeated (Steph. Byz. s.v.
Aptera; ‘aptera’ = ‘wingless’); another legend has an eponymous hero Apteros. The city's name may in fact
derive from the epithet of Artemis there (see below).
The foundation of the city is variously ascribed to
Glaukos of Cyrene or Pteras of Delphi.
There are few literary references to the city's history:
archers from A. fought for Sparta in the second Messenian war (late 7th c.;
Paus. 4.20.8); in 220 B.C. the
city was forced by Polyrrhenia to desert its alliance with
Knossos (Polyb. 4.55.4). A little can be gleaned from inscriptions: A. probably supported Sparta against Pyrrhos
(272) and in the Chremonidean war (267/6-1); at this
time it had links with Ptolemaic Egypt but was strangely
absent from the alliances with Miletos (mid 3d c.);
Scipios and their staff were honored there (189) as well
as pro-Roman Achaeans (early 2d c.), Attalus I or II,
and Prusias II. The city joined the treaty with Eumenes
(183).
Impressive city walls indicate prosperity in the Early
Hellenistic period, and wide commercial and political
contacts are attested by a series of proxeny decrees
(mainly 2d c.); the city's position at the mouth of the
safest anchorage in Crete was of benefit. However,
Aptera seems to have declined before the Roman Conquest, perhaps becoming dependent on its powerful neighbor Kydonia. Archaeological evidence of continued settlement through the Early Byzantine period is confirmed
by a mention in Hierokles (650.11) and references to
bishops of Aptera (
Notitiae 8.227; 9.136). Geographical
sources refer to it, usually as an inland city, without much
detail: [Scylax] 47;
Strab. 10.4.13, p. 479; Dion. Call.
122f.; Plin.
HN 4.12.59 (
Minoium Apteron are two
separate sites); Ptol.
Geogr. 3.5.7; Stad. 344 (confusion
with Minoa?);
Rav. Cosm. V.21; Steph. Byz. s.v. The
form Aptara was apparently the usual one in Crete, and
Aptera outside: coins have Aptara, inscriptions both,
literary texts mostly Aptera. Coins portray a number
of deities, especially Artemis Aptera, who seems to have
been the chief deity (related to Diktynna and associated
with initiation rites: see Willetts). Coins also commonly
depict an armed man, Ptolioikos (the hero Apteros?),
a bee, a torch, and a bow. Coinage started ca. 330 and
ceased well before the Roman Conquest; there was none
under Roman rule.
Pashley first correctly identified the site, previously
thought to be Minoa or Amphimalla. Considerable remains survive, though nowhere to full height, of the
city walls which are 4 km long, probably of 3d c.
date, and all of one period despite differences in style.
They surround the entire plateau, some of which was
probably not built on even at times of maximum population. The work is particularly solid (2.4-2.8 m thick) on
the W side, the normal approach at least from the Hellenistic period and the easiest route of access. The
main gate is set at an oblique angle and flanked by
towers; farther S is another tower shielding a sally port.
Only traces survive of the wall line along the S and
central N side, and on the NW side the work is rougher
(with a steep drop outside). On the E side the terrain is
rougher and the plateau edge irregular; the wall course
is correspondingly irregular. The E gate (now Sideroporta) lay where the wall crossed a deep gully running
into the site from the NE. Earlier the city may have been
more clearly oriented towards the plain to the E, and
there are possible traces of early defenses farther up the
gully and around a low hill near the E side of the city,
S of the gully, which seems to have been the acropolis;
only rock cuttings survive on its top.
Apart from the city walls, the most striking ancient
remains are the two great cisterns in the center of the
site on the S side of the main gully (since these, like
the walls, remained in use for centuries, they escaped
demolition in the Early Byzantine period when all other
ancient buildings were stripped of reusable building material; the walls suffered more during Venetian and Turkish fortification of Suda Bay). Both cisterns were built of
concrete faced with brick and then mortar. One (W of
the monastery of St. John of Patmos) has one aisle and
turns at a right angle (6.3 m clear width). The other
(NE of the monastery) has three barrel-vaulted aisles
divided by two rows of four longitudinal arched piers
(overall size 24.7 x 18.5 x 8.2 m high); it is of Roman
date, at least in its final form (with barrel vaults). To the
SW of the monastery is a small double-cella temple (cf.
Sta. Lenika) of careful, heavily clamped ashlar (5th-4th
c.); later, graves were put inside and a mediaeval building
over it. Behind is a terrace wall (associated with Protogeometric-Geometric sherds?). Nearby to the SE,
a wall containing a number of (mainly proxeny) inscriptions was seen by Pococke and Pashley and excavated by
Wescher (1862-64) but largely demolished in the 1890s;
three more inscriptions were found in 1928. They may
be in situ, not reused, and perhaps associated with the
prytaneion. The wall has now entirely disappeared, but
nearby is a 7th-8th c. church. To the E of this is a Roman
apsidal building (bouleuterion?), with W wall, of poor
concrete work with three niches, partly surviving. To the
S of this, Early Byzantine houses have been excavated,
and others of this period N of the cisterns.
The small theater lay inside the S city wall; the cavea
(diam. 55 m) and orchestra (diam. 18 m) are now a simple hollow covered with stone. Diazoma, some seats and
the paraskenia are still visible, but little of the stage
building (25 x 6 m). Remains of brick walls attest alterations in the Roman period. To the E of the theater are
traces of a small Doric temple (of Dionysos?). Between
the acropolis (?) and E city wall is a small, poorly
preserved temple of the Early Roman period: distyle in
antis, with two statue bases in front; it was perhaps a
Temple of Demeter and Kore (excavated 1958). The
earlier attribution to it of bull statues is probably wrong.
The existence of a temple under the Turkish Fort Izzedin
at the NE corner of the site is uncertain.
Sherds of all periods from Classical (a few) to Early
Byzantine and later cover the site. The main area of
occupation in earlier periods was in the larger part S
of the gully; remains in the N part seem to be mostly
Byzantine or later. Buildings were probably never closely
crowded. In the Roman period the city probably became
rather agricultural in character. The site was destroyed
in the Arab conquest and probably not reoccupied until
Venetian times.
The necropolis lay on the saddle to the W near Megala
Choraphia and contained rock-cut graves as well as
chamber tombs of Late Classical-Roman times and an
earlier pithos burial. Some rock-cut graves found within
the city walls (S side) indicate lack of habitation there.
The port was at Kisamos; Aptera is thought by some to
have controlled Minoa across the bay entrance. To the W
is Mt. Malaxa (ancient Berekynthos), where the Idaean
Daktyloi lived, legendary inventors of metallurgy (
Diod.
5.64.5).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Pashley,
Travels in Crete (1837,
repr. 1970) 36-60, II.1; C. Wescher, “Fouilles d'Aptère.
Découvertes d'inscriptions crétoises,”
RA NS 10 (1864) 75-78; id.,
Archives des missions scientifiques et littéraires 2d ser. 1 (1865) 433, 439-43; T.A.B. Spratt,
Travels and
Researches in Crete II (1865) 127-30; L. Mariani,
MonAnt 6 (1895) 208-10
I; Hirschfeld, “Aptera (1),”
RE II (1896) 286-87; L. Savignoni,
MonAnt 11 (1901) 289-95
I; G. de Sanctis, ibid., 525-28; M. Guarducci,
RivFC
NS 14 (1936) 158-62; id.
ICr II (1939) 9-38; H. van
Effenterre,
La Crète et le monde grec de Platon à Polybe
(1948); H. Drerup, “Paläokastro-Aptara,” in F. Matz, ed.,
Forschungen auf Kreta, 1942 (1951) 89-98
MI; id.,
“Zweizelliges Heiligtum in Aptara,” ibid., 99-105
PI;
BCH 83 (1959) 749-53; R. F. Willetts,
Aristocratic
Society in Ancient Crete (1955); id.,
Cretan Cults and
Festivals (1962); S. G. Spanakis,
Kriti, II (n.d.) 64-70
(in Greek)
M.
D. J. BLACKMAN
