DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9841#0042
XXII.] No ANCIENT REMAINS AT IERAMI.
■25
As the Cnossians long boasted of the tombs of two
celebrated ancient heroes, Idomeneus and Meriones13, so
the Pergamians used to shew that of the great Spartan
lawgiver Lycurgus, who, according to accounts in Plu-
tarch's life of him, died in Crete, and was buried
here".
Leaving the district of Platania, I soon arrived at
the village of Ierami, in and about which I lost a good
deal of time in making fruitless inquiries for existing
remains of antiquity. I think my search was sufficiently
diligent to warrant me in asserting, that there are posi-
tively no ancient remains whatever in the immediate
neighbourhood of the place. I next rode to a hamlet
called Pyrgos, a little further on, where my researches
were equally unsuccessful. Unfortunately I had ex-
tracted a passage from the work of a fellow-country-
man 15, wherein it is said, after speaking of Cydonia,
" The ruins of this ancient city are to be seen on the
site of Ierami.11 The very difficulty, which the existence
of any considerable vestiges of an ancient city at Ierami
would have caused in the way of what I have endea-
voured to establish, respecting the probable sites of
Aptera, Cydonia and Polyrrhenia, made me so anxious
to verify this assertion, that I passed Platania without
making any search for remains of an ancient city there.
Neither ancient authors, nor modern travellers, as
far as I am aware, afford any ground or colour for Dr
Cramer's assertion, and I know not how to account for
!t, unless he has taken for granted the existence of
these imaginary ruins on the authority of Lapie's map"5.
13 Vol. r. p. 206.
14 Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 31. (Vol. i. p. 234. ed. Reisk.) Ti/iaws Si raj
Apto-To'^eyos 61/ KpijTJf (\eyou(n) KarctfiiMaaj/Ta, kul rdtpov 'ApiGTo^Evos
aurov Se'iKvua-tiai <pii<Tiv Inrd Kpr\twv t?js Hepyuflias Trepi -rrjv %6ihki}v b&ou.
15 Dr Cramer's Geographical and Historical Description of Ancient
Greece, Vol. m. p. 366.
16 As seems to have been done by Mr Gail, Geograph. Graec. Min.
Vol. ii. p, 5fj]_ u Reperiuntur hod. rudera Cydoniae in litore ipso. Olim
perperam veterem Cydoniam in hodierna Canea reponebant; sed jacent
rudera ilia ulteiius ad occidcntem fluvii hod. Platania."
■25
As the Cnossians long boasted of the tombs of two
celebrated ancient heroes, Idomeneus and Meriones13, so
the Pergamians used to shew that of the great Spartan
lawgiver Lycurgus, who, according to accounts in Plu-
tarch's life of him, died in Crete, and was buried
here".
Leaving the district of Platania, I soon arrived at
the village of Ierami, in and about which I lost a good
deal of time in making fruitless inquiries for existing
remains of antiquity. I think my search was sufficiently
diligent to warrant me in asserting, that there are posi-
tively no ancient remains whatever in the immediate
neighbourhood of the place. I next rode to a hamlet
called Pyrgos, a little further on, where my researches
were equally unsuccessful. Unfortunately I had ex-
tracted a passage from the work of a fellow-country-
man 15, wherein it is said, after speaking of Cydonia,
" The ruins of this ancient city are to be seen on the
site of Ierami.11 The very difficulty, which the existence
of any considerable vestiges of an ancient city at Ierami
would have caused in the way of what I have endea-
voured to establish, respecting the probable sites of
Aptera, Cydonia and Polyrrhenia, made me so anxious
to verify this assertion, that I passed Platania without
making any search for remains of an ancient city there.
Neither ancient authors, nor modern travellers, as
far as I am aware, afford any ground or colour for Dr
Cramer's assertion, and I know not how to account for
!t, unless he has taken for granted the existence of
these imaginary ruins on the authority of Lapie's map"5.
13 Vol. r. p. 206.
14 Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 31. (Vol. i. p. 234. ed. Reisk.) Ti/iaws Si raj
Apto-To'^eyos 61/ KpijTJf (\eyou(n) KarctfiiMaaj/Ta, kul rdtpov 'ApiGTo^Evos
aurov Se'iKvua-tiai <pii<Tiv Inrd Kpr\twv t?js Hepyuflias Trepi -rrjv %6ihki}v b&ou.
15 Dr Cramer's Geographical and Historical Description of Ancient
Greece, Vol. m. p. 366.
16 As seems to have been done by Mr Gail, Geograph. Graec. Min.
Vol. ii. p, 5fj]_ u Reperiuntur hod. rudera Cydoniae in litore ipso. Olim
perperam veterem Cydoniam in hodierna Canea reponebant; sed jacent
rudera ilia ulteiius ad occidcntem fluvii hod. Platania."