DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9841#0066
us
WALLS, TOWER, AQUEDUCT, AND [cHAP.
few vestiges of ancient walls are discoverable : there are
however sufficient remains of them to shew that the
Saracens, Byzantine Emperors, or, more probably, the
Genoese, in their superstructure, followed generally the
ancient foundations. Within these walls are some cis-
terns3. The circumference of the acropolis is about
half a mile: but the city also was surrounded by walls,
a portion of which we saw before arriving at the village.
On the ancient site, at no great distance from the pre-
sent village, the rock, a pebbly compound, is hewn in
such a way as plainly to shew that its excavations once
served as houses in the city of Polyrrhenia. To the
westward of the village is the ruined tower before men-
tioned. It is about forty feet high, and is composed
of stones of every size and of marble fragments, which
indicate, as the period of its construction, an age when
ancient monuments were regarded as useful only for
building materials. Hard by this tower is a fountain,
which is in fact the mouth of an aqueduct, about four
feet in height and two wide, hewn out of the living
rock, and said to go an hour underground, an assertion,
however, which I did not think it worth while to verify-
by exploring its interior. At some little distance from
the tower are also seen several ancient sepulchres.
Polyrrhenia, or Polyrhenia, as Spanheim, following
the epigraphs of coins4, would write the word, was the
3 See Pococke, Vol. n. Part i. p. 246. Bei.on, in the first book of his
Singularitez, Ch. v. fol. 7. describes the site. "A demie lieue de Chysamo
tirant uers Cauo spata, ou Capo spada, Ion trouue les ruines d'une ancienne
ville sur vne colline a demy mile de la mer, ou encor sont reste'es les vestiges
des murailles, et si grande quantite' de belles cisternes, qu'il n'y a celui qui
les puisse contempler sinon par grand miracle : les habitats la nomment Paleo
Helenico castro." In Ch. lvii, when describing the remains of Bucephalus
at Cavallo, fol. 58. he again speaks of the cisterns of this Cretan Palaeokas-
tron, "un peu au dela de Quissamus."
4 Most of the coins have ITOAYPHNIQN. Stephanus of Byzan-
tium says: UoXvptiv, iroXis KpijViis, airo too iroWd pi'ivea, toittcWi
irpo/3«Ta ixcw. u 7ro\iTi)s Ilo\vppt'ivi.os. Pliny, iv. 20. calls the place
Polyrrhenium. Ptolemy', IloXvppiivia ; and Scylax, HoXiippyva; which
should probably be either the XloXupp^via of Ptolemy, or the LToXupii" of
Stephanus.
WALLS, TOWER, AQUEDUCT, AND [cHAP.
few vestiges of ancient walls are discoverable : there are
however sufficient remains of them to shew that the
Saracens, Byzantine Emperors, or, more probably, the
Genoese, in their superstructure, followed generally the
ancient foundations. Within these walls are some cis-
terns3. The circumference of the acropolis is about
half a mile: but the city also was surrounded by walls,
a portion of which we saw before arriving at the village.
On the ancient site, at no great distance from the pre-
sent village, the rock, a pebbly compound, is hewn in
such a way as plainly to shew that its excavations once
served as houses in the city of Polyrrhenia. To the
westward of the village is the ruined tower before men-
tioned. It is about forty feet high, and is composed
of stones of every size and of marble fragments, which
indicate, as the period of its construction, an age when
ancient monuments were regarded as useful only for
building materials. Hard by this tower is a fountain,
which is in fact the mouth of an aqueduct, about four
feet in height and two wide, hewn out of the living
rock, and said to go an hour underground, an assertion,
however, which I did not think it worth while to verify-
by exploring its interior. At some little distance from
the tower are also seen several ancient sepulchres.
Polyrrhenia, or Polyrhenia, as Spanheim, following
the epigraphs of coins4, would write the word, was the
3 See Pococke, Vol. n. Part i. p. 246. Bei.on, in the first book of his
Singularitez, Ch. v. fol. 7. describes the site. "A demie lieue de Chysamo
tirant uers Cauo spata, ou Capo spada, Ion trouue les ruines d'une ancienne
ville sur vne colline a demy mile de la mer, ou encor sont reste'es les vestiges
des murailles, et si grande quantite' de belles cisternes, qu'il n'y a celui qui
les puisse contempler sinon par grand miracle : les habitats la nomment Paleo
Helenico castro." In Ch. lvii, when describing the remains of Bucephalus
at Cavallo, fol. 58. he again speaks of the cisterns of this Cretan Palaeokas-
tron, "un peu au dela de Quissamus."
4 Most of the coins have ITOAYPHNIQN. Stephanus of Byzan-
tium says: UoXvptiv, iroXis KpijViis, airo too iroWd pi'ivea, toittcWi
irpo/3«Ta ixcw. u 7ro\iTi)s Ilo\vppt'ivi.os. Pliny, iv. 20. calls the place
Polyrrhenium. Ptolemy', IloXvppiivia ; and Scylax, HoXiippyva; which
should probably be either the XloXupp^via of Ptolemy, or the LToXupii" of
Stephanus.