DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9841#0098
XXVI.] ANCIENT CITIES ON THE WESTERN COAST. 7^
tiquity in the neighbourhood ; and I am but little dis-
posed to follow the shore from this place to Selino-
kasteli, a route which, in all probability, would require
three days.
We have already seen that the territory of Polyrrhenia
extended from the northern to the southern sea: hence,
therefore, it is plain that the little towns on the coast
between Phalasarna and Kriu-metopon, though recorded
by many writers, and though each of them may have
enjoyed a nominal independence, were yet so limited
in their respective districts and resources, that their
size and power must always have been very insignificant.
And this want of physical greatness is not compensated
for by the connexion of any of them with early religious
or other myths, which might make them interesting.
My reader will see them placed on the map either in
or very near the places which they occupied ; and, not
having spent my own time in endeavouring to identify
precisely the position of each of them with any ruins
which may now exist and indicate their sites, a slight
notice of them is all that will be wanted before we go
on to the south coast. Ptolemy mentions Khersonesos,
Port Rhamnus, and Inakhorion as existing between
Phalasarna and Kriu-metopon. Not one of them is
recorded in Pliny's list, though it contains forty Cretan
towns. The Coast-describer2 speaks of Bienon, which
he fixes at twelve stades from Kriu-metopon : he men-
tions it as a place with a port, and where there was
water, an indication which he frequently makes, and
which of course was as useful a direction for sea-faring
People in ancient times as it is now a-days.
We leave Kamposeldrakhos at eight. A descent
°f a few minutes brings us to a cascade, the first which
I have seen in the island: the fall, of not more than
twenty feet, is over rocks into a streamlet. We ride
2 Stadiasmus, p. 497. ed. Gail. (Tom. u. Geograph. Graec. Min.) 'Air6
Kpiou MctojVou •jre/HTrXoKS els TSievov <TTaH. if}'. Xi/iova Ktti vSap.
F 2
tiquity in the neighbourhood ; and I am but little dis-
posed to follow the shore from this place to Selino-
kasteli, a route which, in all probability, would require
three days.
We have already seen that the territory of Polyrrhenia
extended from the northern to the southern sea: hence,
therefore, it is plain that the little towns on the coast
between Phalasarna and Kriu-metopon, though recorded
by many writers, and though each of them may have
enjoyed a nominal independence, were yet so limited
in their respective districts and resources, that their
size and power must always have been very insignificant.
And this want of physical greatness is not compensated
for by the connexion of any of them with early religious
or other myths, which might make them interesting.
My reader will see them placed on the map either in
or very near the places which they occupied ; and, not
having spent my own time in endeavouring to identify
precisely the position of each of them with any ruins
which may now exist and indicate their sites, a slight
notice of them is all that will be wanted before we go
on to the south coast. Ptolemy mentions Khersonesos,
Port Rhamnus, and Inakhorion as existing between
Phalasarna and Kriu-metopon. Not one of them is
recorded in Pliny's list, though it contains forty Cretan
towns. The Coast-describer2 speaks of Bienon, which
he fixes at twelve stades from Kriu-metopon : he men-
tions it as a place with a port, and where there was
water, an indication which he frequently makes, and
which of course was as useful a direction for sea-faring
People in ancient times as it is now a-days.
We leave Kamposeldrakhos at eight. A descent
°f a few minutes brings us to a cascade, the first which
I have seen in the island: the fall, of not more than
twenty feet, is over rocks into a streamlet. We ride
2 Stadiasmus, p. 497. ed. Gail. (Tom. u. Geograph. Graec. Min.) 'Air6
Kpiou MctojVou •jre/HTrXoKS els TSievov <TTaH. if}'. Xi/iova Ktti vSap.
F 2