Lato () was an ancient city of

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

, the ruins of which are located approximately 3 km from the village of Kritsa.

History

The Dorian city-state was built in a defensible position overlooking Mirabello Bay between two peaks, both of which became

acropolis An acropolis was the settlement of an upper part of an ancient Greek city, especially a citadel, and frequently a hill with precipitous sides, mainly chosen for purposes of defense. The term is typically used to refer to the Acropolis of Athens ...

es to the city. Although the city probably predates the arrival of the

Dorians The Dorians (; , , singular , ) were one of the four major ethnic groups into which the Greeks, Hellenes (or Greeks) of Classical Greece divided themselves (along with the Aeolians, Achaeans (tribe), Achaeans, and Ionians). They are almost alw ...

, the ruins date mainly from the Dorian period (5th and 4th centuries BCE). The city was destroyed c. 200 BCE, but its port (Lato Etera or Lato pros Kamara), located near Agios Nikolaos was in use during Roman rule. This has led to the confusion:

Stephanus of Byzantium Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...

, for example, quoted Xenion, a 3rd-century Cretan historian, repeating the latter's error that Kamara and Lato were one and the same. Modern scholarship distinguishes the two. The city most likely was named after the goddess

Leto In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Leto (; ) is a childhood goddess, the daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe (Titaness), Phoebe, the sister of Asteria, and the mother of Apollo and Artemis.Hesiod, ''Theogony' ...

(of which Lato is the usual Doric form) and may be mentioned in

Linear B Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examp ...

tablets as RA-TO.Greek Ministry of Culture
Lato also minted coins in antiquity,
/ref> bearing the likeness of the goddess Eileithyia who appears to have been the one particularly worshipped at Lato.

Nearchus Nearchus or Nearchos (; – 300 BC) was one of the Greeks, Greek officers, a navarch, in the army of Alexander the Great. He is known for his celebrated expeditionary voyage starting from the Indus River, through the Persian Gulf and ending at t ...

, admiral of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

, was born at Lato. In 1894–1896, A. Evans conducted a small-scale investigation. Systematic excavation started in 1899–1901 by the French School of Archaeology, with J. Demargne, was resumed in 1968 by P. Ducrey, O. Picard, and B. Chatzimichali, and lasted until the 1970s.

References

*Martha W. Baldwin Bowsky, ''Portrait of a Polis: Lato Pros Kamara (Crete) in the Late Second Century B. C.'', ''Hesperia'', Vol. 58, No. 3 (July - September 1989), pp. 331–47
Greek Ministry of CultureTourism website of the areaTourism website of the area
Geography of Crete Cretan city-states Ruins in Greece Populated places in ancient Crete Former populated places in Greece Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Crete {{AncientCrete-geo-stub

History

See also

References