Rhithymna or Rithymna ( grc, Ῥίθυμνα) or Rhithymnia (Ῥιθυμνία), was a town of

ancient Crete The history of Crete goes back to the 7th millennium BC, preceding the ancient Minoan civilization by more than four millennia. The palace-based Minoan civilization was the first civilization in Europe. After the Minoan civilization was devast ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wit ...

, which is mentioned by

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of import ...

and

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ...

as the first town on the north coast to the east of

Amphimalla Amphimalla (Greek: , Strabo p. 475; Plin. iv. 20) or Amphimalion (Greek: , Steph. B. ''s. v.''), was an ancient town on the north coast of Crete, Greece, situated on the bay named after it ( Ptol. iii. 17. § 7), which corresponds, accordin ...

, and is spoken of as a Cretan city by

Stephanus of Byzantium Stephanus or Stephan of Byzantium ( la, Stephanus Byzantinus; grc-gre, Στέφανος Βυζάντιος, ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD), was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethni ...

, in whose text its name is written Rhithymnia; Stephanus gives the city's ethnonyms as and . It is also alluded to by

Lycophron Lycophron (; grc-gre, Λυκόφρων ὁ Χαλκιδεύς; born about 330–325 BC) was a Hellenistic Greek tragic poet, grammarian, sophist, and commentator on comedy, to whom the poem ''Alexandra'' is attributed (perhaps falsely). Life and ...

(76). Modern

Rethymno Rethymno ( el, Ρέθυμνο, , also ''Rethimno'', ''Rethymnon'', ''Réthymnon'', and ''Rhíthymnos'') is a city in Greece on the island of Crete. It is the capital of Rethymno regional unit, and has a population of more than 30,000 inhabitants ...

retains the name of the ancient city, upon whose site it stands. Rhithymna minted coins in antiquity; maritime emblems are found on them. It is believed that

Arsinoe Arsinoe grc, Ἀρσινόη, Arsinoë, pronounced Arsinoi in modern Greek, may refer to: People * Arsinoe of Macedon, mother of Ptolemy I Soter * Apama II or Arsinoe (c. 292 BC–after 249 BC), wife of Magas of Cyrene and mother of Berenice II ...

is the same town as Rhithymna.

References

Populated places in ancient Crete Former populated places in Greece Cretan city-states Rethymno {{AncientCrete-geo-stub

See also

References