Lato
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Λατώ | |
File:Lato - Agora.jpg
The agora of Lato
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Location | Kritsa, Crete, Greece |
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Coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
Type | Settlement |
History | |
Abandoned | Approximately 200 BC |
Periods | Archaic Greece to Hellenistic Greece |
Site notes | |
Management | 24th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities |
Website | Lato |
Lato (Ancient Greek: Λατώ)[1] was an ancient city of Crete, the ruins of which are located approximately 3 km from the small town of Kritsa.
History
The Dorian city-state was built in a defensible position overlooking Mirabello Bay between two peaks, both of which became acropolises to the city. Although the city probably predates the arrival of the Dorians, 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, repeated by Stephanus of Byzantium quoting Xenion, a Cretan historian, that Kamara and Lato were one and the same. Modern scholarship distinguishes the two.
There is some suggestion that the city was named after the goddess Leto (of which Lato is the usual Doric form) and may be mentioned in Linear B tablets as RA-TO.[2] Lato also minted coins in antiquity,[3] bearing the likeness of the goddess Eileithyia who appears to have been the one particularly worshipped at Lato.[2]
Nearchus, admiral of Alexander the Great, was born at Lato.[2]
See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ancient Lato. |
References
- ↑ Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnikon, s.v. Kamara
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Greek Ministry of Culture
- ↑ C.Michael Hogan, Lato Fieldnotes, The Modern Antiquarian, Jan 10, 2008
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- 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 Culture
- Tourism website of the area
- Tourism website of the area
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles containing Ancient Greek-language text
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- Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the DGRG with no article parameter
- Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the DGRG
- Geography of Crete
- Cretan city-states
- Ruins in Greece
- Former populated places in Greece
- Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Crete