Aptera in 218 B.C.

Aptera — Spring 218 BC · The Wingless City Changes Sides.

Aptera — "the Wingless" — a city set high on a plateau above Souda Bay in north-western Crete, commanding the great harbour and the road along the coast. At the outbreak of the Lyttian War it was an ally of Knossos; but when Polyrrhenia and her friends were reinforced by Philip V and the Achaean League, the people of Aptera were compelled to forsake the Cnossian alliance and share the fortunes of the allied bloc. Its strange name, the Cretans say, comes from a contest of song in which the Sirens, beaten by the Muses, tore off their wings and fell into the sea below.

Aptera entered the Lyttian War on the side of Knossos, but did not stay there. When the allies of Polyrrhenia were reinforced by four hundred Illyrians, two hundred Achaeans and a hundred Phocians from Philip V and the Achaeans, the tide turned along the whole north-west coast. In a brief space the allied bloc shut Cydonia and Eleutherna in their walls and compelled the people of Aptera to abandon the Cnossians and share the fortunes of the allies. From its high plateau above Souda Bay, the Wingless city now looks down on a war it has been forced to join on the other side.