Arcades in 218 B.C.

Arcades — Spring 218 BC · The Upland City for Lyttos.

Arcades — a modest inland city in the uplands of central-eastern Crete, in the hill-country that runs toward Lyttos. A polis of herders and soldiers rather than of harbours or great wealth, it was one of the cities — "the Horii and Arcades," as Polybius names them — that broke from Knossos when the coalition against Lyttos fell apart, and joined the allied bloc with Lyttos and Polyrrhenia. Its place is in the high country, its weight in the war the weight of its spears.

When jealousy split the Cretan cities that had marched together against Lyttos, Arcades was among those that broke away. With the Horii — the Oreioi — and with Polyrrhenia and Lappa, the people of Arcades separated themselves from connexion with Knossos and resolved to make common cause with the Lyttians. It is a natural stand for an inland upland city of the country toward Lyttos, with little to gain from the dominion of Knossos and Gortyn over all the island. A small polis of the high country, its part in the great war is to add its soldiers to the allied bloc.