Eleutherna in 218 B.C.

Eleutherna — Spring 218 BC · The Idaean-Slope City Penned In.

Eleutherna — a strong and ancient city on a narrow ridge of the north-western slopes of Mount Ida, of old wealth and stubborn walls. In the Lyttian War it held to the alliance of Knossos; and when Polyrrhenia and her allies were reinforced by Philip V and the Achaean League, Eleutherna and Cydonia were shut up within their walls. A city of ridges and ravines under the holy mountain, it fights for the losing side of a war that is closing in around it.

Eleutherna chose the side of Knossos and the Aetolians, and the war has turned against it. When the allies of Polyrrhenia — strengthened by four hundred Illyrians, two hundred Achaeans and a hundred Phocians sent by Philip V and the Achaeans — took the field, they swiftly shut the Eleuthernaeans and the people of Cydonia within their walls. The city of ridges holds out behind its ramparts under the slopes of Mount Ida, but the country about it is in enemy hands, and its Knossian alliance now means a siege. There is older bad blood too: not long before, the Eleuthernaeans had gone to war with Rhodes over the killing of their citizen Timarchus.