Hierapytna in 218 B.C.

Hierapytna — Spring 218 BC · The Rising Power of the South-East.

Hierapytna — the chief city of the south-eastern coast of Crete, and the only great city on the Libyan-sea side of the island. Set on a low neck of land between two harbours, it looks south across open water toward Africa, a port-power grown aggressive and ambitious. In 218 BC Hierapytna is pressing to master the whole east end of Crete — the towns of the interior and the rich easternmost cape — where the ships of Ptolemaic Egypt keep a naval station at Itanos. While the great cities of the centre and north tear each other apart over Lyttos, Hierapytna builds its strength in the south.

Most of Crete’s great cities face the Aegean and the Greek world to the north; Hierapytna alone faces south, across the Libyan Sea toward Cyrene and Egypt. That position makes it the gateway of the south-east, and the Hierapytnians mean to be masters of the whole eastern third of the island. Their reach already takes in the inland city of Praisos and the hill-town of Oleros, and stretches toward the far cape — where, at Itanos, the fleets of Ptolemaic Egypt keep a foothold that no Cretan power can ignore. With Knossos, Gortyn and the western cities locked in their war, the south-eastern port grows quietly into the strongest single city of its coast.