Lappa in 218 B.C.

Lappa — Spring 218 BC · Refuge of the Lyttians.

Lappa — a city of west-central Crete, set in the hill-country between the White Mountains and Mount Ida. In the great Cretan war it has won a name for generosity: when the Lyttians, their city destroyed by Knossos, turned homeless and cityless from their own ruined walls, it was Lappa that received them with a kind and entirely cordial welcome. Joined now with the Lyttians and with Polyrrhenia, Lappa stands among the leaders of the bloc that broke from Knossos and brought Philip V and the Achaean League into the quarrels of the island.

When the army of Lyttos came home from the field to find their city burned by Knossos, their women and children carried off, not a man among them had the heart to enter the ruins. They marched once round the walls in lamentation and turned away toward Lappa — and the people of Lappa gave them a kind and entirely cordial reception. So in a single day the Lyttians, become cityless and aliens, found a home; and they joined Lappa and Polyrrhenia in the war against the Cnossians. It was the cities of this bloc, seeing Knossos cling to Aetolia, who appealed to Philip V and the Achaeans and were taken into their alliance.