League of the Oreioi in 218 B.C.

League of the Oreioi — Spring 218 BC · The Mountain Federation of the South-West.

The Oreioi — the "mountain-folk," whom Polybius calls the Horii — a federation of small cities on the south-western side of Crete, under the long wall of the White Mountains. Elyros, Lissos, Hyrtakina, Tarra, Syia and Poikilasion are upland and coastal towns bound together by shared cults and a common frontier; from the first stirrings of the Lyttian War they separated themselves from Knossos and threw in their lot with Lyttos and Polyrrhenia. Theirs is a poor, rugged country of ravines and high pasture, looking south to the Libyan sea, and its strength is in its mountains and its sanctuaries rather than in any single great city.

When the Cretan cities that had marched together against Lyttos fell out among themselves, the Oreioi were among the first to break away. With the men of Polyrrhenia, Lappa and the Arcades they renounced their connexion with the Cnossians and resolved to make common cause with Lyttos. It is a choice fitting their country: a cluster of free hill-towns of the White Mountains, used to defending their own ravines and harbours, with little love for the great lowland powers that would reduce all Crete under Knossos and Gortyn. Their chief town is Elyros; their most famous place is the coastal sanctuary of Asklepios at Lissos, where the sick come down from the mountains to be healed.