Arsinoe (Crete)

Arsinoe (Greek: polytonic|Ἀρσινόη) was an ancient city of Crete assigned to Lyctus, adjacent to (and some authors say overlaying) the older city of Rhithymna. (Steph. B. s.v.) Berkelius supposes that an error had crept into the text, and that for polytonic|Λύκτου we should read polytonic|Λυκίας. Its identification with Rhithymna was first proposed by Eckhel (1). Georges Le Rider in 1968 (2) established from numismatic evidence that the city of Rithymna was refounded at some point in the 3rd Century BCE as Arsinoe. The evidence entails similar series of coins with the names of each city as well as find spots for the Arsinoe coins being in the regions around Rithymna. The exact refoundation date is less sure but Le Rider puts it in the reign of Ptolemy Philometer. Roger S. Bagnall notes in (3) that this may be the same Arsinoe that appears as a Cretan city in a Magnesian inscription (I. Magn. 21 8) of 200 BCE. Bagnall says that the city of Rithymna reverted to its original name by the time of the Delphic "Theorodoktoi" lists of the early second century BCE. There remains a possibility of another place being the Arsinoe in Crete as per the testimony of Stephanus of Byzantium, noted in Le Rider's article. The city was named for Arsinoe II of Egypt, sister and wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus.

References

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1. Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 304

2. Georges Le Rider, "Les Arsinoeens De Crete", pp 229-240 in "Essays In Greek Coinage Presented To Stanley Robinson", Ed. by: Colin Mackennal Kraay & George Francis Jenkins, Oxford, UK (1968)

3. "The Administration of the Ptolemaic Possessions Outside Egypt" By Roger S. Bagnall, E.J. Brill, Leiden, Belgium (1976)