XXVII.] AN INSCRIPTION FOUND AT RHODHOVANI. 109

covered mountain is, I should suppose, the most easterly of the chain of the White Mountains. It is in the eparkhía of Sélino, and is the only snow-clad mountain out of Sfakiá.

I wondered at finding so few remains of the ancient city in the modern village. In addition to the sculptured fragments at the fountain, I did at last succeed in discovering an inscription: its letters, however, were worn almost entirely away, and the slab was placed upside down in the outer wall of a house, at a considerable height from the ground, so that it was very difficult to make any thing out32.

The intelligent grammatikós is the Kiaías of the eparkhía, and is therefore the best authority on the subject of its produce. The mean amount of the seventh of oil in Sélino is three thousand místata: and all the other produce barely equals that of oil. Sélino is the poorest district in Crete next to Sfakia.

We leave Rhodhováni at ten minutes past five, and soon cross the head of the valley which lies to the west of the village, and, ascending for about twenty minutes, pass the hamlet of Mázo. Continuing to ascend for nearly all the rest of the way, we arrive at the village of Teménia soon after six o'clock, and take up our quarters with a relation of the grammatikós of Rhodhováni: he is, however, as stupid and reserved a fellow as the Rhodhovanian was intelligent and communicative.

During the evening our host and his wife were visited by an elderly dame, accompanied by her young and

32 The following letters were transcribed by me:

ΑΓΑΘΑ ΤΥΧΑΙ

ΚΟΣΜΩΤ.ΙΕΛ

110

FEMALE COSTUME.

[CHAP.

beautiful daughter, whose dress, peculiar to one of the islands of the Archipelago, struck me, on account of the great difference between it and that of every other woman in Crete. I learnt that she is a native of this village, but having fled to the islands, with thousands of her sex, for protection and security, during the continuance of the war in Crete, she had not yet abandoned, since her return, the costume of her place of refuge.

33 Εἰς τὰ νησιά.

THE morning is beautiful as usual: the weather has long been quite invariable. We leave the village of Teménia at half past five, and are nearly half an hour in reaching the summit of the hill to the south, on the top of which I yesterday learnt that there are Hellenic remains: I find all my hopes fully realized.

To the south of this ancient site the extremity is narrow and precipitous: the ascent on the eastern side is also so steep that one looks not to find walls there. Along the south-western and western sides, however, considerable remains of the ancient walls still exist: their height above the ground varies from two to five

112

THE EXISTING REMAINS OF

[CHAP.

or six feet. After following their course on the southwestern side for about two hundred paces, we arrive at an entrance not only defended by the ordinary projections of the outer wall, but by what is here observed within, two other walls extending for some distance nearly parallel to the outer one. The distance between the outer and the second wall is about ten paces; that between the second and third near forty. Soon after passing this entrance, we find a considerable piece of the outer wall, which is still from five to twelve or thirteen feet high. The piece sketched' is perhaps rather more regular, in the size and forms of the stones, than the greater part of the walls which remain; but the whole may be considered as a near approach to what has been termed the second style of cyclopian masonry. As I pass along, following constantly the course of the walls on the north-western side of the city, I observe on the ground numerous pieces of pottery, and also notice that the stones are, in some places, more massive than those sketched. On this north-western side of the city there appears to have been a defended entrance in one of the interior walls, and between this entrance. and the acropolis, of which I will soon speak, three other walls can be distinguished, although the ground is a continual ascent and is very rocky. The whole length of the present remains of walls on the south-west, west and north-west sides of this ancient city scarcely exceeds half a mile.

:

The little acropolis is situated on a mount about one hundred and fifty paces from the southern extremity of the site: round its base are seen remains of walls I observe also some slight foundations on its summit. Between this and the southern extremity the ground is covered with fragments of pottery, and other foundations, probably of the walls of houses, are also

The length of which is 11 feet 6 inches, its height being 8 feet 6 inches.

XXVIII.]

HYRTAKOS OR HYRTAKINA.

113

seen. A little to the south-west of the acropolis are remains of an entrance, one of the stone pillars of which is still standing, and a small piece of wall, consisting, like the rest, of massive stones.

From the summit of the acropolis we have an extensive view in every direction: the extremity of the promontory of Kástel-Sélino and the sea, even over the hills which terminate in Cape Krío are visible: we have before and below us the villages of Plataniás and Prodórmi: to the west and north-west are seen two other villages, half-buried in the olive-trees by which they are surrounded. On descending I notice two tombs cut out of the rock.

I believe this to be the site of the ancient city of Hyrtakos, or Hyrtakina, the coins of which, presenting as they do types similar to those of Elyros, might alone lead one to suppose, if we knew nothing of its situation, that it was somewhere in these mountains. But, little as we learn of its position from Ptolemy3 and Stephanus of Byzantium', yet we may safely infer, from the former's words, that it was situated to the south-east of Polyrrhenia, and to the west of Lappa. Scylax teaches us something more respecting its site: he places it on the south side of the island, and to the south of the Dictynnaean temple of Artemis and the Pergamian district 5.

2 On the coins of Hyrtakina are found the epigraphs AT¶Y, and YPTAKINION. They have been erroneously ascribed to Elyros, by COMBE, (who read YPIAKINION,) Numi Musei Britannici, Tab. 25. fig. 20. RASCHE, Lexicon Rei Numariae, Tom. II. Part. 1. 600. and MIONNET, Description de Médailles etc. Tom. II. p. 277. Nos. 157 and 158. See SESTINI, Lettere e Dissertazioni Numismatiche, Tom. VIII. pp. 4 and 5. MIONNET, Supplément, Tom. IV. p. 324.

3 PTOLEMY places it among the inland cities of Crete.

4 STEPHANUS BYZANT. V. Ὑρτακός, ἢ καὶ Ὑρτακῖνος, πόλις Κρήτης. ὁ πολίτης Ὑρτακῖνος. Πολύβιος δὲ τὸ θηλυκὸν Ὑρτακίνη ἀπὸ τοῦ Ὑρτακῖνος ἐθνικοῦ, ἀπὸ Ὑρτάκου δὲ Ὑρτάκιος.

5 SCYLAX, p. 18. ed. Huds. (compare MEURSIUS, Creta, p. 40.) AuKTUVναῖον Ἀρτέμιδος ἱερὸν πρὸς βορέαν ἄνεμον τῆς χώρας Περγαμίας, πρὸς νότον δὲ Ὑρτακίνα. Κυδωνία, καὶ λιμὴν κλειστός, προς βορέαν. ἐν μεσος γείᾳ δὲ Έλυρος πόλις.