Gortyna
Gortyna
A titular see, and in the Greek Church metropolitan see, of the Island of Crete. The city, situated at the foot of Mount Ida, not far from the River Lethe, was first called Larissa, afterwards Cremnia, then Gortys, and finally Gortyna. Homer mentions it as a fortified city, which gives an idea of its great antiquity. Previous to the Roman occupation it was continually at war with the two neighbouring and rival cities of Cnossus and Cydonia, contending with them for supremacy. The result was desolation in an island predestined to happiness by its geographical position, climate, and soil. The Cretans, indeed, were ever the cause of their own distress, being at all times discontented with their government. Under Roman rule Gortyna became the civil and ecclesiastical metropolis of the island, which then prospered in a degree hitherto unknown. Its first bishop was St. Titus, the disciple to whom St. Paul addressed one of his Epistles. A basilica dedicated to St. Titus, discovered at Gortyna partly in ruins, dates from the fifth, perhaps from the fourth, century. Among the earliest occupants of the see were St. Philip, a contemporary of Marcus Aurelius, whose feast is kept 11 April; St. Myron, commemorated 8 August; St. Cyril, 9 July; St. Eumenius, 18 September, St. Peter the Younger, 14 July. In 170 St. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, addressed a letter to the community of Gortyna (Euseb., H. E., IV, xxiii), then probably the metropolitan see of Crete. Among its archbishops mention should also be made of St. Andrew of Crete (d. 740), a famous Byzantine poet and orator, and opponent of the Iconoclasts. In 825 the island was taken by the Arabs, Archbishop Cyril was slain for refusing to apostatize, and Gortyna so completely destroyed that it never rose from its ruins. Thenceforth, moreover, the metropolitan ceased to bear the title of Gortyna, took that of Crete, and resided elsewhere, probably at Candia, a city built by the Arabs and made capital of the island. In the tenth century Nicephorus Phocas reconquered Crete for the Byzantine Empire, which held it until 1204, when it fell into the hands of the Venetians, who retained the island until 1669, when the Turks took possession of it. The Venetians did not allow the Greek bishops to reside in Crete, while the Latin archbishop bore the title of Candia, not of Gortyna. Even yet the Latin diocese retains the name of Candia (q.v.), Gortyna being a titular archiepiscopal title. On the other hand the Greek Archbishop of Gortyna calls himself Metropolitan of Crete. The extensive ruins of Gortyna are located near the village of Hagioi Deka. Among them are a temple of Apollo, several statues, the basilica of St. Titus, and numerous inscriptions, among which is the text of the so-called Laws of Gortyna, found in 1884, which afford us a good insight into Greek law of the fifth century B.C. AEsculapius was much honoured at Gortyna. Within an hour’s distance of the ruins is an immense grotto, by many archaeologists considered identical with the famous labyrinth. It is, however, only an ancient quarry out of which Gortyna was built; the labyrinth was situated near Cnossus.
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S. VAILHÉ Transcribed by Gerald M. Knight
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VICopyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Gortyna
(; in classical writers, or ; on a coin, []), a city of Crete, mentioned in the Apocrypha in the list of cities to which the Romans sent letters on behalf of the Jews, when Simon the Maccabee renewed the treaty which his brothers Judas and Jonathan had made with Rome (1Ma 15:23; comp. 1Ma 8:1 sq.; 1Ma 12:1 sq.). There is no doubt that the Jews were settled in great numbers in Crete (Josephus, Ant. 17:12, 1; War, 2:7; Philo, Leg. ad Caium, sec. 36), and Gortyna may have been their chief residence. Ptolemy Philometor, who treated the Jews kindly, and who had received a numerous body in Egypt when they were driven out of Judaea by the opposite party (Josephus, Ant. 13:3; War, 1:1, 1), rebuilt part of Gortyna (Strabo, 10, Didot. ed., page 411). When Paul, as a prisoner, was on his voyage from Caesarea to Rome, the ship, on account of a storm, was obliged to run under the lee of Crete, in the direction of Cape Salmone, and soon after came to a place called Fair Havens, which was near a city called Lasaea (Act 27:8). Lassea is probably the Lasia of the Peutingerian Tables, and is there stated to be sixteen miles east of Gortyna. It is very uncertain how long the vessel was detained at Fair Havens, though “much time had been spent” (Act 27:9), not since they had sailed from Caesarea, but at the anchorage (Alford, ad loc.). Doubtless the sailors, soldiers, and prisoners had frequent intercourse with Lasea, and perhaps Gortyna. Paul may then have preached the Gospel at one or both of these places, but of this there is not the slightest proof (comp. Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul, 2:394- 396). SEE PAUL.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Gortyna (2)
according to Ptolemy (3:17,10), was situated in 540 15 and 340 50. Simon proposes a Sheinitic etymology for the name (Onom. page 50; but see Sickler, Handbuch, page 470). Next to Cnossus, it was the most important city in the island for power and magnificence. At one time Gortyna and Cnossus in union held the whole of Crete in their power except Lyttus (Polyb. 4:53, 54). In later times they were in a continual state of warfare (Strabo, x, Didot. ed., page 410). Gortyna was founded by a colony from Gortys of Arcadia (Plato, Leges, 4, Didot. ed., page 320). It was of very considerable size, its walls being fifty stadia in circuit, whilst those of its rival, Cnossus, were not more than thirty (Strabo, 10, Didot. ed., page 409-411). Homer bestows upon it the epithet “walled” (, Il. 2:646). It was situated on the south side of the island on the river Lethaus (Messara), and at a distance of ninety stadia from the Libyan Sea (Strabo, l.c.). In the Peloponnesian war Gortyna seems to have had some relations with Athens (Thuc. 2:85). Its connection with Philopoemen in B.C. 201 is shown by the Gortynians having invited him to take the command of their army (Plutarch, Philop. 13). When the Achaean League was in alliance witli the Romans, B.C. 197., against Philip V of Macedor, 500 Gortynians joined Quinctius Flamininus when on his march to Thessaly, previous to the battle of Cynoscephalae (Livy, 33:3). It is only recently that a coin bearing the well-known types of the League has been found, struck at Gortyna. The late Col. Leake has shown that the coin with the legend , which had previously been assigned to Gortys in Arcadia by the late Mr. Burgon (Numbers Chron. 19:235-36), certainly belongs to the Cretan Gortyna (Supp. Num. Hell. page 110), thus proving that cities beyond the continent were admitted into the League (R.S. Poole, Numbers Chron., new ser., 1:173). About the same period there are evidences of an alliance, political or commercial, between Athens and several of the Cretan towns. Some of the coins of six of these Cnossus, Cydonia, Gortyna, Hierapytna, Polyrrhenium, and Priansusare tetradrachms, with exactly the types of those of Athens of the same age, but distinguished by having the distinctive badges of the Cretan towns. They were probably struck by the Cretan cities of the great alliance against Philip V of Macedon about B.C. 188 (Pausan. 1:36, 5, 6; comp. Eckhel, Doct. Numbers Vet. 2:221; Leake, Nun. Hell. Insular Greece, page 19; Poole, 1.c.). As Cnossus declined, Gortyna rose to eminence, and became the metropolis of Crete. About A.D. 200 a brother of Septimius Severus held at Gortyna the office of proconsul and quaestor of the united provinces of Crete and Cyrene (Bockh, No. 2591). In the arrangement of the provinces by Constantine, Gortyna was still the metropolis of Crete (Hierocl. Synod. page 649; comp. Leake, Supp. Numbers Hell. page 157).
The remains of Gortyna near Aghius Dheka (the ten Saints), and the cavern in the mountain, have been described by Tournefort (Relation d’un Voyage du Levant) and Pococke (Description of the East), and the cavern, more recently, by Mr. Cockerell (Walpole, 2:402). The modern Gortynians hold this cavern to be the Labyrinth, thus claiming for themselves the honors of the myth of the Minotaur; but it does not appear from the Gortynian coins, which date from the time of the Persian war to that of Hadrian (and there are none later), that their ancestors ever entertained such an idea (Leake, Numbers Hell. Insular Greece, page 18). The famous Labyrinth is represented on the coins of Cnossus, and Colossians Leake says that “it is difficult to reconcile this fact with the existence of the Labyrinth near Gortyna, for that the excavation near Aghius Dheka, at the foot of Mount Ida, is the renowned Cretan labyrinth, cannot be doubted after the description of Tournefort, Pococke, and Cockerell” (Supp. Numbers Hell. page 156). This opinion is given notwithstanding the assertion of Pausanias ( , 1:27, 9). One of the coins of Cnossus bears, besides the Labyrinth on its reverse, the Minotaur on the obverse. It cannot be much later than the expedition of Xerxes, and thus affords evidence of the antiquity of the tradition of the Labyrinth, if not of its real existence; whereas Hck (Kreta, 1:56 sq.), relying on the silence of Hesiod and Herodotus, and the assumed silence of Homer though the Iliad contains what looks very like an allusion to the Cretan wonder (Il. 18:590 sq.) has supposed it to have been an invention of the later poets borrowed from Egypt (Poole, ut sup. 1:171-72). A full account of the remains of the old site and the modern place is given in the Museum of Classical Antiquities (2:277-286). Mr. Falkner here describes the cavern near Gortyna, from Sieber, who spent three days in examining it, and says that certainly it had been nothing more than a quarry, which probably supplied the stone for building the city (Reise nach der Insel Kreta, 1:511-520). Hck seems to hold similar views (Kreta, 1:447-454). SEE CRETE.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Gortyna
GORTYNA.The most important city in Crete, after Gnossus, situated about midway between the two ends of the island. It is named (1Ma 15:23) among the autonomous States and communes to which were sent copies of the decree of the Roman Senate in favour of the Jews.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Gortyna
gor-tna (, Gortunai): A city in Crete, next in importance to Gnossus. It is mentioned in 1 Macc 15:23. See CRETE.