Hellenistic Crete and ΚΟΙΝΟΔΙΚΙΟΝ

Abstract

IF we are to believe all that Polybios tells us, then the world of Hellenistic Crete was a wretched place: The Cretans are irresistible, both by land and by sea, when it comes to ambushes and piracy and the tricks of war, night attacks and all engagements undertaken with fraud; but when it comes to the face-to-face assault of phalanxes fighting on equal terms, they are base and craven-hearted….Money is honoured among them to such an extreme degree that the acquisition of it is thought to be not only necessary, but also most honourable. Generally speaking, the practice of disgraceful greed and acquisitiveness is so much the fashion there, that among the Cretans alone of all humankind no profit is considered shameful….Because of their congenital greed, they are engaged in constant upheavals, private and public, and murders and civil wars….Indeed, one would not find private customs more treacherous nor public enterprises more unjust (except in a few cases) than those of the Cretans….[In the year 181 BC] great troubles began in Crete, if indeed one can speak of a ‘beginning’ of troubles in Crete. For because of the unceasing nature of their civil wars and the excessive savagery of their treatment of one another, ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ are the same thing in Crete, and what seems to be a paradoxical saying of some individuals is there a consistently observable fact.

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