Notes

Preface

  1.   1. Theocharis E. Detorakis, History of Crete, John C. Davis trans. (Iraklion, 1994).
  2.   2. Diodorus Sikeliotes, quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete.

1 Introduction

  1.   1. Nikos Kazantzakis, Freedom and Death, Jonathan Griffin trans. (London: Faber and Faber, 1956).
  2.   2. Robert Pashley, Travels in Crete (London: J. Murray, 1837).

2 Mythological Crete

  1.   1. According to mythology, the Greek word for Crete, “Kriti”, derives from this early race.

3 Prehistoric Crete

  1.   1. August 2017 saw the publication of the discovery in 2010 of fossilised footprints west of Kissamos. They appear to be hominin and date from 5.6 million years ago, during the late Miocene epoch, at a time when Crete was attached to the mainland. The discovery raises the possibility that hominin ancestors of man, most likely Graecopithecus, were present in the area at a much earlier date than previously believed. The findings are, however, speculative and somewhat controversial; both the dating and the fact that they are hominin footprints have been questioned.
  2.   2. Quoted in John Noble Wilford, “On Crete, New Evidence of Very Ancient Mariners”, The New York Times, 15th February 2010.
  3.   3. See: Thomas F. Strasser et al., “Stone Age Seafaring in the Mediterranean: Evidence from the Plakias Region for Lower Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Habitation of Crete”, Hesperia, vol. 79, n0.2, April–June 2010, pp. 145–190; Thomas Strasser, “Dating Palaeolithic sites in southwestern Crete, Greece”, Journal of Quaternary Studies, vol. 26, no. 5, July 2011, pp. 553–560; John Noble Wilford, “On Crete, New Evidence”. For up-to-date information on the site, see: The Plakias Stone Age Project, http://plakiasstoneageproject.com, accessed 26th February 2019. The site includes fascinating 3D images of three of the stone axes, which you can examine from all sides.
  4.   4. Curtis Runnels, “Early Palaeolithic on the Greek Islands?”, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, vol. 27, no. 2, 2014, pp. 211–230.
  5.   5. Runnels, “Early Palaeolithic”.
  6.   6. Cyprian Broodbank and Thomas F. Strasser, “Migrant Farmers and the Neolithic Colonization of Crete”, Antiquity, vol. 65, no. 247, June 1991, pp. 233–245.
  7.   7. “Fact Sheet”, The Plakias Stone Age Project, http://plakiasstoneageproject.com/fact-sheet, accessed 26th February 2019.
  8.   8. For more detail on Stone Age Greece in general, see: “Stone Age”, Foundation of the Hellenic World, http://www.ime.gr/chronos/01/en, accessed 26th February 2019.
  9.   9. Jeffery R. Hughey et al., “A European population in Minoan Bronze Age Crete”, Nature Communications, vol. 4, 2013.
  10. 10. Broodbank and Strasser, “Migrant Farmers”.
  11. 11. For a detailed study of the early fauna, see: Alexandra van der Geer, Michael Dermitzakis and John de Vos, “Crete Before the Cretans: The Reign of Dwarfs”, Pharos, vol. 13, pp. 121–132.

4 The Bronze Age

  1.   1. For the full study, see: Hughey et al., “A European population”. For a briefer report, see: Stephanie Seiler, “DNA analysis unearths origins of Minoans, the first major European civilization”, University of Washington, 14th May 2013, http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/05/14/dna-analysis-unearthsorigins-of-minoans-the-first-major-european-civilization, accessed 26th February 2019.
  2.   2. Iosif Lazaridis et al., “Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans”, Nature, vol. 548, no. 7666, 10 August 2017.
  3.   3. For a relatively clear summary of the main periods, see: Minoan Crete, http://www.minoancrete.com, accessed 26th February 2019.
  4.   4. Jarrett A. Lobell, “The Minoans of Crete”, Archaeology, May/June 2015.
  5.   5. For a fascinating animation of the Knossos palace as it might have looked, see: Make Greek language a world language, “Ancient Greece - Crete - Minoan palace” [video], Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/mglawl/videos/1029623517112275, accessed 26th February 2019.
  6.   6. For, excellent descriptions of all the archaeological sites, see: Minoan Crete, http://www.minoancrete.com, accessed 26th February 2019.
  7.   7. Arthur Evans, Cretan Pictographs and Prae-Phoenician Script (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895).
  8.   8. This phenomenon is by no means unknown. Chinese ideograms are an example, while the development of the Cyrillic alphabet from the Greek alphabet is an even closer parallel.
  9.   9. Richard Vallance Janke and Alexandre Solcà, High Correlation Linear A–Linear B vocabulary, grammar and orthography in Linear A (Ottawa and Athens: Les Éditions KONOSO Press, 2018).
  10. 10. Quoted in Lobell, “The Minoans of Crete”. For more details on the Gournia excavations, see: Gournia Excavation Project, http://www.gournia.org, accessed 26th February 2019.
  11. 11. Quoted in Andreas N. Angelakis and Joan B. Rose eds., Evolution of Sanitation and Wastewater Technologies Through the Centuries (London: IWA Publishing, 2014)
  12. 12. For full details of the studies carried out in this field by the University of Uppsala, see: Mary Blomberg, Minoan Astronomy, http://minoanastronomy.mikrob.com, accessed 26th February 2019.
  13. 13. Gretchen E. Leonhardt, “Pax Minoica and the Okinawan Peace”, Konosos, 13th April 2012, https://konosos.net/2012/04/13/paxminoica-and-the-okinawan-peace, accessed 26th February 2019.
  14. 14. Plato, Laws, Robert Gregg Bury trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1967–1968), Book 4, 706b.
  15. 15. Homer, The Iliad, Martin Hammond trans. (London: Penguin Classics, 1987), Book 2, 646–652.
  16. 16. For a fascinating and very readable description of the process written by Ventris’ colleague, see: John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
  17. 17. The Bible, Titus, 1:12.

5 Dorian Crete

  1.   1. Homer, The Odyssey, E.V. Rieu trans. (London: Penguin Classics, 1991), Book 19, 175–177.
  2.   2. Alicia McDermott, “Knossos Thrived Well into the Iron Age and Was Much Larger than Once Believed”, Ancient Origins, 10th January 2016, https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-historyarchaeology/knossos-thrived-well-iron-age-and-was-much-largeronce-believed-005137, accessed 19th March 2019.
  3.   3. Plato, Laws (Urbana: Project Gutenburg, 2013), Book 1, paragraph 11, retrieved 19th March 2019 from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1750/1750-h/1750-h.htm.
  4.   4. “Diodorus Siculus, Book 37”, Attalus, http://www.attalus.org/translate/diodorus37.html#18, accessed 19th March 2019.
  5.   5. For a detailed study of the prosperity of the cities during the Hellenistic period, see: Philip de Souza, “Late Hellenistic Crete and the Roman Conquest”, British School of Athens Studies, vol. 2, 1998.
  6.   6. “Diodorus Siculus, Book 33”, Attalus, http://attalus.org/translate/diodorus33.html#10, accessed 19th March 2019.
  7.   7. Polybius, The Histories of Polybius, Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh trans. (Urbana: Project Gutenburg, 2013), IV, 54. retrieved 19th March 2019 from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44125/44125-h/44125-h.htm.
  8.   8. Plutarch, Plutarch’s Morals, William W. Goodwin trans. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1878), vol. 3, p. 62, retrieved 19th March 2019 from https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1213.
  9.   9. Paula Perlman, “Imagining Crete”, in Mogens Herman Hansen ed., The Imaginary Polis, Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre, vol. 7, p. 302.
  10. 10. Attributed to Hybrias the Cretan, 4th century, quoted in “Skolion (drinking song) attributed to Hybrias the Cretan”, Fairfield, http://faculty.fairfield.edu/rosivach/c1115/hybrias.htm, accessed 19th March 2019.
  11. 11. I am grateful to David Lewis for help with the paragraphs on slavery.
  12. 12. For an excellent analysis of the reasons for slave revolts, see: Paul Cartledge, “Rebels and ‘Sambos’ in Classical Greece”, History of Political Thought, vol. 6, no. 16, 1985.
  13. 13. Angelos Chaniotis, “The Great Inscription, Its Political and Social Institutions and the Common Institutions of the Cretans”, in The Great Inscription of Gortyna. One hundred and twenty years after discovery. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference of Studies on Messara, 2005.
  14. 14. This was the term used in Gortyn, Lyttos and several other cities. In others, including Olous and Kydonia, they were called demiourgoi, and in Itanos and Praisos archontes.
  15. 15. For the full text, see: Ronald F. Willetts ed., The Law Code of Gortyn (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter & Co., 1967). For a summary, see: “Ancient History Sourcebook: The Law Code of Gortyn (Crete), c. 450 BCE”, Fordham University, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/450-gortyn.asp, accessed 19th March 2019.
  16. 16. This inscription implies that 1 stater is equal to 2 drachmas, but the exact relationship varied by location and time.
  17. 17. Aristotle, quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 52.
  18. 18. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 53.
  19. 19. Claudius Aelianus, quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 54.
  20. 20. Strabo, Geographies (Urbana: Project Gutenburg, 2014), book 10, chap. 4, 16, retrieved 19th March 2019 from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44885.
  21. 21. “Plato: HI PPIAS (major)”, Elpenor, https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/plato/plato-hippias-major.asp?pg=8, accessed 19th March 2019.
  22. 22. Quoted in John Guyton, “Epimenides, Prophet from Crete”, Searching for GSOT, 22nd August 2016, https://johnguyton.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/epimenides-prophet-from-crete/, accessed 19th March 2019.
  23. 23. Aristotle, The History of Animals, D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson trans. (ebooks@Adelaide, 2015), III, 2, retrieved 19th March 2019 from https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/history/index.html.
  24. 24. Quoted in Robin Waterfield, The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists (Oxford University Press, 2000). One type of meteorite, the diogenite meteorite, is named after Diogenes.
  25. 25. Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus, Bernadotte Perrin trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914), pp. 214–215, retrieved 19th March 2019 from http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Lycurgus*.html.
  26. 26. For a detailed and interesting discussion of the sanctuaries in Dorian Crete, see: Angelos Chaniotis, “Extra-urban Sanctuaries in Classical and Hellenistic Crete”, in Georgios Deligiannakis and Ioannis Galanakis eds., The Aegean and its Cultures (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2009).

6 Roman Rule

  1.   1. “Pompey by Plutarch”, The Internet Classics Archive, http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/pompey.html, accessed 19th March 2019.
  2.   2. Lucius Annaeus Florus, Epitome of Roman History, E. S. Forster trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929), book 1, section XLII, chap. III, 7, retrieved 19th March 2019 from http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Florus/Epitome/1L*.html#XLII .
  3.   3. In spite of his incompetence in military affairs, Marcus Antonius Creticus was described by Plutarch as “not very famous or distinguished in public life, but a worthy good man, and particularly remarkable for his liberality.” See: “Antony by Plutarch”, The Internet Classics Archive, http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/antony.html, accessed 19th March 2019.
  4.   4. “Diodorus Siculus, Book 40”, Attalus, http://www.attalus.org/translate/diodorus40.html#1, accessed 19th March 2019.
  5.   5. Cassius Dio, Rome, Earnest Cary trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914), p. 30, retrieved 19th March 2019 from http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/36*.html.
  6.   6. “Pompey by Plutarch”, The Internet Classics Archive, http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/pompey.html, accessed 19th March 2019. 400 furlongs is about 80 km, or three days’ march.
  7.   7. Angelos Chaniotis, “What Difference did Rome make? The Cretans and the Roman Empire”, in Bjorn Forsèn and Giovanni Salmeri (eds.), The Province Strikes Back. Imperial Dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean (Helsinki: The Finnish Institute at Athens, 2008), pp. 83–105.
  8.   8. Apollonia, the port of Cyrene, was only 300 km from Gortyn, compared with 800 km from Alexandria and 900 km across desert from Leptis Magna.
  9.   9. Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Urbana: Project Gutenburg, 2008), vol. 1, chap. 6, part III, retrieved 19th March 2019 from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717.
  10. 10. Cornelius Tacitus, Complete Works of Tacitus, Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb trans. (New York: Modern Library, 1942), 15.20, retrieved 19th March 2019 from http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Tacitus/TacitusAnnals15.html.
  11. 11. Angelos Chaniotis, “Hadrian, Diktynna, the Cretan Koinon, and the Roads of Crete”, in W. Eck, B. Fehér, and P. Kovác eds., Studia Epigraphica in memoriam Géza Alföldy (Bonn: Habelt 2013), pp. 59–68.
  12. 12. This deforestation was continued twelve centuries later by the Venetians, leading to the extensive denuding of Cretan uplands that we see today.
  13. 13. Production of whetstones has continued in Elounda to the present day, although the quarry is nowadays only opened on request.
  14. 14. See Anna Kouremenos, “A Tale of Two Cretan Cities: The Building of Roman Kissamos and the Persistence of Polyrrhenia in the Wake of Shifting Identities”, in Brita Alroth and Charlotte Scheffer eds., Attitudes toward the Past in Antiquity: Creating Identities (Stockholm University, 2014), pp. 129–39.
  15. 15. See: Anna Kouremenos, Houses and Identity in Roman Knossos and Kissamos (unpublished, 2013), lent to me by Ms. Kouremenos with permission to quote. The figures are estimates by archaeologists.
    City Area Estimated population
    Gortyn 150 ha 22,500
    Hierapytna 150 ha 22,500
    Kydonia 85 ha 12,750
    Kissamos 71 ha 8,875
    Phaistos 62 ha 7,750
    Knossos 50–60 ha 6,250–7,500
    Aptera 42 ha 5,250
    Polyrrhenia 30 ha 3,750
  16. 16. Martha W. Baldwin Bowsky, “Colonia Iulia Nobilis Cnosus, the first 100 years: the evidence of Italian sigillata stamps”, in Rebecca J. Sweetman ed., Roman Colonies in the First Century of Their Foundation (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2011).
  17. 17. Dianne Skafte, “Creativity as an Archetypal Calling”, in Dennis Patrick Slattery and Lionel Corbett eds., Depth Psychology – Meditations in the Field (Einsiedeln: Daimon, 2004).
  18. 18. Ewen Bowie, “Greek Poetry in the Antonine Age”, in Donald A. Russell ed., Antonine Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
  19. 19. The Bible, Acts 27:7–13.
  20. 20. Quoted in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 1 (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890), retrieved 19th March 2019 from http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250104.htm.
  21. 21. The martyrs still commemorated include twelve unnamed soldiers, Theophilos and his family, and Cyril, bishop of Gortyna, who was martyred at the age of ninety-three in about AD 300. There is a chapel dedicated to Saint Cyril in Stavion, at the top of the Asterousia Mountains. In the reign of Emperor Decius (AD 249 to AD 251), of the ten martyrs of Crete, two are known to have come from Knossos and Iraklion, the rest from western Crete.
  22. 22. Kouremenos, Houses and Identity.
  23. 23. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, F.C. Conybeare trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1912), 4.34, retrieved 19th March 2019 from https://www.livius.org/sources/content/philostratus-life-of-apollonius/philostratus-life-of-apollonius-4. 31–35.
  24. 24. Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History, C.D. Yonge trans. (London: Bohn, 1862), book 26, 10.16–19, retrieved 19th March 2019 from http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/ammianus_26_book26.htm.

7 The First Byzantine Period

  1.   1. Nicetas Patricius, “Saint: Andrew Of Crete”, Nektarios, http://users.uoa.gr/̃nektar/orthodoxy/agiologion/saints_08th-10th_centuries/102.htm, accessed 19th March 2019.
  2.   2. Procopius, History of the Wars, H.B. Dewing trans. (Urbana: Project Gutenburg, 2005), book I, XXII, retrieved 19th March 2019 from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16764.
  3.   3. For the full description, see: Procopius, History of the Wars.
  4.   4. “The Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete”, Азбука веры [Alphabet of Faith], https://azbyka.ru/molitvoslov/the-greatcanon-of-st-andrew-of-crete.html, accessed 7th March 2019.
  5.   5. For a brief life of Saint Andrew and several of the other saints mentioned in this book, see: Christopher Moorey, Traveling Companions (Chesterton: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2012).
  6.   6. Socrates Scholasticus, “Church History (Book VII): Chapter 38. Many of the Jews in Crete embrace the Christian Faith”, New Advent, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/26017.htm, accessed 28th February 2019.
  7.   7. Titus M Sylligardakis, Cretan Saints, Timothy Andrews trans. (Saint Smaragdos Group, 1988).

8 The Arab Emirate of Crete

  1.   1. Although, for simplicity, I have followed common practice in referring to the conquerors of Crete as Arabs, they were in fact a combination of Arabs, Berbers and non-Arab Muslims.
  2.   2. Gibbon may have confused the leader of the Arab invaders, Abu Hafs, with a leader of the attack on Sicily, Abu Caab.
  3.   3. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall, vol. 5, chap. 52 part 4.
  4.   4. In a better-documented incident that was recorded in 828, the Arab commander of the invasion of Sicily gave orders to burn the ships to keep them out of Roman hands. It is possible that Gibbon, not for the first time, confused the sources.
  5.   5. Iosephus Genesius, On the Reign of the Emperors (Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1998), pp. 39–41.
  6.   6. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 123.
  7.   7. Leo the Deacon, The History of Leo the Deacon: Byzantine military expansion in the tenth century, Alice-Mary Talbot and Denis F. Sullivan trans. (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2005), book II, section 8.
  8.   8. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 124.
  9.   9. Ibn Hazm, quoted in Mohamad Ballan, “Andalusi Crete (827–961) and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier in the Early Medieval Mediterranean”, Ballandalus, 9th April 2015, https://ballandalus.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/andalusi-crete-827–961-and-thearab-byzantine-frontier-in-the-early-medieval-mediterranean-2, accessed 28th February 2019.
  10. 10. Nicholas Mystikos, quoted in Julian Chrysostomides, “Byzantine Concepts of War and Peace”, in Anja V. Hartmann and Beatrice Heuser eds., War, Peace and World Orders in European History (London: Routledge, 2001).
  11. 11. For details, see: Ballan, “Andalusi Crete”.
  12. 12. Yāqūt, quoted in Mohamad Ballan, “Andalusi Crete (827–961) and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier in the Early Medieval Mediterranean”, Ballandalus, 9th April 2015, https://ballandalus.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/andalusi-crete-827–961-and-thearab-byzantine-frontier-in-the-early-medieval-mediterranean-2, accessed 8th March 2019.
  13. 13. Quoted in Vassilios Christides, The Conquest of Crete by the Arabs (ca. 824). A Turning Point in the Struggle between Byzantium and Islam (Athens: Akademia Athenon, 1984), p. 121.
  14. 14. Sophia Oikonomou, The Life of Ioannes Xenos: critical edition and commentary [PhD thesis] (University of London, 1999), https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/2930492/DX214561.pdf, accessed 28th February 2019.
  15. 15. Quoted in George C. Miles, “Byzantium and the Arabs: Relations in Crete and the Aegean Area”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol. 18, 1964, p. 15.

9 The Second Byzantine Period

  1.   1. George Dalidakis, “Cretan Nobility and the Legend of the 12 Young Rulers”, Explore Crete, http://www.explorecrete.com/history/crete-byzantium-rulers.htm, accessed 1 February 2019.
  2.   2. Leo the Deacon, The History of Leo the Deacon, Alice-Mary Talbot and Denis F. Sullivan trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), book II, para. 6.
  3.   3. Denis F. Sullivan ed. and trans., The Life of Saint Nikon (Massachusetts: Hellenic College Press, 1987).
  4.   4. Sullivan, The Life of Saint Nikon.
  5.   5. Oikonomou, The Life of Ioannes Xenos.
  6.   6. The full story of the Fourth Crusade is extremely complex but absolutely fascinating. For further reading, many excellent books are available, including Volume 3 of Steven Runciman’s A History of the Crusades, still relevant and readable after fifty years.
  7.   7. The official title of the city state of Venice was The Most Serene Republic of Venice (Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia), sometimes just referred to as the Serenissima.
  8.   8. As I write, the amount paid for the island would buy a four-bedroom villa with a pool and a sea view in Elounda. The Venetians got quite a bargain!

10 Venetian Rule

  1.   1. For the sake of clarity, from here on, I shall only use “Candia” to describe the city, unless quoting from contemporary sources.
  2.   2. Monique O’Connell, Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), p. 133.
  3.   3. O’Connell, Men of Empire.
  4.   4. For a detailed account of the revolts, see: Detorakis, History of Crete.
  5.   5. Lorenzo de Monacis, quoted in Sally McKee, “The Revolt of St. Tito in fourteenth-century Venetian Crete: A reassessment”, Mediterranean Historical Review, vol. 9, no. 2, 1994.
  6.   6. Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 201.
  7.   7. This is another name for the ducat, about £42,000 at today’s gold prices.
  8.   8. Will of Markos Papadopoulos, quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 206.
  9.   9. Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 176.
  10. 10. William Lithgow, quoted in John Tomkinson ed., Travels in Crete (Athens: Anagnosis, 2013).
  11. 11. Quoted in David Holton ed., Literature and Society in Renaissance Crete (Cambridge University Press, 1991).
  12. 12. See: “The History of the Jews of Crete”, Etz Hayyim Synagogue, www.etz-hayyim-hania.org/the-jews-of-crete/the-history-of-thejews-of-crete, accessed 28th February 2019.
  13. 13. Molly Greene, A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Princeton University Press, 1959).
  14. 14. Quoted in Chryssa Maltezou, “The Historical Context”, in Holton, Literature and Society.
  15. 15. Quoted in Maltezou, “The Historical Context”.
  16. 16. Quoted in Greene, A Shared World.
  17. 17. Quoted in Greene, A Shared World.
  18. 18. Sally McKee, “Women under Venetian Colonial Rule in the Early Renaissance”, Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 51, no. 1, spring 1998.
  19. 19. McKee, “Women under Venetian Colonial Rule”.
  20. 20. It was in a barrel of malmsey that Richard III is alleged to have had his rival for the throne, George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, drowned.
  21. 21. Canon Pietro Casola, quoted in Tomkinson, Travels in Crete.
  22. 22. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 201.
  23. 23. See: David Jacoby, “Cretan Cheese: A Neglected Aspect of Venetian Mediterranean Trade”, in Ellen E. Kittell and Thomas F. Madden ed., Medieval and Renaissance Venice (University of Illinois Press, 1999).
  24. 24. Canon Pietro Casola, quoted in Tomkinson, Travels in Crete.
  25. 25. Quoted in Holton, Literature and Society, p. 70.
  26. 26. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 198.
  27. 27. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 198.
  28. 28. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 199.
  29. 29. Fynes Moryson, quoted in Tomkinson, Travels in Crete.
  30. 30. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 200.
  31. 31. For much of this detail about the plague of 1592, see: Costas Tsiamis et al., “The Venetian Lazarettos of Candia and the Great Plague (1592–1595)”, Le Infezioni in Medicina, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2014.
  32. 32. Personal correspondence with the author, August 2016.
  33. 33. Horace “Horace: The Epistles”, Poetry in Translation, A. S. Kline trans., 2005, https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceEpistlesBkIIEpI.php#anchor_Toc98154295, accessed 19th March 2019.
  34. 34. The term “political verse” has nothing to do with politics, but is a literal translation of the Greek word politikos, meaning “civil”, and thus relates to secular as opposed to religious poetry.
  35. 35. Konstantinos Demaras, A History of Modern Greek Literature (State University of New York Press, 1972).
  36. 36. Quoted in Rosemary Bancroft-Marcus, “The Pastoral Mode”, in Holton, Literature and Society.
  37. 37. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 219.
  38. 38. For this translation and the original Greek set to music, see: Cobone, “Erotokritos Ερωτόκριτος Excrept 1614” [video], YouTube, 24th May 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_03zbslDKc, accessed 19th March 2019.
  39. 39. Quoted in Yannis Samatas, “Mantinades in Crete”, Explore Crete, http://www.explorecrete.com/cretan-music/mantinades.html, accessed 28th February 2019.
  40. 40. San Giorgio dei Greci is Saint George of the Greeks, an Orthodox church built in Venice in 1548.

11 The Cretan War

  1.   1. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 240.
  2.   2. Quoted in Greene, A Shared World.

12 Ottoman Rule I

  1.   1. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 272.
  2.   2. Quoted in Yorgo Dedes, “Blame it on the Turko-Romnioi (Turkish Rums): A Muslim Cretan song on the abolition of the Janissaries” in Evangelia Balta and Mehmet Ölmez eds., Between Religion and Language (Istanbul: Eren, 2011).
  3.   3. Antonis Anastasopoulos, “Non-Muslims and Ottoman Justice(s?)”, in Jeroen Duindam et al. eds., Law and Empire: Ideas, Practices, Actors (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2013).
  4.   4. Quoted in Greene, A Shared World.
  5.   5. Quoted in Greene, A Shared World.
  6.   6. Chainospilios (Cave of the Hains) near Iraklion was one such hideout, used many years later by British agents and Cretan resistance fighters during the German occupation.
  7.   7. Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, quoted in Tomkinson, Travels in Crete.
  8.   8. Barba-Pandzelios, quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete.
  9.   9. The week after Easter is known as Bright Week in the Orthodox Church and includes several important feast days.
  10. 10. Aubry de la Motraye, quoted in Tomkinson, Travels in Crete.
  11. 11. There is a widespread belief that the diminutive “-akis” ending on Cretan names was a derogatory usage by the Turks, but the fact that Muslim Cretans also used the suffix is evidence that this is a myth. Although the suffix can mean “little”, as in “neraki” (a little water), it was also used to denote “son of”, and seems to have predated Ottoman rule.
  12. 12. In particular, see: Greene, A Shared World.
  13. 13. John Bacon Sawry Morritt, quoted in Tomkinson, Travels in Crete.
  14. 14. Quoted in Dedes, “Blame it on the Turko-Romnioi”.
  15. 15. Quoted in Dedes, “Blame it on the Turko-Romnioi”.
  16. 16. Some scholars have, in fact, traced their origins back to the warlike songs of Dorian times.
  17. 17. Translated by Hasse Petersen, quoted with his permission. See his website at www.kretakultur.dk.
  18. 18. Translated by Hasse Petersen, revised by Manolis Sfyrakis. For the original Greek version of this mantinada, Πότες θα κάμειξαστεριά, ποτες θα φλεβαρίσει, sung by the great Cretan singer Nikos Xylouris, see: SmileLikeYouMeanIt88, “Νίκος Ξυλούρης - Πότε θα Κάνει Ξαστεριά” [video], YouTube, 23rd February 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzSjGLAVQpY, accessed 19th March 2019.

13 Ottoman Rule II

  1.   1. Kazantzakis, Freedom and Death.
  2.   2. Leonidas Kallivretakis, “A Century of Revolutions: The Cretan Question between European and Near East Politics”, in Paschalis Kitromilides, Eleftherios Venizelos: The Trials of Statesmanship (Edinburgh University Press, 2006)
  3.   3. Quoted in Mick McTiernan, A Very Bad Place Indeed for a Soldier: The British involvement in the early stages of the European Intervention in Crete, 1897–1898 [dissertation] (King’s College London, 2014).
  4.   4. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 292.
  5.   5. Kallinikos Kritovoulidis, quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete.
  6.   6. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 299.
  7.   7. For a fictionalised telling of the story of Rhodanthe, see: Yvonne Payne, Kritsotopoula (Bristol: SilverWood Books, 2015).
  8.   8. Although not a major battle of the war, this event is interesting because the cave, still accessible, contains a small chapel containing an ossuary with the bones of many of the victims. A service of remembrance is held in the cave on Saint Thomas Sunday (the Sunday after Orthodox Easter).
  9.   9. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 311.
  10. 10. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 319.
  11. 11. Robert Pashley, Travels in Crete, 1837.
  12. 12. Quoted in David Barchard, “The Clash of Religions in Nineteenth Century Crete”, in David Shankland ed., Archaeology, Anthropology And Heritage In The Balkans And Anatolia (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2004).
  13. 13. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 332.
  14. 14. “The Insurrection in Crete. Appeal to the United States”, The New York Times, 29th September 1866.
  15. 15. To this day, Arkadi monastery remains one of the most sacred sites in Crete. A service of commemoration is held every 8th November, on the Feast of Saint Michael and All Archangels, the date of the battle.
  16. 16. Kallivretakis, “A Century of Revolutions”.
  17. 17. Quoted in Pinar Senisik, The Transformation of Ottoman Crete (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011).
  18. 18. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 366.
  19. 19. For this and most of the detail given about the Candia riots, see: Mick McTiernan, A Very Bad Place. Used with the permission of the author.
  20. 20. Quoted in McTiernan, A Very Bad Place, p. 31.
  21. 21. Quoted in McTiernan, A Very Bad Place, p. 32.
  22. 22. Quoted in McTiernan, A Very Bad Place, p. 42.
  23. 23. Quoted in McTiernan, A Very Bad Place, p. 42.
  24. 24. For a detailed analysis of the Cretan economy in the nineteenth century, see: Manos Perakis, “An Eastern Mediterranean Economy Under Transformation: Crete in the late Ottoman era (1840–98)”, Journal of European Economic History, vol. 40, no. 3, December 2011.
  25. 25. For a thorough analysis of these reforms, see: Panagiotis Krokidas and Athanasios Gekas, “Public Health in Crete under the rule of Mehmed Ali in the 1830s”, Égypte/Monde arabe, vol. 3, no. 4, 2007.
  26. 26. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 375.
  27. 27. Quoted in Anna Kouvarakis, Historical and Cultural Dimensions of the Muslim Cretans in Turkey [Master’s thesis] (Istanbul Bilgi University, 2014), http://openaccess.bilgi.edu.tr:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11411/718/anna%20kouvaraki.pdf, accessed 8th March 2019.
  28. 28. Quoted in David Barchard, “The Fearless and Self-Reliant Servant: The Life and Career of Sir Alfred Biliotti (1833–1915), an Italian Levantine in British Service”, Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici [Mycenaean and Aegean-Anatolian Studies], no. 48, 2006, pp. 5–53.
  29. 29. Quoted by Mick McTiernan in personal correspondence with the author, 2019.

14 Autonomy

  1.   1. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 405.
  2.   2. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 406.
  3.   3. Quoted in Elektra Kostopoulou, “The Island that Wasn’t: Autonomous Crete (1898–1912) and Experiments of Federalization”, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, vol. 18, 2016.
  4.   4. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 407.
  5.   5. Kostopoulou, “The Island that Wasn’t”.
  6.   6. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 407.
  7.   7. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 408.
  8.   8. H.N. Brailsford, “The Future of Crete”, The North American Review, vol. 181, no. 585, August 1905.
  9.   9. Quoted in Philip Carabott, “A Country in a ‘State of Destitution’ Labouring under an ‘Unfortunate Regime’: Crete at the Turn of the 20th century (1898–1906)”, Creta Antica, no. 7, 2006.
  10. 10. Quoted in Detorakis, History of Crete, p. 418.
  11. 11. The Admiralty, quoted in “August 18 1909, the Powers return”, The British in Crete, 1896 to 1913, https://britishinterventionincrete.wordpress.com, accessed 18 February 2019. Courtesy of Mick McTiernan.
  12. 12. For much of the information given on the economy of this period, see: Manos Perakis, “Muslim exodus and land redistribution in Autonomous Crete (1898–1913)”, Mediterranean Historical Review, vol. 26, no. 2, 2011.
  13. 13. Quoted in Perakis, “Muslim exodus and land redistribution”.
  14. 14. Elektra Kostopoulou, “The Art of Being Replaced: The Last of the Cretan Muslims Between the Empire and the Nation-State”, in Jørgen S. Nielsen ed., Religion, Ethnicity and Contested Nationhood in the Former Ottoman Space (Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2012).
  15. 15. The sources for these statistics include: Perakis, “Muslim exodus and land redistribution”; Carabott, “A Country in a ‘State of Destitution’”; Detorakis, History of Crete.
  16. 16. Quoted in McTiernan, A Very Bad Place.
  17. 17. For philatelists, the stamps of the European post offices and the Cretan State are an interesting study.
  18. 18. Quoted in Kostopoulou, “The Island that Wasn’t”.
  19. 19. It is possible that the character of the archaeologist Hatzisavvas in Kazantzakis’ novel Captain Michalis was based on Joseph Hatzidakis.
  20. 20. Vasilis Varouhakis, Ignorant Peasants, Patriot Antiquarians and National Benefactors from the West [seminar], University College London, 30th April 2014. Seminar paper available at https://www.academia.edu/7149398/Ignorant_peasants_patriot_antiquarians_and_national_benefactors_from_the_West_Crypto-colonial_and_national_archaeologies_as_identity_politics_in_the_Cretan_state.
  21. 21. Quoted in Varouhakis, Ignorant Peasants.

15 Union with Greece

  1.   1. “Το Κίνημα των Χανίων κατά της Μεταξικής Δικτατορίας” [“The Movement of Chania against the Metaxic Dictatorship”], Ριζοσπαστησ [Rizospastis], 29th July 2007, https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=4144432, accessed 8th March 2019. Translated by Manolis Sfyrakis.
  2.   2. Information from Dave Davis, author of an unpublished booklet on Imperial Airways and Elounda.
  3.   3. Quoted in Georgios Mamakis, Spinalonga, The Island of Suffering, Faith and Hope (Neapolis: Holy Metropolis of Petra and Cherronisos, 2011).
  4.   4. Quoted in Mamakis, Spinalonga.
  5.   5. Maria Iliou, From Both Sides of the Aegean: Expulsion and Exchange of Populations, Turkey-Greece: 1922–1924 [film], 2014.
  6.   6. Iliou, From Both Sides of the Aegean.

16 The Battle of Crete and Occupation

  1.   1. My main sources of research were: George Forty, Battle of Crete (Hersham: Ian Allan Publishing, 2001); Sean Damer and Ian Frazer, On the Run (London: Penguin, 2006); Antony Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (London: John Murray, 2011); Costas Hadjipateras and Maria Fafalios, Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed (Athens: Efstathiadis Group, 2007); George Psychoundakis, The Cretan Runner, Patrick Leigh Fermor trans. (London: Penguin, 2009).
  2.   2. See: Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance.
  3.   3. Quoted in Forty, Battle of Crete.
  4.   4. Quoted in Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance.
  5.   5. In one action, a single regiment of the Cretans put a whole Italian division to flight.
  6.   6. So accurate was the information Freyberg received that, as he watched the German planes approaching, he said to one of his officers, “H’mph. They’re dead on time” (quoted in Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance).
  7.   7. Hadjipateras and Fafalios, Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed.
  8.   8. Quoted in Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance.
  9.   9. Hadjipateras and Fafalios, Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed.
  10. 10. Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance.
  11. 11. Hill 107 is now the site of the German War Cemetery at Maleme.
  12. 12. Quoted in Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance.
  13. 13. Quoted in Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance.
  14. 14. Hadjipateras and Fafalios, Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed.
  15. 15. Hadjipateras and Fafalios, Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed.
  16. 16. Takis Akritas, quoted in Hadjipateras and Fafalios, Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed.
  17. 17. Quoted in Hadjipateras and Fafalios, Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed.
  18. 18. Quoted in Philip Eade, Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited (London: Hachette, 2016).
  19. 19. Quoted in Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance.
  20. 20. Psychoundakis, The Cretan Runner.
  21. 21. Quoted in Mamakis, Spinalonga.
  22. 22. Hadjipateras and Fafalios, Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed.
  23. 23. There were so many escapes from the Galatas prison camp that all prisoners were moved to the mainland in February 1942.
  24. 24. Bruce Johnston, quoted in Damer and Frazer, On the Run.
  25. 25. Quoted in Chris Moorey, Crowns of Barbed Wire: Orthodox Christian Martyrs of the Twentieth Century (self-published, 2015).
  26. 26. Quoted in Damer and Frazer, On the Run.
  27. 27. Quoted in Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance.
  28. 28. Jeffrey Myers, “My Meeting with the Byron of Our Times”, Patrick Leigh Fermor, 21st February 2015, https://patrickleighfermor.org/2015/02/21/my-meeting-with-the-byronof-our-times, accessed 8th March 2019.
  29. 29. Psychoundakis, The Cretan Runner.
  30. 30. Patrick Leigh Fermor, “Introduction”, in Psychoundakis, The Cretan Runner.
  31. 31. Katina Eleftheraki in Hadjipateras and Fafalios, Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed.
  32. 32. Quoted in Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance.
  33. 33. The film was based on the book of the same name (W. Stanley Moss, Ill Met By Moonlight, London: Cassell Military, 2014). Patrick Leigh Fermor also wrote an account of the kidnap (Patrick Leigh Fermor, Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete, London: John Murray, 2014).
  34. 34. Quoted in Moss, Ill Met By Moonlight.
  35. 35. Quoted in Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance.
  36. 36. Quoted in Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance.
  37. 37. Quoted in Hadjipateras and Fafalios, Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed.
  38. 38. Quoted in Hadjipateras and Fafalios, Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed.

17 Civil War

  1.   1. I am indebted to Colin Janes for his book The Eagles of Crete: An Untold Story of Civil War (self-published, 2013). Before his book was published, there was almost no information in English on the civil war in Crete.

18 Post-War Crete

  1.   1. Brailsford, “The Future of Crete”.
  2.   2. We arrived in Crete during the lead-up to an election, and nearly every road had the word “PASOK” painted on it in large letters. Knowing almost no Greek and nothing about Greek politics, we thought for a long time that these were road signs meaning something like “slow”.
  3.   3. See: “Parliamentary Elections September 2015”, Ministry of Interior, http://ekloges.ypes.gr/current/v/public/index.html?lang=en#%7B%22cls%22:%22main%22,%22params%22:%7B%7D%7D, accessed 19th March 2019; and “Elections Results”, Ministry of Interior, http://www.ypes.gr/en/Elections/NationalElections/Results, accessed 19th March 2019.
  4.   4. Petros Drygiannakis, “Τα Ανωγεια Φτυνουν Την Χρυση Αυγη ΚαιΔεν Την Ψηφιζουν...” [video], YouTube, 27th January 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leFiYXugsL8, accessed 8th March 2019.
  5.   5. Drygiannakis, “Τα Ανωγεια Φτυνουν Την Χρυση Αυγη”.
  6.   6. Ray, “Junta Days Chapter 06”, Crete: The Island in the Wine Dark Sea, https://crete.wordpress.com/junta-days/junta-dayschapter-06, accessed 28th February 2019.
  7.   7. All statistics are from the Greek website e-Demography which, among many other things, analyses census results. Unfortunately, the site is entirely in Greek. See: e-Demography, http://www.e-demography.gr/ElstatPublications/censuses/index.cfm?year=2001, accessed 19th March 2019.
  8.   8. “Zaro’s Named Best Bottled Water in the World”, Greek Reporter, 28th February 2017, https://greece.greekreporter.com/2017/02/28/zaros-named-best-bottled-water-in-the-world, accessed 19th March 2019.
  9.   9. Although this is probably the best-known novel based on Spinalonga, there are several other excellent books, including Beryl Darby’s Cretan Saga series of novels, beginning with Yannis (Brighton: JACH Publishing, 2006).
  10. 10. “Aristides Chairetis, the mantinades composer of Love”, Explore Crete, http://www.explorecrete.com/cretan-music/mantinades_Chairetis.html, accessed 28th February 2019.
  11. 11. Yannis Samatas, “Mantinades in Crete”, Explore Crete, http://www.explorecrete.com/cretan-music/mantinades.html, accessed 28th February 2019.
  12. 12. Quoted in Niki P. Stavrou, “A Glance upon his Life”, Kazantzakis Publications, http://www.kazantzakispublications.org/en/kazantzakis.php, accessed 8th March 2019.
  13. 13. He used a pen name, having been born Odysseas Alepoudellis.
  14. 14. “Odysseus Elytis”, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/odysseus-elytis, accessed 8th March 2019.
  15. 15. Odysseus Elytis, The axion esti, Edmund Keeley and George Savidis trans. (London: Anvil Press Poetry, 2007). The Keeley and Savidis translation is widely acknowledged to be the one that does most justice to the original.
  16. 16. However, the film about the wartime abduction of General Kreipe, Ill Met by Moonlight, was filmed not in Crete but at Pinewood Studios in England, with location shooting in the Alpes-Maritimes in France and Italy, and on the Cote d’Azur in France.
  17. 17. “Carey”, Joni Mitchell, http://jonimitchell.com/music/song.cfm?id=88, accessed 21st March 2019.
  18. 18. In November 2017, I heard that many of the larger hotels in Crete have agreed to offer more half-board or bed and breakfast holidays. I have been unable to verify this – but, if true, it is a positive move.
  19. 19. Diana Conyers, Uncaptured Crete (Iraklion: Mystis Editions, 2015).
  20. 20. Mantinada by Yiorgis Karatzis, carved on a sculpture by Franz Herman Polgar in the Lychnostatis Museum. The sculpture contains wood carvings depicting the history of Crete.