Arsinoe (Crete)
Encyclopedia
Arsinoe was an ancient city of Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

 assigned to Lyctus
Lyctus
Lyctus or Lyttos , was one of the most considerable cities in ancient Crete, which appears in the Homeric catalogue. Lyttos is now a village in the municipality of Minoa Pediada.-Lyctus in mythology:...

, adjacent to (and some authors say overlaying) the older city of Rhithymna
Rhithymna
Rhithymna or Rithymna or Rhithymnia , was an ancient town of Crete, Greece, which is mentioned by Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder as the first town on the north coast to the east of Amphimalla, and is spoken of as a Cretan city by Stephanus of Byzantium, in whose text its name is written Rhithymnia;...

. Berkelius supposes that an error had crept into the text, and that for we should read . Its identification with Rhithymna
Rhithymna
Rhithymna or Rithymna or Rhithymnia , was an ancient town of Crete, Greece, which is mentioned by Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder as the first town on the north coast to the east of Amphimalla, and is spoken of as a Cretan city by Stephanus of Byzantium, in whose text its name is written Rhithymnia;...

 was first proposed by Eckhel. Georges Le Rider in 1968 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
Roger S. Bagnall
Roger Shaler Bagnall is an American classical scholar. He was a professor of classics and history at Columbia University from 1974 until 2007, when he took up the position of first Director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University...

 notes 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 2nd 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 after Arsinoe II of Egypt
Arsinoe II of Egypt
For other uses see, ArsinoeArsinoë II was a Ptolemaic Greek Princess of Ancient Egypt and through marriage was of Queen Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedonia as wife of King Lysimachus and later co-ruler of Egypt with her brother-husband Ptolemy II Philadelphus For other uses see, ArsinoeArsinoë II...

, sister and wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus. It was under Ptolemaic influence, along with Itanos city
Itanos (city)
Itanos was an ancient Greek city in Crete. Its ruins are now visible in Erimopolis, in the modern district of Itanos.Herodotos is the first Greek historian we know who mentioned Itanos....

.
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