Rhithymna or Rithymna or Rhithymnia (Greek: ), was an ancient town 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...

, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, which is mentioned by Ptolemy

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

 and Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 as the first town on the north coast to the east of Amphimalla

Amphimalla

Amphimalla or Amphimala or Amphimalion , was an ancient town on the north coast of Crete, Greece, situated on the bay named after it , which corresponds, according to some, to the Bay of Almiros , and, according to others, to Suda Bay.The site of Amphimalla has not been located with precision;...

, and is spoken of as a Cretan city by Stephanus of Byzantium

Stephanus of Byzantium

Stephen of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus , was the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica...

, in whose text its name is written Rhithymnia; Stephanus gives the city's ethnonym

Ethnonym

An ethnonym is the name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms and autonyms or endonyms .As an example, the ethnonym for...

s as and ). It is also alluded to by Lycophron

Lycophron

Lycophron was a Hellenistic Greek tragic poet, grammarian, and commentator on comedy, to whom the poem Alexandra is attributed .-Life and miscellaneous works:...

 (76). The modern Rethymno

Rethymno

Rethymno is a city of approximately 40,000 people in Greece, the capital of Rethymno peripheral unit in the island of Crete. It was built in antiquity , even though was never a competitive Minoan centre...

retains the name of the ancient city upon the site of which it stands. Rhithymna minted coins in antiquity; maritime emblems are found on them.