Gortyn
Gortyn is located on the Mesara plain of central Crete and was an important settlement throughout antiquity from the Minoan to Hellenistic periods. In Roman times the city went on to gain even more importance as the capital of the Roman province of Crete and Cyrene. The site today is particularly noted for the Gortyn Law Code, a lengthy wall inscription created in the 5th century BCE which is the earliest such example in Europe.
Bronze Age Gortyn
First settled in the Late Bronze Age, Gortyn was built on an acropolis and initially controlled by the Minoan palace of nearby Phaistos until it rose to prominence as the most important city-state in the region. Bronze Age Gortyn is also the setting of several important stories from Greek mythology. Europa was seduced here by Zeus when he took the form of a bull; their marriage taking place under an evergreen tree at the site. Gortyn is mentioned in Homer's Iliad as being a walled city and in the Odyssey where the Greeks, returning home from the Trojan War, are driven against the stormy coastline of southern Crete.
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