1. Geographical location

Cnidus is a city in Caria, on the south-eastern coast of Asia Minor, opposite the isles of Nisyros and Cos. It is situated at 27°20΄ longitude and at 36°45΄ latitude.

2. City’s History

According to Herodotus, Cnidus was founded by the Lacedaemonians, while Strabo describes it as a Megarian colony.¹ Diodorus Siculus refers to an earlier colonization of the nearby peninsula of Triopia under the leadership of Triops, father of Pelasgus, which occurred in the 12^th cent. BC. Hesychius mentions that the first settlers reaching Rhodes and Cnidus were called Limodorians (‘Ravenous-Dorians’), due to the famine that had struck the Peloponnese.² Excavations conducted in 1968 revealed Mycenaean type potsherds, but no further evidence testifying to the existence of a Mycenaean settlement in the area.³ The archaeological evidence in the peninsula of Cnidia date from the 7^th cent. BC and largely consist of high quality pottery in the so-called “late Wild Goat style”.⁴

Cnidus belonged to the Dorian hexapolis (together with Cos and Halicarnassus, as did the three cities of Rhodes, Ialysus, Camirus and Lindus); the centre of the league was the Temple of Apollo Triopios in the peninsula of Cnidus, within the city’s domain (called Cnidie). Every four years, this Dorian League organized games in Cnidus’ territory.⁵ At the end of the 7^th cent. BC, Cnidus was one of the cities which participated in the building of the Hellenion in Naucratis.⁶ Around 580 BC, Cnidus and Rhodes settled the Lipari Islands, situated NW of Sicily.⁷ In the middle of the 6^th cent. BC, Cnidus erected a remarkable treasury in Delphi, one of the earliest marble buildings.⁸ Around the late 6^th cent. BC, the Cnidians saved 300 young men from Corfu which the Corinthians had sent to Hallyatis to have them castrated, as a punishment for the murder of Periander in Corfu.⁹ At an indeterminate period, Cnidus together with Corfu founded Corcyra Melaina in the Adriatic.¹⁰ During this period the city reached its acme.

After 546 BC, the city was captured by the Persians led the Median general Harpagus. The people of Clazomenae attempted to cut off the peninsula by cutting a canal; they failed, however, due to divine intervention, as Herodotus relates in detail.¹¹

From 478 BC, Cnidus was a member of the Athenian League.¹² In 468 BC Cimon used Cnidus and the nearby Triopion as a base, before sailing off for the sea battle at the river Eurymedon, from where he emerged victorious.¹³ At the same period, the Cnidians built the famous ‘Lesche’ in Delphi, which was decorated with paintings by Polygnotus, the famous sculptor from Thasos.¹⁴ In Delphi they had dedicated a complex of statues depicting the legendary founder Triops standing next to a horse, together with the Apollonian triad hurling an arrow at the giant Tityus.¹⁵ During the Ionic War (412-405 BC), the Cnidians, aided by Tissaphernes, the satrap of Ionia, defected from the Athenian League (412 BC).¹⁶ At first, a Spartan guard was installed in the city. The Athenians temporarily captured the city in 412 BC, seizing the six ships guarding it and six more that the Spartans had left in Cape Triopion, but failed to hold on to it for long.¹⁷ Cnidus was later the theatre of operations for the Spartan fleet, serving as an outlying station for attacks against Samos, base of the Athenian fleet.¹⁸ Subsequently Tissaphernes installed a Persian guard, tacitly aiming to recapture the entire region of Caria.¹⁹At the Battle of Aegospotami (405 BC), the Cnidians were allies of Lysander. In Delphi, the monument celebrating Lysander’s victory included a statue of Theodamus of Cnidus.²⁰

During the Spartan-Persian War (400-394 BC), Cnidus remained under Spartan control and was the fleet’s base under the Spartan admiral Pleistarchus. Following a naval battle off the coast of Cnidus (394 BC), the remnants of the Spartan fleet returned to Cnidus.²¹The city was a fortified base of the Spartans during Thribon’s abortive campaign in 392 BC.²² In 390 BC, the Spartan Teleutias notes activity between Cnidus and Rhodes, the most noteworthy event being the capture of 10 Athenian ships sent to aid the Cyprian king of Salamina, Evagoras, in his revolt.²³ The city fell into the hands of the Persians after the Antalcidas' Peace (386 BC).

It is thought that during this period the city of Cnidus had an aristocratic polity, based on the legislation of the famous mathematician Eudoxus, while it remained under the control of the satrap of Caria Mausolus (367-354 BC).²⁴ In 363 BC, Cnidus maintained friendly relations with Thebes, as it is attested by a decree with which the eminent general Epaminondas was declared proxenos, when the Theban was on a campaign in the Eastern Aegean and Asia Minor.²⁵ Roughly during the same period, Cnidus was on good terms with Iphiades, the tyrant of Abydus, and with the city of Lampsacus, i.e. with cities controlling the entrance to the straits of the Black Sea, for obvious financial and commercial reasons.²⁶

In 334/333 BC, during the campaign of Alexander and the Persian counter-attack, the satrap of Caria recaptured the Triopion.²⁷ The aristocratic polity was abrogated after the city’s capture by Alexander the Great in 334 BC, who established a democracy. Aristotle mentions a revolution by the people through which the aristocratic polity was repelled; the demos took advantage of strife among the aristocrats who had been divided in two factions, evidently one pro-Persian and one pro-Macedonian.²⁸

Following the death of Alexander, it seems that the city was independent, as suggested by the significant mediation of Cnidian arbiters in the conflict between the Rhodians and Demetrius Poliorcetes in 305 BC. Nevertheless, the city must have been allied to Antigonus during that period, although in 309 BC Ptolemy had captured a number of positions in Caria;²⁹ it came under the influence of the Seleucids and later the Ptolemies (274 BC).³⁰ In the microcosm of the cities of Asia Minor, Cnidus enjoyed high repute and intervened in a number of instances to many of their endemic conflicts, with positive results.³¹

In 201 BC, Philip V of Macedonia made an abortive attempt to capture the city, following a brief siege.³² During the war of Antiochus against the Romans (192-189 BC), Cnidus was a loyal ally of Rome and of general Gaius Livius.³³ In concert with Cos, the city sent a small naval force to aid the Rhodian Pamphilidas in breaking the siege of the city of Daedalians by the king’s forces.³⁴ It is doubtful whether after the Peace of Apamea (188 BC) the city became part of the dominion of Rhodes, like most other cities in Caria. Most likely it remained independent, just as it was before189 BC, although its policies were necessarily tied to the will of Rhodes.³⁵ In 168 BC, the seafarer Thoas was sent to Rhodes carrying the secret correspondence between king Perseus of Macedonia and the pro-Macedonian faction in Rhodes. When he was informed that the Romans had declared the cities of Caria and Lycia allies and not vassals of Rhodes, Thoas returned to Cnidus. The Cnidians incarcerated him, but following the demand of the Rhodians, they sent him to Rhodes.³⁶ After 167 BC and the Rhodian strength’s decline, Cnidus acquired a more autonomous role in the region: first (166-164 BC) it intervenes between the Termessians and the Lycian League, but its arbitrage was rejected.³⁷ A few years later, though, (164/163 BC) Cnidus successfully intervened on the side of the city of Calyndus in its dispute with Caunus.³⁸

In 100 or 99 BC, the Roman authorities issued a law concerning piracy in the East. A copy of this law was found in Cnidus, which then belonged to the Province of Asia.³⁹ Around 70 BC, the city fell victim to pirate incursions.⁴⁰ In 49 BC, two eminent citizens of Cnidus, Theopompus son of Artemidorus and Kallistos son of Epigenes, were among Caesar’s entourage in his campaign in Greece, assuming consultative and administrative duties. Thanks to Theopompus’ intervention, Julius granted the city its freedom in 48 BC.⁴¹ During the same period, or most likely in 29 BC, Cnidus, as a free and autonomous ally, signed a treaty with Rome.⁴² In the mid-1^st cent. AD, Pliny the Elder mentions it as a city still free.⁴³ It apparently goes into decline after the 2^nd cent. AD.

The end of Cnidus must be linked with the Persian and Arab raids in the coasts of Asia Minor during the 6^th and 7^th cent. AD. From the Byzantine Period there have been discovered the ruins of two large basilicas decorated with mosaics.

3. Eminent individuals

Part of the city’s renown during the 4^th cent. BC and onwards resulted from its illustrious medical school, which was only surpassed by that of Cos.⁴⁴ The school’s most famous representatives were Euryphon (author of the Cnidian precepts), Metrodorus (mostly known on account of his marriage to Aristotle’s daughter, Pythias, and for being the tutor of the distinguished Erasistratus) and Ctesias, who for 17 years served as the personal physician of the Persian queen Parysatis. Ctesias is widely known for his historical writings, and more specifically the Persica and Indica, in which he systematically contradicts Herodotus. Other eminent Cnidians were the celebrated mathematician Eudoxus, Sostratos, the architect of the Pharos of Alexandria, the geographer and historian Agatharchides (2^nd cent. BC), who composed works on the history of Asia (Asian Affairs) and Europe (European Affairs), but was mainly known for his Circumnavigation of the Red Sea (the Persian Gulf), the historian Aratus and the orator Artemidorus.

4. Institutions - polity

Cnidus’ polity was aristocratic.⁴⁵ The boule was composed of 60 members (the amnemones – the ‘oblivious’) who were chosen among the aristocracy and held their office for life. A body of ‘protectors’ prepared the decrees brought before the boule. In 332 BC we have the first mention of the demos, i.e. the city’s popular assembly, on the city's official inscriptions (in a dedication in Delphi): this indicates that following Cnidus' conquest by the troops of Alexander the Great in 334 BC, its polity changed and democracy was adopted.⁴⁶ The boule is mentioned only in decrees dating to the Roman Period.

5. Topography

Excavational and topographical research in the area of Cnidus has raised a series of questions regarding the site of the initial settlement and the possibility of the city being relocated at some later phase.⁴⁷ According the prevalent view, which is partially affirmed by the excavational data, the first site of the city was at Burgaz, on the southern coast of the Cnidian Chersonese, north of the modern harbour of Datça, were surface research indicates the arrival of colonists in the 8^th cent. BC.⁴⁸ The Cnidians relocated their city during the 4^th cent. BC, moving it to the western end of the peninsula at the site of Tekir. The residences were built mainly on the small isle which is today connected with the mainland through a narrow isthmus, which has not been examined in detail. The two sites respectively match the descriptions given by Herodotus in the 5^th and Strabo in the 1^st cent. BC.⁴⁹

When Bean and Cook formulated this theory, no finds existed in Tekir that dated before the 4^th cent. BC. This was the main argument for the relocation theory, which became prevalent, the only contention being its date: most scholars credited Mausolus' with the relocation, while the hypothesis that a relocation like this could bear the stamp of Alexander the Great is also attractive.⁵⁰ Excavations by Iris Love in Tekir have yielded some earlier finds (6^th cent. BC), which led to the revision of the theory supporting a relocation in the 4^th cent. BC: the settlement had always been in Tekir.⁵¹ More recent research, however, based on the study of epigraphical findings, suggests that Cnidus had two civic centres, one in Tekir and another on in Burgaz, the latter being the administrative centre during the Archaic and Classical periods and the former of the Hellenistic and Roman city, which is primarily known from the excavational research.⁵²

The situation in the area of the Cnidian Chersonese is complicated, for research indicates the existence of further residential centres, dependent on Cnidus, like Kumyer, 11 km east of the peninsula’s end.⁵³ Literary sources mention the city of Chersonese, which in the 5^th cent. BC must have been independent of Cnidus, but was probably incorporated in it.⁵⁴ In the area of Cnidus there existed during the 4^th cent. BC Rhodian possessions.⁵⁵ In some sources the Triopion is mentioned as a separate area, while others identify it with Cnidus: the majority of scholars identify the Triopion with Tekir.⁵⁶ Surface examination in Emecik east of the position Datça, however, indicates that a large Hellenistic temple stood there, were recently the existence of an unattested temple of Apollo has been proposed, where the Dorian Games were held.⁵⁷

5.1. Fortifications and port facilities

There are four fortified positions: the peninsula of Tekir, the inland, the mercantile and the military harbour. The site of Tekir is surrounded by a finely built and rather well preserved wall of polygonal masonry, dating to the Hellenistic Period. Significant traces of it survive in the city’s north zone and in the citadel. At its western side, the wall is complemented by a series of semicircular towers.

The embankment which through a heavily fortified road connected the city’s two parts, the peninsula’s islet with the mainland, divides the small sea channel and creates two small and protected coves. One of these was the mercantile and the other the military harbour of Cnidus. In the south one, the mercantile harbour of the ancient city, sunken parts of the quay can be discerned. In the north cove, or Trireme Cove, extensive remains of strong fortifications are linked by impressive towers. The mouth of the military harbour was protected by a couple of towers. One of the towers, on the left as one leaves the harbour, had three storeys, was square with a flat ceiling and had slit windows protected by wooden shutters. A narrow quay, also protected by a wall with slit windows, projected into the sea narrowing for defensive purposes the available pass. Directly opposite loomed a two-storey square tower with a flat roof. Between these two towers a retractable chain was suspended to control the traffic of vessels. This harbour could be chained off when the Cnidians wished so, and it could accommodate 20 triremes. The walls and the towers were built of limestone and porous stone. The dominant masonry was pseudo-isodomic and isodomic, although polygonal masonry was also used. The fortified harbour’s construction dates to the 3^rd cent. BC, while there are indications that it was reinforced during the Middle or Late Hellenistic Period.⁵⁸

5.2. Principal monuments

Strabo mentions that the city of Cnidus was built on terraces and spread amphitheatrically from the coast to the acropolis.⁵⁹ The Temple of Aphrodite Euploia lay on the highest westernmost part of the city (at a height of 40 m), under the western part of the citadel, affording a view to the city's two harbours, underlining the goddess’ role as the protector of sailing.^60- The surviving temple is circular (“monopteros”) and dates to the 2^nd cent. BC. It rests on a two-stepped podium and its diameter is 17.30 m. It was surrounded by 18 Doric columns. Today very few of its parts survive, save its foundations. Love unearthed part of a marble inscription bearing the first four letters of Praxiteles’ name from the pedestal of the celebrated statue of the Cnidian Aphrodite, measuring 1.5 × 1.32 m. This find confirms that this area was the site of the temple. The requisite altar and traces of the gardens mentioned in the sources have also been discovered. The findings (statuettes of hydria-bearers, Artemis, and female musicians) strengthen the site’s identification as a Temple of Aphrodite.

The temple and the statue exercised a strong influence on the Romans: the temple is depicted on a wall painting in Villa Iulia Felix in Pompey, while a precise copy of it and statue existed in Villa Adriana near Tivoli. Even king Ptolemy IV had erected a copy of the temple and the statue on his royal ship.⁶¹

On the northeast one finds the remains of the lower theatre, dating to the Hellenistic Period, which overlooks the mercantile harbour. 35 rows of seats are preserved in three parts of the cavea defined by two passage ways (praecinctiones).⁶² There are 8 staircases which lead to the lower sections and 15 leading to the upper. According to calculations its capacity was approx. 4,500 spectators. During the Roman Period, the Hellenistic skene was torn down and replaced by one made of marble.⁶³ On a terrace a bit further, extensive remains of a Roman building can be observed, the plastered walls of which still rise to a height of 3.5 m.

On the east one can observe the remains of a monumental altar, which was accessed via a staircase. It was decorated with a frieze depicting the Nymphs or the Graces, seated divinities and semi-nude men. The altar’s shape strongly resembles Zeus Altar in Pergamon.⁶⁴ Further to the right, an amphitheatrical building was unearthed which was used for the worship of some fertility divinity, as suggested by statuettes unearthed on the site which depict female figures cupping their breasts, Hermes, as well as phallus-form ones. Left of the building lays the entrance of a cavern, through which one enters two galleries. One of them leads to the acropolis and the other to the sea. A large number of pottery was discovered there, dating from the 7^th cent. BC up to the 7^th cent. AD. Apparently this was a place of worship.

Further to the west, towards the citadel, lies the temenos of Demeter, where C.T. Newton unearthed in 1857 the famous statue of the goddess, which is now exhibited in the British Museum. In the Temple of Demeter and Kore two phases have been detected: the first belongs to the 4^th cent. BC, and the second to the 3^rd cent. AD. Numerous finds -clay statuettes, glass vessels, and pottery, clay lamps and inscriptions- come from the depositories (apothetes).⁶⁵

The agora was situated next to the military harbour. Further up, the remains of a large pseudodipteros temple in the Corinthian Order can be discerned, dating to Hadrian’s reign (117-138 AD). Several capitals survive in an excellent state. The main temple consists of a prostyle tetrastyle pronaos, the cella and a distyle in antis opisthodomos. It rests on a tall podium, while access was made via a stairway of seven steps.⁶⁶ In front of the pronaos one sees the traces of a Hellenistic stoa, with an East orientation.

On the coast of the south harbour we have the bouleuterion of the Roman Period, which used to be considered an odeum. It is poorly preserved. The apertures that can be seen of the floor indicate that the building’s roof was supported by wooden beams. It had a remarkably original design, as the orchestra was transversely placed on the cavea.

Further to the West and opening to the sea, the upper theatre survives in a poor state. Its eastern side has completely collapsed. Most of its marble members were transported to Egypt in the early-19^th cent.

Various buildings have been discovered in the narrow channel between the mercantile and the military harbour, like the Ionic temple, which was identified as the temple of Dionysus mentioned in inscriptions and which probably housed the god’s two statues, sculpted by Scopas and Bryaxis.⁶⁷ Many of the temple’s members were used in the building of an adjacent Early Christian church. A large Doric stoa was associated with the temple, which should probably be identified as the ambulatio pensilis measuring 113 × 16 m, a work of the renowned architect Sostratus, who engineered the Pharos of Alexandria.⁶⁸ To the west stood a Doric temple of Apollo Carneios, with a monumental propylon (gate-building) dating to approx. 300 BC leading to it.⁶⁹ North of the mercantile harbour a small temple with Corinthian capitals has been excavated, it was dedicated to Apollo Pythios. Hellenistic and Roman residences have been excavated to the East.

5.3. The Lion Grave

East of the city, the necropolis of Cnidus has been excavated. Newton discovered the shrine of the hero Antigonus there, which included a gymnasium, palaestra and an altar where “the poets could recite their compositions” and, 3 km SE of Cape "Ram" in the position Aslan Burnu (‘the cape of the Lion’), the famed Lion Grave, named after the large lion statue which crowned the monument, weighing 11 tons and measuring 3.5 m in length and 2 m in width, and made of Parian marble. It was built in doric order, whith a pseudodipteral colonnade incorporated in the wall supported a stepped pyramid, which was crowned by a recumbent lion. Its total height reached 62 ft. Its interior was supported by a vault.⁷⁰

6. Cults

The most important cult in Cnidus was that of Aphrodite, which for the Cnidians was a protector of sailing and was called Euploia, while outside Cnidus she was often called Cnidia. The Cnidians maintained that their city was dedicated to the goddess.⁷¹ This temple was later in date, while according to Pausanias there were two more temples of the goddess in the city: earlier was the Temple of Aphrodite Doritis and the other of Aphrodite Akraia, apparently due to its location on a cape.⁷²

The worship of Demeter and Kore was also important, which is mentioned on inscriptions.⁷³ Of particular interest is a series of leaden tablets, the so-called "justice incantations”, in which the goddess is called upon to administer justice for the wrong-doings suffered by the person devoting the tablet. The wording directly alludes to magical texts, while they have been dated to the 2^nd cent. BC.⁷⁴ Other cults mentioned in inscriptions are those of Dionysus and the Dioscuri.⁷⁵

7. Coins

Cnidus began minting silver coins in the late 6^th cent. BC, possibly around 530 BC.⁷⁶ The earliest mints, following the Milesian weighing standard, are few and the coins are in small denominations. The types adopted reflect the two most important cults in the city: the obverse depicts a lion, symbol of Apollo, and the reverse the head of Aphrodite.⁷⁷ Around 520-500 BC, however, Cnidus adopted the Aeginetan weighing standard, which was already in use in Camirus of Rhodes, in Caria and in several islands of the Cyclades. Oddly enough, the main coin was the drachma, while smaller denominations were all but abandoned. Shortly after this change, the obverse is differentiated: the lion is replaced by a lion’s bust with one forefoot raised.⁷⁸ The same types appear on silver coins after the Ionian Revolt (499-494 BC), but obviously the mintages, almost exclusively drachmas, notwithstanding their relative abundance in coin collections, are not many.⁷⁹

Around the mid-5^th cent. BC, due to the pressure from Athens, this production stops. The mint’s activity commences on a regular basis in 412-411 BC, always following the traditional types of Cnidus.⁸⁰

In the beginning of the 4^th cent. BC, the city becomes irrevocably oriented towards Rhodes, adopting the Rhodian weighing standard.⁸¹ This change is occurs probably in 394 BC. A ship’s fore is added to the head of Aphrodite, to commemorate the famous naval engagement which took place off the city’s coasts. Almost at the same time we have the appearance of coalition coins, minted immediately after the naval battle of 394 BC. In terms of their obverse these follow a common type (the child Hercules strangling the snakes, with the inscription ΣΥΝ[ΜΑΧΙΚΟΝ]), while on the reverse they preserve the Cnidian type with Aphrodite’s head.⁸²

After 390 BC, on the new type silver coins we have Aphrodite on the obverse and a lion’s head on the reverse, while in the late-3^rd cent. BC Apollo’s face appears in a ¾ perspective, a result of Rhode’s influence.

The introduction of the first bronze coins dates to the early-4^th cent. BC; the head of Athena is depicted on the obverse and a ship’s fore or a club on the reverse. Around 300 BC, the goddess' figure is framed by the inscription ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ (Democracy). Other Hellenistic Period types include the head of Apollo, Artemis, and the figure of Dionysus or Athena on the obverse, and a club, the Triopion Dorian Games tripod, a bunch of grapes or Nike on the reverse. Bronze coins were also minted during the Imperial Period, up to approx. 210 AD; these bear the busts of emperors and their consorts on the obverse, and the cult statue of Aphrodite Cnidia on the reverse.

8. Commerce and economy

Cnidus’ prosperity came from its harbour and chiefly from the popularity of its wine. The success of Cnidus’ winemakers is attested by the tremendous spread and demand for the city’s wine amphorae in the main commercial destinations of the Eastern Mediterranean, like Alexandria, Delos and Athens.⁸³ On the basis of rough calculations, the number of inscribed amphorae attributed to Cnidus and dated on the main part to the 1^st cent. BC represents 5.5 % out of a total of 50,000 recorded amphorae.⁸⁴ An excavation conducted in a winery in the Datça peninsula significantly enriches our knowledge on Cnidian wine-making.⁸⁵ Wine production apparently falls into decline after the 1^st cent. BC, when Cnidus loses a large part of its prestige.