Knidos

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Knidos

Cnidus or Knidos (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: ???d?? /Knidos; at the modern-day locality called Tekir in Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
) was an ancient Greek

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkans. It has borders with Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the east....
city in Anatolia

Anatolia

Anatolia or Asia Minor is a region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. It is a geographic region bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Iranian plateau to the east and southeast....
, part of the Dorian Hexapolis. It was situated at the extremity of the long Datça peninsula

Datça Peninsula

The Dat?a or Resadiye Peninsula, formerly called the Dorian Peninsula or the Cnidos Peninsula , is an 80 km-long, narrow peninsula in Mugla province, southwestern Turkey, separating the Gulf of G?kova from the Gulf of Hisar?n?....
, which forms the southern side of the Sinus Ceramicus or Gulf of Gökova

Gulf of Gökova

The Gulf of G?kova , Gulf of Kerme , or Gulf of Cos, is a long , narrow Headlands and bays of the Aegean Sea which separates the Bodrum peninsula from the Resadiye peninsula in southwest Turkey....
. 36°41'8.99"N ; 27°22'31.60"E

It was built partly on the mainland and partly on the Island of Triopion or Cape Krio. The debate about it being an island or cape is caused by the fact that in ancient times it was connected to the mainland by a causeway and bridge.

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Encyclopedia

Cnidus or Knidos (Greek

Greek language

Turkey

Greece

Anatolia

Datça Peninsula

Gulf of Gökova

Isthmus

File:The Spit Bruny Island.jpg File:IsthmusOfPanama.pngAn isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land areas. Of note, the Isthmus of Panama connects the continents of North America and South America , and the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt connects Africa and Asia ....
. By means of the causeway the channel between island and mainland was formed into two harbours, of which the larger, or southern, was further enclosed by two strongly-built moles that are still in good part entire.

The extreme length of the city was little less than a mile, and the whole intramural area is still thickly strewn with architectural remains. The walls, both of the island and on the mainland, can be traced throughout their whole circuit; and in many places, especially round the acropolis, at the northeast corner of the city, they are remarkably perfect. The first Western knowledge of the site was due to the mission of the Dilettante Society

Dilettante Society

The Society of Dilettanti was a society of noblemen and gentlemen which sponsored the study of ancient Greek art and Roman art and the creation of new work in the style....
in 1812, and the excavations executed by C. T. Newton in 1857-1858.

The agora

Agora

The Agora was an open "place of assembly" in ancient Ancient Greece city-states. Early in Greek history , free-born male land-owners who were citizens would gather in the agora for military duty or to hear statements of the ruling king or council....
, the theatre, an odeum, a temple of Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
, a temple of the Muses, a temple of Aphrodite

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the classical Greek mythology goddess of love, sex, and beauty. According to Greek oral poet Hesiod, she was born when Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus....
and a great number of minor buildings have been identified, and the general plan of the city has been very clearly made out. The most famous statue by Praxiteles

Praxiteles

Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude Woman in a life-size statue....
, the Aphrodite of Knidos

Aphrodite of Knidos

The Aphrodite of Cnidus was one of the most famous works of the ancient Greece Sculpture Praxiteles of Classical Athens . It and its copies are often referred to as the Venus Pudica type, on account of her covering her groin with her right hand....
, was made for Cnidus. It has perished, but late copies exist, of which the most faithful is in the Vatican Museums

Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums , in Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries....
. In a temple enclosure Newton discovered a fine seated statue of Demeter

Demeter

File:Demeter in horse chariot w daughter kore 83d40m wikiC Tempio Y di Selinunte sec VIa.JPGDemeter , in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of cereal and fertility, the pure....
, which he sent back to the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture situated in London. Its collections, which number more than 7 million Object , are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present....
, and about three miles south-east of the city he came upon the ruins of a splendid tomb, and a colossal figure of a lion carved out of one block of Pentelic marble, ten feet in length and six in height, which has been supposed to commemorate the great naval victory, the Battle of Cnidus

Battle of Cnidus

The Battle of Cnidus , was a joint Athens and Persian Empire operation against the Spartan naval fleet in the Corinthian War. A combined Athenian-Persian fleet, led by the former Greeks admiral Conon, destroyed the Spartan fleet led by the inexperienced Peisander , ending Sparta's brief bid for naval supremacy....
in which Conon

Conon

Conon was an Athens general at the end of the Peloponnesian War, in charge during the decisive loss of the navy at the Battle of Aegospotami. He had been sent out following the recall of Alcibiades in 406 BC, and pursued the Peloponnesian fleet under Lysander to the Hellespont....
defeated the Lacedaemonians in 394 BC.

Knidos was a city of high antiquity and as a Hellenic city probably of Lacedaemonian colonization. Along with Halicarnassus

Halicarnassus

Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city on the southwest coast of Caria, Anatolia , on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf . It was the site of the Siege of Halicarnassus, between Alexander the Great and the Persian Empire....
(present day Bodrum

Bodrum

Bodrum , formerly Halicarnassus , is a Turkey port town in Mugla Province, in the southwestern Aegean Region, Turkey of the country. It is located on the southern coast of Bodrum Peninsula, at a point that checks the entry into the Gulf of G?kova, and it faces the Greece island of Kos....
, Turkey

Turkey

Rhodes

Rhodes is a Greece List of islands of Greece approximately southwest of Turkey in eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007 of which 53,709 resided in the Rhodes capital city of the island....
cities of Lindos

Lindos

Lindos is a town and an Archeology site on the east coast of the Greece island of Rhodes, in the Dodecanese in southeastern Aegean Sea Sea. It is about 55km south of the town of Rhodes and its fine beaches make it a popular tourist and holiday destination....
, Kamiros and Ialyssos it formed the Dorian Hexapolis, which held its confederate assemblies on the Triopian headland, and there celebrated games in honour of Apollo

Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
, Poseidon

Poseidon

In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the god of the sea and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes. The name of the god Nethuns in Etruscan mythology was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon....
and the nymph

Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
s.

The city was at first governed by an oligarchic

Oligarchy

Oligarchy is a form of government where political power effectively rests with a small Elitism segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military influence or occult spiritual hegemony....
senate

Senate

A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a legislature or Parliament. There have been many such bodies in history, the first of which was the Roman Senate....
, composed of sixty members, and presided over by a magistrate; but, though it is proved by inscriptions that the old names continued to a very late period, the constitution underwent a popular transformation. The situation of the city was favourable for commerce, and the Knidians acquired considerable wealth, and were able to colonize the island of Lipara, and founded a city on Corcyra Nigra

Korcula

Korcula is an island in the Adriatic Sea, in the Dubrovnik-Neretva county of Croatia. The island has an area of 279 km2 — it is 46.8 km long and on average 7.8 km wide — and lies just off the Dalmatian coast....
in the Adriatic

Adriatic Sea

The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges....
. They ultimately submitted to Cyrus

Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great , , also known as Cyrus II of Persia and Cyrus the Elder, was a Persian people Shah . He was the founder of the Persian Empire under the Achaemenid dynasty, an empire, perhaps the most wealthy and magnificent in history....
, and from the battle of Eurymedon to the latter part of the Peloponnesian War

Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War which lasted from 431-404BC was an Ancient Greece military conflict, fought by Athens and its Athenian empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta....
they were subject to Athens

Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
.

In their expansion into the region, the Romans

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
easily obtained the allegiance of Knidians, and rewarded them for help given against Antiochus

Antiochus

Antiochus is the name of thirteen kings of the Seleucid Empire:*Antiochus I Soter*Antiochus II Theos*Antiochus III the Great*Antiochus IV Epiphanes...
by leaving them the freedom of their city.

During the Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
period there must still have been a considerable population: for the ruins contain a large number of buildings belonging to the Byzantine style, and Christian sepulchres are common in the neighbourhood.

Eudoxus

Eudoxus of Cnidus

Eudoxus of Cnidus was a Ancient Greece astronomer, mathematician, scholar and student of Plato. Since all his own works are lost, our knowledge of him is obtained from secondary sources, such as Aratus's poem on astronomy....
, the astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies Celestial body such as planets, stars, and Galaxy.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using physical laws....
, Ctesias

Ctesias

Ctesias of Cnidus was a Hellenic civilization physician and historian from Cnidus in Caria. Ctesias, who flourished in the 5th century BC, was physician to Artaxerxes II, whom he accompanied in 401 BC on his expedition against his brother Cyrus the Younger....
, the writer on Persian history, and Sostratus

Sostratus of Cnidus

Sostratus of Knidos , was a Greeks architect and engineer. He designed the lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the World , on the island of Pharos off Alexandria, Egypt....
, the builder of the celebrated Pharos at Alexandria

Lighthouse of Alexandria

The Lighthouse of Alexandria was a tower built in the 3rd century BC on the island of Pharos in Alexandria, Egypt to serve as that port's landmark, and later, its lighthouse....
, are the most remarkable of the Knidians mentioned in history.

Knidos

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