LATO
City-state founded by the Dorians in Kritsa, one of the most powerful of Crete.
Lato, city-state founded by the Dorians on the top of a small hill which dominates the countryside, is among the most powerful cities of the post-Minoan Crete. However, following archaeological excavations, several clues attest the development of the city of Lato during the Minoan period although the site that we can visit today (between 1500 and 67 BC), was, indeed, established by the Dorians. The city occupied a privileged and strategic place because, by its situation, it controlled the passage between the central and western part of the island. Its name Lato, in Dorian dialect, corresponds to that of Leto who had two children with Zeus: Artemis and Apollo. Coins with the effigy of Eileithyia (the Minoan goddess protector of the childbirth) were discovered here. Archaeological excavations (which began in the late 1960s with the French School) have also uncovered in Lato an ancient theater, as well as several temples, houses and shrines attesting to the importance of this city at the time of its influence in the 7th century BC. The whole is a nice mixture of post-Minoan and pre-Hellenic. Near theagora (the market) are a large cistern - most probably the public cistern - and the prytaneion (the administrative center of the city), where a fire was lit day and night in honor of the goddess Hestia. The site is also worth a visit for the unobstructed view it offers towards the east of Crete and the Gulf of Mirabello.
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Les enfants vont adorer.