---

Modern Description: A small city on N coast of Crete. The city is barely mentioned by ancient sources other than geographers. Together with and eventually superseding Amnisos, it served as the port of Knossos which lay 5 km inland (Strab. 10.4.7; 10.5.1; cf. Ptol. 3.15.3; Stad. 348-49). The location of ancient Herakleion has been much debated, but Platon has solved the main problem which lay in a reference in Pliny : the name Matium results from a misunderstanding by Pliny, and ancient Herakleion does lie under modern Iraklion, once called Candia.
Slight epigraphic evidence shows that the city was a satellite of Knossos in the Hellenistic period. No coins are certainly known.
At Katsaba in E Iraklion by the mouth of the Katsaba (ancient Kairatos), which flows past Knossos, are Neolithic remains and a considerable Minoan site. The later city seems to have been under the modern city center, but little is known of its plan: scattered remains, mainly of tombs, have been found of the Geometric period to 7th c. A.D. (D. J. BLACKMAN)
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleium
Wikidata ID: Q65075667
Trismegistos Geo: 16069
Manto: 10771896

Info: Princeton Encyclopedia

(Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, from Perseus Project)

---