Arcades (Crete)

{{Short description|Town and polis of ancient Crete}}

Arcades or Arkades ({{langx|grc|Ἀρκάδες}}), also Arcadia or Arkadia (Ἀρκαδία), was a town and polis (city-state){{cite book|author= Mogens Herman Hansen & Thomas Heine Nielsen |title= An inventory of archaic and classical poleis|url= https://archive.org/details/inventoryarchaic00hans |url-access= limited |year= 2004|publisher= Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn= 0-19-814099-1|chapter= Crete|pages= [https://archive.org/details/inventoryarchaic00hans/page/n1168 1152]}} of ancient Crete.{{Cite Barrington|60}} It disputed the claims of Mount Ida to be the birthplace of Zeus.{{Cite DGRG|title=Arcadia}}

Seneca the Younger collects a fragment of Theophrastus in which he says that in Crete there was a city called Arcadia where the springs and lakes dried up because they stopped cultivating the land after the destruction of the city. As a consequence, the terrain became harder and therefore it did not give way to the rains. He adds that they later re-cultivated the land and the waters returned.Seneca, Naturales quaestiones 3.2. During the Lyttian War about 220 BCE, at first all the Cretans were fighting against Lyctus, but then disagreements arose among the Cretans and some, like the people of Arcades, together with the inhabitants of Polyrrhenia, Ceraea, Orus and Lappa allied with Lyctus.{{Cite Polybius|4.53.6}} Arcades is mentioned in the list of Cretan cities that signed an alliance with Eumenes II of Pergamon in the year 183 BCE,[http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/main?url=oi%3Fikey%3D200618%26bookid%3D293%26region%3D7%26subregion%3D26 IC IV,179.] and also appears in the list of 22 cities of Crete by the Byzantine geographer of the 6th century Hierocles. {{cite Hierocles| }} Arcades minted coins from approximately 330-280/70 BCE where the inscription «ΑΡΚΑΔΩΝ» appears. There is also epigraphic evidence that Asclepius was worshiped in the city.

The site of Arcades is located near modern Kefalas, Inion.{{Cite DARE|23387}}