Crete
Dorian Crete was divided into city-states governed as military aristocracies. The chief of these were Cnossus, GORTYN (in the south-central island), and, later, Cydonia (modem Khania, on the western north coast). As was the case at Sparta, Dorian-Greek nobles ruled over a population of rural serfs-probably the descendants of the subjugated non-Dorians.
The island was active in the seaborne expansion of the Greek world in the later 700s and 600s B.C. Cretan colonists helped to found the City Of GELA, in southeastern SICILY, and Cretan workshops exported an admired Geometric style pottery and contributed to the style of statuary now known as Daedalic. But gradually the Cretan cities withdrew into isolation, and Crete declined amid internal conflicts, mainly between Cnossus and Cortyn. By the late 200s B.C. the island had become notorious as a haunt of pirates.
Order was restored by the Romans, who annexed Crete in 67 B.c. and made it part of a Roman province. The Cretans were the best archers in the Greek world (where archery was generally not practiced), and many Greek armies from the 400s B.C. onward employed Cretan bowmen as mercenaries. Cretans also had the reputation of being liars.
The religion of Dorian Crete was distinguished by certain cults and beliefs that probably contained pre-Greek, Minoan elements. It was said that the great god zeus, as a baby, had been hidden in a cave on Crete's Mt. Dicte to save him from his malevolent father, Cronus. More amazing to classical Greeks was the Cretans' claim that the immortal Zeus was born and died annually on Crete and that his tomb could be seen at Cnossus. This "Zeus" may have been the surviving form of a mythical son or consort of the prehistoric Minoan mother ddess.