Editing History of Crete (section)

== Roman, Byzantine, and Arab Crete ==
{{Main|Classical antiquity}}
{{Further|Crete and Cyrenaica|Byzantine Crete|Emirate of Crete}}
[[File:View of Temenos fortress.jpg|thumb|Temenos fortress was built by the Byzantines after the reconquest of the island from the Arabs]]
[[Mithridates VI Eupator]], ruler of the [[Kingdom of Pontus]] in northern [[Anatolia]], waged war against the [[Roman Republic]] in the year 88 BC in order to halt the advance of Roman [[hegemony]] in the [[Aegean Sea]] region. Mithridates VI sought to dominate [[Asia Minor]] and the [[Black Sea]] region, waging several hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful wars (the [[Mithridatic Wars]]) to break Roman dominion over Asia and the [[Hellenic world]].<ref>"[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mithradates-VI-Eupator Mithradates VI Eupator]", ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''</ref> He has been called the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hewsen|first=Robert H.|title=Armenian Pontus: The Trebizond-Black Sea Communities|year=2009|publisher=Mazda Publishers, Inc.|location=Costa Mesa, CA|isbn=978-1-56859-155-1|pages=41, 37–66|editor=Richard G. Hovannisian|chapter=Armenians on the Black Sea: The Province of Trebizond}}</ref>

Since 133 BC western and central Anatolia had been under [[Romanization of Anatolia|Roman control]], but [[Hellenistic culture]] remained predominant. On the pretext that [[Knossos]] was backing Mithridates VI, [[Marcus Antonius Creticus]] attacked Crete in 71 BC and was repelled. Rome sent [[Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus|Quintus Caecilius Metellus]] with three legions to the island. After a ferocious three-year campaign, Crete was conquered by the [[Roman army]] in 69 BC, earning the commander Metellus the ''[[Victory titles|agnomen]]'' "Creticus". At the archaeological sites, there seems to be little evidence of widespread damage associated with the transfer to Roman power: a single palatial house complex seems to have been razed. Gortyn seems to have been pro-Roman and was rewarded by being made the capital of the joint [[Roman province]] of ''[[Crete and Cyrenaica]]''.

Further annexations by Rome, in particular of the Kingdom of Pontus by [[Pompey]], brought all of Anatolia under [[Romanization of Anatolia|Roman control]], except for the southeastern frontier with the [[Parthian Empire]], which remained unstable for centuries, causing a series of military conflicts that culminated in the [[Roman–Parthian Wars]] (54 BC – 217 AD). [[Gortyn]] was the site of the largest Christian [[basilica]] on Crete, the Basilica of [[Saint Titus]], dedicated to the first Christian bishop in Crete, to whom the [[Apostle Paul]] addressed one of his epistles. The church [[Christianity in the 1st century|was founded in the 1st century AD]]. The island of Crete continued to be a [[Byzantine Crete|province of the Eastern Roman Empire]], otherwise known as the [[Byzantine Empire]], a quiet cultural backwater, until it fell into the hands of [[Al-Andalus|Andalusian Muslims]] under [[Abu Hafs (pirate)|Abu Hafs]] in the years 820s AD, who established a [[Emirate of Crete|piratical emirate]] on the island. The archbishop Cyril of Gortyn was killed and the city so thoroughly devastated it was never reoccupied. Candia (Chandax, modern [[Heraklion]]), a city built by the Andalusian Muslims, was made capital of the island instead.

The [[Emirate of Crete]] became a center of [[Barbary pirates|Muslim piratical activity]] in the Aegean Sea, and a thorn in Byzantium's side. Successive campaigns to recover the island failed until the Byzantine reconquest of Crete in 961 AD, when the [[Byzantine Emperor]] [[Nikephoros II Phokas]] defeated and expelled the Muslim Arabs and Berbers from Crete for the Byzantine Empire, and made the island into a [[Crete (theme)|theme]].<ref name=intro>Panagiotakis, Introduction, p. XVI.</ref>

The [[Byzantine Greeks]] held power over the island until the [[Fourth Crusade]] (1204). In its aftermath, possession of the island was disputed between the Italian [[maritime republics]] of [[Republic of Genoa|Genoa]] and [[Republic of Venice|Venice]], with the latter eventually solidifying their control by 1212. Despite frequent revolts by the native population, the Venetians retained the island until 1669, when the Ottoman Empire [[Cretan War (1645–1669)|took possession]] of it.

(The standard survey for this period is I.F. Sanders, ''An archaeological survey and Gazetteer of Late Hellenistic, Roman and Early Byzantine Crete'', 1982)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040822145132/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1373/is_n11_v45 Annette Bingham, "Crete's Roman past: excavations yield antiquities from the Roman period," ''History Today'', November 1995]