Gortyn

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Gortyn (Greek Γορτυς/Gortys, also Γορτύν/Gortun or Γόρτυνα/Gortuna) is a town in the Greek island of Crete, 45 km away from the capital Heraklion. It was a very important city during the age of the Minoan civilization.

A number of ruin were preserved, where in 1884 were found three fragments of rock which had inscriptions in the Dorian dialects, 12 columns of 621 lines, almost complete, dating from 480 BC-460 BC. It is formed out of seven chapters of law, about thing such as:

Constestations of the statute (free man or slave)
Sexual crimes
Divorce and widowhood
Inheritance
Adoption

Gortyn, the Roman capital of Crete, was first inhabited around 3000 B.C., and was a flourishing Minoan town between 1600-1100 B.C. It prospered during classical and Roman times, and was destroyed by an Arab invasion in A.D. 824.

Greek mythology has it that the town witnessed one of Zeus' many affairs — with the princess Europa whom the god, disguised as a bull, abducted from Lebanon. Europe was named after Europa, who conceived her first son with Zeus under a plane tree in Gortyn.

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