Gortyn: Crete's Roman Capital and Its Law Code

A Late Bloomer

Gortyn was first inhabited at the end of the Neolithic period, around 3000 BC, and flourished much later, in the Late Minoan period (1600-1100 BC), when a villa with a shrine was founded at nearby Kannia. Archaic-era habitation, from the 7th century BC, is found in the area of its Acropolis, and by the Hellenistic period (3rd-2nd century BC) the city was prosperous enough to carve the inscription it is still known for.

A Civil War, Then a Roman Alliance

Before Rome ever arrived, Gortyn's own Cretans fought each other. The Lyttian War of 220 BC split the island's cities into rival camps, Gortyn among them, per Wikipedia's account. When Rome later moved against Crete, the Roman general Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus invaded in 68 BC and destroyed several resisting cities, but Gortyn, having allied itself with Rome, avoided that fate, a decision that set up everything that followed.

Capital of Crete and Cyrenaica

That alliance paid off. During the Roman period (1st-5th centuries AD) Gortyn reached the peak of its prosperity as the capital of the joint province of Crete and Cyrene, administering Roman Crete and part of what is now Libya from this one inland city. That scale, a Roman provincial capital rather than a regional town, is the context for the extensive ruin field visitors walk today.

Saint Titus and the Ten Saints

The Apostle Titus is said to have preached Christianity at Gortyn, and the city became the seat of Crete's first bishop. Around AD 250, ten Christians, now venerated as the Ten Saints of Crete, were martyred here. A basilica dedicated to St Titus was built on the site in the 6th century AD, by which time Gortyn had become an archbishop's seat in its own right.

Destroyed by the Arabs

In AD 824, Gortyn was destroyed by invading Arab forces, who went on to establish their own state on Crete. The city never recovered its earlier status, and the ruins visible today are largely what survived or was later excavated from that destruction.

Excavated Since 1884

The first investigations at Gortyn were conducted in 1884 by the Italian archaeologist F. Halbherr, the discovery of the Law Code dating to that same year's work, and excavation has continued since under the Italian Archaeological School and the Greek Ephorate of Antiquities.

Twelve Columns, Written Backwards and Forwards

The code is carved across 12 columns running about 10 metres long and 1.5 metres high, roughly 600 lines in total, written in the Dorian dialect of ancient Greek. The text uses boustrophedon style, alternating direction line by line the way an ox ploughs a field, rather than running left to right throughout. It dates to the first half of the 5th century BC, making it one of the oldest substantial legal texts to survive from the Greek world in anything like complete form.

What the Law Actually Covers

This is not a ceremonial inscription. The code sets out real, detailed rules on disputed ownership of slaves, rape and adultery, marriage and divorce, custody of children after a divorce, inheritance and the management of property, the sale and mortgaging of land, adoption, and the different rules that applied to marriages between slave, free and foreign-status people. Reading even a translated excerpt gives a far more concrete sense of daily Cretan life than the ruins around it do on their own.

Found Twice, By Accident

Italian archaeologist Federico Halbherr found four columns of the text in 1884 while excavating near a local mill, not expecting a legal code at all. Recognising what he had, he secured permission to dig further and uncovered eight more columns, whose stones, it turned out, had been pulled from their original location and reused as foundation material for a much later building. That building was the Odeion, built in the Roman period under Emperor Trajan, meaning the Law Code had already been an antique curiosity, worth quarrying for building stone, centuries before Halbherr ever arrived.

The Odeion today shelters the inscription on the same wall where Trajan's builders left it.

The Odeion and the Law Code

The Roman-era Odeion, a small theatre for music and poetry readings, was built directly around the older Law Code inscription, now sheltered in its north wall. It is the first stop for most visitors and the most photographed single feature on site.

The Basilica of St Titus

The 6th-century basilica dedicated to St Titus, Crete's first bishop, stands as one of the best-preserved Early Christian buildings on the island, its presbytery arches still largely intact.

The Temple of Apollo (Pythion)

The Pythion, a temple to Apollo, sits among the wider Roman ruin field and is one of the clearest surviving religious structures from the city's pre-Christian Roman centuries, a reminder that Gortyn's history runs through several different religious eras on the same ground.

The Praetorium: Seat of the Roman Governor

The Praetorium was the seat of the Roman governor of Crete, built in the 1st century AD and altered repeatedly over the following eight centuries, per Wikipedia's account. It is the clearest physical marker of Gortyn's administrative role, the building a visiting Roman official would actually have worked from.

Baths, an Arch and a Temple to Egyptian Gods

The wider Roman ruin field also includes public baths (thermae), an honorary arch, and a temple to Egyptian deities holding worship statues of Isis, Serapis and Anubis, evidence of how far Roman Crete's trade and religious contacts reached. A separate 2nd-century AD theatre, with two entrances and a half-circular orchestra, stands apart from the Odeion, so the two performance buildings should not be confused with each other.

By Car

Most traffic heading to Phaistos or Matala drives straight through Gortyn without stopping, since it sits on the same road rather than requiring a detour. Building in 30 to 45 minutes here on the way, our estimate rather than an official figure, turns a Phaistos day into a two-palace, one-law-code outing without adding meaningful driving time. We have no official source for parking at Gortyn, so treat it as a local, on-the-day detail.

By Bus

No KTEL route stops at Gortyn by name. The Heraklion-Matala service via Moires, three times a day on the KTEL Herakliou-Lasithiou timetable, runs the same road and passes close to the site, but confirm the nearest drop-off locally rather than assuming a direct stop. Most independent visitors drive or join a tour instead.

A direct walk to the Odeion and the Law Code covers the one thing nobody should skip. Adding the Basilica and Praetorium takes longer. Seeing the full Roman ruin field, baths, arch, temples and separate theatre included, is a longer stop than most south-coast day trips budget for.

• The Gortyn Law Code's stones were already centuries old, and already being reused as building material, when the Romans built the Odeion around them in the 2nd century AD under Emperor Trajan (Wikipedia).
• Federico Halbherr found the code almost by accident in 1884, starting with four columns near a local mill before securing permission to uncover eight more (Wikipedia).
• The code is written in boustrophedon style, alternating direction line by line the way an ox ploughs a field, rather than reading left to right throughout (Wikipedia).
• Gortyn avoided the destruction Rome inflicted on other Cretan cities in 68 BC specifically because it had allied itself with Rome beforehand (Wikipedia).
• A separate temple on site held worship statues of the Egyptian gods Isis, Serapis and Anubis, evidence of how far Roman Gortyn's religious contacts reached beyond Crete (Wikipedia).