His son Pythokritos and his grandson Simias were sculptors as well, though they held Rhodian citizenship. The city's artistic production was no longer limited to the famous musicians of the Archaic period, but found expression through the sculptor Timochares of Eleutherna, who settled in Rhodes after 200 BC and crafted works of art for the cities of Lindos, Knidos, Karpathos, Astypalaia, and Sidon. 2 The mercenaries succeeded in having themselves recognized as possessing limited rights as citizens and being incorporated into the social group of the Neocretans. The fact that in 220 BC, two years after the battle of Sellasia, the people of Eleutherna rose up to demand the democratization of the constitution and the extension of citizenship rights to the lower classes is no coincidence.

The last quarter of the third century BC was a period of fairly general disturbances and political strife in the Peloponnesus, with Sparta as their epicenter that affected even the greatest of the cities of Crete. The evidence for Eleutherna's relations with Alexandria, with which Crete had especially close connections since the end of the fourth century BC, makes reference to commerce, industry, and the profession of mercenary soldiering as sources of wealth and incitements for opening the closed Cretan society in the outside world. At this point, it already had frequent contacts with mainland Greece, the islands of the Aegean, Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt, and took part in the political events of the era, as inscriptions, testimonia, and new discoveries from excavations tell us.

the economic and cultural life of Eleutherna flourished greatly and the city made a dynamic appearance on the historical stage. The Historical Setting At the end of the fourth and for the most part during the third and second centuries B.C. It seems that within the graves, Aphrodite serves as a mother figure, and maybe it is her exceptional beauty that becomes apotropaic for the sorrow and tears Death inevitably brings. Her funerary dimension is mentioned in ancient sources who attribute her with various chthonic names such as “Μελαινίς”, “Τυμβωρύχος” or ”Μυχεία”. Of great interest, though, is the question why a goddess linked with fertility, beauty and allure becomes the protector of women and young girls in their eternal home. In Hellenistic Veroia, where the local society is familiar with the mystery cults, the goddess syncretizes with Eastern deities who promise immortality to their initiates and thus strengthen her role as protector of the deceased even more. However, during the Hellenistic period Aphrodite’s figurines, in a variety of iconographical types, usually with Eros as a companion, dominate the funeral offerings not only in Macedonia but also in other locations such as in Asia Minor. From the research, so far it is known that terracotta figurines as grave offerings are neither frequent nor necessary.

This dissertation was written as part of the MA in the Classical Archaeology and Ancient History of Macedonia at the International Hellenic University.

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