Kleitor
This was the first city in Arkadia to produce coins, the mint being active from ca. 500 to 460 B.C. The site has been identified with ancient remains at the point where the Kleitor River joins the Karnesi. The acropolis wall is double-faced of bulging, roughly quadrangular blocks, and is strengthened with semicircular towers. There are remains of more walls and towers in the plain on the N and W; the other sides are bounded by the two streams. The cavea of a theater is preserved on the W slope of the acropolis. Pausanias saw Sanctuaries of Demeter, Asklepios, and Eileithya at Kleitor, which Curtius and Leake identified at three locations occupied by churches built with ancient blocks. West of the city, the foundations of a large building with columns may belong to Pausanias' Temple of the Dioskouroi. The Temple of Athena Koria he described as on the top of a mountain 30 stades (5.77 km) distant: it probably lay to the N.
The relief of the soldier-historian Polybios found at Kleitor has been separated from its inscription and is now less well preserved than a cast in the Berlin Museum.
BIBLIOGRAPHYPaus. 5.23.7, 8.4.5, 8.18.8, 8.21.1; Polyb. Hist. 4.288; Vitr. 8.3.21; E. Dodwell, A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece II (1819) 447f; W. M. Leake,Morea (1830) II 257fP; E. Curtius,Peloponnesos (1851-52) I 377; J. G. Frazer, Paus. Des. Gr. (1898) IV 266; R. T. Williams, The Confederate Coinage of the Arcadians (1965). Sculpture: H. Mobius in JdI 49 (1934) 52fI; M. Bieber, Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age (1955) 161f.
M. H. MC ALLISTER