Mochlos
Roman settlement with possible traces of Greek occupation, on both the offshore island and the adjacent stretch of coast, 18 km W of Sitia. The island was first occupied in the Early Bronze Age and excavations destroyed much of the overlying Roman town in order to trace Minoan structures.
Of the town itself we therefore have very few details, although we know that it covered areas both on the island and on the opposite strip of coast, and that it produced coins of 2d to 4th c. date. On the mainland shore, both rock-cut tombs and a stone quarry are assigned to the main period of Roman occupation.
The main visible remains of the post-Minoan occupation of the island are the walls and towers of a fortified position situated on the summit. Along the edge of the cliffs on the N side a wall can be traced with a tower at either end and a larger central one. From the W tower a curtain wall descended to the shore on the S side of the island—the only suitable landing place on the island. A similar wall presumably ran S from the E tower as well.
Mochlos' importance in the Roman period, as in the Bronze Age, would have been as a good harbor. By the Roman period the spit of land connecting the rocky promontory to the mainland had subsided and the island had been formed, but the water on either side would still have been protected from the worst effects of the winds. Traces of harbor works noted by Plato would certainly belong to the Roman period.
BIBLIOGRAPHYR. B. Seager, “Excavations on the Island of Mochlos, Crete, in 1908,” AJA 13 (1909) 275-76; N. Platon, “Chronika,” Kretika Chronika 9 (1955) 564.
K. BRANIGAN