Lindus or Lindos (Greek: Λίνδος) was one of the most important towns in ancient Rhodes.
History
It was situated on the eastern coast, a little to the north of a promontory bearing the same name. The district was in ancient times very productive in wine and figs, though otherwise it was very barren.[1]
Their inhabitants were Dorians, and formed the three Dorian tribes of the island, Lindus itself being one of the Doric Hexapolis in the south-west of Asia Minor.
Previous to the year 408 BCE, when the city of Rhodes was built, Lindus, like the other cities, formed a little state by itself, but when Rhodes was founded, a great part of the population and the common government was transferred to the new city.[3] Lindus, however, though it lost its political importance, still retained religious importance, for it contained two ancient and much revered sanctuaries – one of Athena, hence called the Lindian, and the other of Heracles. The former was believed to have been built by Danaus,[4][5] or, according to others by his daughters on their flight from Egypt.[6][7] The temple of Heracles was remarkable, according to Lactantius (Div.Inst. 1.21.31-37), on account of the vituperative and injurious language with which the worship was conducted. This temple contained a painting of Heracles by Parrhasius; and Lindus appears to have possessed several other paintings by the same artist.[8]
Lindus also was the native place of Cleobulus, one of the Seven Sages of Greece; and Athenaeus has preserved a pretty poem ascribed to Cleobulus, and which the Lindian boys used to sing as they went round collecting money for the return of the swallows in spring.[9]
Strabo's description of Lindus as "on the side of a hill, looking towards the south and Alexandria," cannot be mistaken; and the modern town of Lindos is exactly the spot occupied by the ancient Dorian city.[10][11]
