After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the
foundation of the new Greek Kingdoms, mostly in the east, the
island of Crete rose in importance. Hellenistic Greece was a
real bed of influence and threat as well as downright attacks on
each other, kingdom verses kingdom, state against state. The
only way that these kingdoms could become stronger was to form
alliances with each other. Many mainland states forged such
alliances with Cretan cities and so Crete became much more
powerful by influence and the fact that they had some of the
best mercenary soldiers anywhere. Crete became known to ancient
writers as the ‘Island with a hundred cities’ (ekatompolis). And
truly it had perhaps even more than one hundred. It is believed
that there were more than a million people on the island serving
all of these cities and there was very little land that was not
tilled to grow food. Back then Crete also had huge forested
areas right up to the mountain’s tree line and there was much
fruit gathered from these fores