Cres, an inhabitant of Crete.——The first king of Crete. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 53.
Cresa and Cressa, a town of Caria.
Cresius, a hill of Arcadia. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 44.
Cresphontes, a son of Aristomachus, who, with his brothers Temenus and Aristodemus, attempted to recover the Peloponnesus. Pausanias, bk. 4, ch. 3, &c.
Cressius, belonging to Crete. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 4, li. 70; bk. 8, li. 294.
Creston, a town of Thrace, capital of a part of the country called Crestonia. The inhabitants had each many wives; and when the husband died, she who had received the greatest share of his affection was cheerfully slain on his grave. Herodotus, bk. 5, ch. 5.
Cresus and Ephesus, two men who built the temple of Diana at Ephesus. Pausanias, bk. 7, ch. 2.
Crēta, now Candia, one of the largest islands of the Mediterranean sea, at the south of all the Cyclades. It was once famous for its 100 cities, and for the laws which the wisdom of Minos established there. The inhabitants have been detested for their unnatural loves, their falsehood, their piracies, and robberies. Jupiter, as some authors report, was educated in that island by the Corybantes, and the Cretans boasted that they could show his tomb. There were different colonies from Phrygia, Doris, Achaia, &c., that established themselves there. The island, after groaning under the tyranny of democratical usurpation, and feeling the scourge of frequent sedition, was made a Roman province, B.C. 66, after a war of three years, in which the inhabitants were so distressed that they were even compelled to drink the water of their cattle. Chalk was produced there and thence called Creta, and with it the Romans marked their lucky days in their calendar. Horace, bk. 1, ode 36, li. 10; epode 9.—Ovid, Fasti, bk. 3, li. 444; Epistles, bk. 10, li. 106.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 7, ch. 6.—Strabo, bk. 10.—Lucan, bk. 3, li. 184.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 3, li. 104.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 7.—Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 12.
Cretæus, a poet mentioned by Propertius, bk. 2, poem 34, li. 29.
Crete, the wife of Minos. Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 1.——A daughter of Deucalion. Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 3.