io, which anciently
communicated with the continent by a causeway and bridge, and now by a
narrow sandy isthmus. By means of the causeway the channel between
island and mainland was formed into two harbours, of which the larger,
or southern, now known as Port Freano, was further enclosed by two
strongly-built moles that are still in good part entire. The extreme
length of the city was little less than a mile, and the whole intramural
area is still thickly strewn with architectural remains. The walls, both
insular and continental, can be traced throughout their whole circuit;
and in many places, especially round the acropolis, at the N.E. corner
of the city, they are remarkably perfect. Our knowledge of the site is
largely due to the mission of the Dilettanti Society in 1812, and the
excavations executed by C. T. Newton in 1857-1858; but of recent years
it has become a frequent calling station of touring steamers, which can
still lie safely in the southern harbour. The agora, the theatre, an
odeum, a temple of Dionysus, a temple of the Muses, a temple of
Aphrodite and a great number of minor buildings have been identified,
and the general plan of the city has been very clearly made out. The
most famous statue by the elder Praxiteles, the Aphrodite, was made for
Cnidus. It has perished, but late copies exist, of which the most
faithful is in the Vatican gallery. In a temple-enclosure C. T. Newton
discovered a fine seated statue of Demeter, which now adorns the British
Museum; and about 3 m. south-east of the city he came upon the ruins of
a splendid tomb, and a colossal figure of a lion carved out of one block
of Pentelic marble, 10 ft. in length and 6 in height, which has been
supposed to commemorate the great naval victory of Conon over the
Lacedaemonians in 394 B.C. Among the minor antiquities obtained from the
city itself, or the great necropolis to the east, perhaps the most
interesting are the leaden [Greek: katadesmoi], or imprecationary
tablets, found in the temple of Demeter, and copied in facsimile in the
appendix to the second volume of Newton's work. Peasants still find
numerous antiquities, and the site would certainly repay more thorough
excavation.

Cnidus was a city of high antiquity and probably of Lacedaemonian
colonization. Along with Halicarnassus and Cos, and the Rhodian cities
of Lindus, Camirus and Ialysus it formed the Dorian Hexapolis, which
held its confederate assemblies on the Triopian headland