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Rhoiteion (, ) was an Ancient Greece city in the northern Troad region of Anatolia, also known as Ῥοίτιον ἄκρον. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), Rhoeteum Its territory was bounded to the south and west by the Simoeis river and to the east by Ophryneion. It was located on the Baba Kale spur of Çakal Tepe north of Halileli and west of İntepe (previously known as Erenköy) in Çanakkale Province, Turkey.Cook (1973) 77–90 with Fig. 3.
Rhoiteion's greatest asset was the suitability of its coast for harbouring ships and its location on the Hellespont which connected the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea vis the Sea of Marmara; when it appears in the sources, it is usually for this reason. Famously, its coast was where the Achaeans beached their ships.Tryphiodorus, Iliou Persis 216, Libanius, Orationes 1.15, Scholia on Homer, Iliad 7.339b1, 14.36, 23.365, Scholia on Lycophron 276, 581. The Peloponnesian fleet put in here in the summer of 411 BC, and in 409 BC the Athens fleet beached along these shores, sheltering from the winter storms.Thucydides 8.101.3, Xenophon, Hellenica 1.1.2. The promontory of Aeantion in the west of Rhoiteion's territory was commonly used as a harbour in Roman times:Cook (1973) 86–7. in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana, written in the late 2nd century AD, Apollonius finds many ships at anchor here and takes passage on one, and in AD 324 the fleet of Licinius spent the night at anchor here before going into battle against Crispus.Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 4.13, Zosimus 2.23–4. In modern times, locals have referred to most of the bays along this coast at one time or another as Karanlık Limanı (Turkish language ‘concealed harbour’).Cook (1973) 83.
Outside myth (see below on The Tomb of Ajax), Rhoeteion is rarely mentioned after the Classical Greece period. In 335 BC, prior to Alexander the Great's victory at the nearby Granicus River river, one of his commanders, Calas, was beaten back by the Persians and forced to take temporary refuge at Rhoiteion.Diodorus Siculus 17.7.10. In the 3rd century BC, a Μοιρίας Ἀντιφάνου Ῥοιτεύς ('Moirias the son of Antiphanes, citizen of Rhoiteion') is honoured as a proxenos in an inscription from Delos. IG XI (4) 582. Further citizens of Rhoiteion have been identified by Louis Robert: L. Robert, Etudes de Numismatique Grecque (1951) 10 n. 5, L. Robert, Monnaies antiques en Troade (1966) 19 n. 1. In 190 BC, the Roman Republic commander Livius captured Rhoiteion from the Macedonian forces.Appian, Syriaca 23. Soon after, in 188 BC following the Treaty of Apamea, Rhoiteion was part of the Hellenistic Kingdom of Pergamon, and under the sway of Troy.Strabo 13.1.39. At the beginning of the Hellenistic period Rhoiteion may have moved 1.8 km to the south-west from the Baba Kale spur to a site known as Tavolia () and remained there throughout the Roman period.Cook (1973) 83–6. This may explain a curious passage in Aelian, De Natura Animalium 25.16, in which the population of Rhoiteion is driven out by a plague of : Cook (1973) 86, Carusi (2003) 32.
The geographer Strabo, writing in the latter half of Augustus' reign, relates that the Emperor Augustus returned to the Rhoiteians a statue of Ajax which had adorned the top of his burial tumulus until Mark Antony had stolen it to give to his lover Cleopatra. Strabo then explains, "For Mark Antony took away the finest dedications from the most famous temples to gratify the Egyptian woman (i.e. Cleopatra), but Augustus gave them back to the gods".Strabo 13.1.30. Following the reign of Augustus, this became the dominant version of the myth for the rest of Antiquity.Pomponius Mela 1.96, Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 5.125, Ps-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 5.7, Pausanias 1.35.3, Lucian, Charon sive contemplantes 23, Philostratus of Lemnos, Heroicus Olearius p. 738 line 18, Tertullian, De Anima 46, Dictys Cretensis 5.15, Scholia on Homer, Iliad 12.118b, Scholia on Sophocles, Ajax Hypothesis scholion 4. In Pliny the Elder (mid-1st century AD) we hear of the promontory near İn Tepe referred to as Aeantion meaning 'the place of Ajax' (from Ancient Greek Αἰάντειον).Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 5.125. From the 2nd century AD onwards, Αἰάντειον was also spelt Αἰάντιον. Prior to this, the only mention of this promontory was in an Athens inscription from 375 BC referring to a military action by the general Chabrias and honouring "the soldiers who were allies at Aianteion on the Hellespont". SEG 19.204 fr. b.2–3: οἱῶται οἱ ἐν τῶιαντείω̣ι τῶι ἐνντωι συμμαχεσάμενοι, 'the soldiers who were (our) allies at Aianteion on the Hellespont'. In the 2nd century AD further details appear: the Greek travel writer Pausanias claimed that a local had informed him that the sea washed away the entrance to Ajax's tomb, and when locals looked inside, they discovered the bones of a giant man 11 cubits (or 5 metres) tall.Pausanias 1.35.3. This story recalls a common view in Graeco-Roman Antiquity that heroes of a previous age were much larger than present-day men; a famous example is the story of the discovery of the bones of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, which the 5th century BC historian Herodotus relates.Herodotus 1.67–8. It was also in this period (probably during the reign of the Philhellenism emperor Hadrian) that the tumulus of Ajax was renovated and given its present vaulting, suggesting local investment in what had become Rhoiteion's great attraction.Cook (1973) 88–9.
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