Cretans

The Persian bows are also large, and consequently the Cretans could make good use of all the arrows that fell into their hands;

In these regions the Cretans made themselves exceedingly useful.

The events were, a stadium race for boys, most of them belonging to the captives, a long race, in which more than sixty Cretans took part, wrestling, boxing, and the pancratium;

Passing through the crowd, he came presently on the Cretans, arming round Idomeneus, who was at their head, fierce as a wild boar, while Meriones was bringing up the battalions that were in the rear.

And Idomeneus leader of the Cretans answered, "You will find one spear, or twenty if you so please, standing up against the end wall of my tent.

And Idomeneus chief among the Cretans answered, "Thoas, no one, so far as I know, is responsible [ aitios], for we can all fight.

And the institutions of life differ so much that the Cretans and the Aetolians think brigandage honourable, the Lacedaemonians used to claim that all the fields were theirs which they could reach with a spear.

Then, in the third generation after Minos, the events surrounding the Trojan War, in which the Cretans bore themselves as bravely as any in the cause of Menelaus, took place.

Because their ships had been wrecked and there was no way left of returning to Crete, they founded there the town of Hyria, and made this their dwelling place, accordingly changing from Cretans to Messapians of Iapygia, and from islanders to dwellers on the mainland.

” When this was brought to the ears of the Cretans, they would have nothing to do with aiding the Greeks.

"My house grew apace and I became a great man among the Cretans, but when Zeus counseled that terrible expedition, in which so many perished, the people required me and Idomeneus to lead their ships to Troy, and there was no way out of it, for the judgment of the dêmos insisted on our doing so.

nevertheless, my father Castor son of Hylax (whose lineage I claim, and who was held in the highest honor in the dêmos of the Cretans for his wealth, prosperity [ olbos], and the valor of his sons) put me on the same level with my brothers who had been born in wedlock.

Plutarch relates of the Cretans, that when all order among them was entirely broken by their civil broils, they abstained from offering violence to any member of the priesthood, or to those employed in the sacred rites belonging to the dead.

And when the practice of athletics began, first with the Cretans and then with the Lacedaemonians, it was open to the wits of that time to make fun of these practices, don’t you think so?

the apostle too brands the Cretans as liars.