Dreros, a city-state of Classical Greek period, is near modern Neapolis in the eastern Crete. Like the neighboring Lato, it was erected on a saddle between two peaks, on the slope of mount Kadistos (Davaras, 1976). The archaic city had an agora (market place) about 30x40m² in size, including some moldering steps along the southern side and a retaining wall of the eighth century B.C., and further a huge open cistern. Myers et al. (1992) have reported that a cistern, the first and larger cistern ever known is that in the ancient Dreros. It is located in the agora of the city, had a rectangular shape with dimensions of 13.0 x 5.5 x 6.0 m³ and was used for water supply of the city . Davaras (1976) was reported that the depth of the cistern is 8 m. At Dreros the average annual atmospheric precipitation is 500 mm and the average cistern capacity 429 m³; to fill it would require the run-off of a roof or yard area of more than 860 m². Of course, this calculation is based upon the cistern being filled only once per year, and would require the inhabitants to live for a year on cisterns-full of water. More on this analyses are reported by Despotakis and Tsagarakis (2006).

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