In Book IV (53-55) of his Histories, Polybius describes the civil war that tore the city of Gortyne apart from 221 to 219 BC, a conflict in which the neoi (or neoteroi) violently opposed the presbyteroi. This rupture, apparently presented as "generational" by the Greek historian, has long been associated with the creation of the body of neotas. However, the institution in question - which Riet van Bremen has suggested had nothing to do with territorial control, but was more likely an annual college of junior magistrates chosen from among the young aristocrats - undoubtedly predates this one-off political crisis.
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