Listed 5 sub titles with search on: Ancient literary sources for destination: "KOS Island DODEKANISSOS".
The city of the Coans was in ancient times called Astypalaea; and its people lived on another site, which was likewise on the sea. And then, on account of a sedition, they changed their abode to the present city, near Scandarium, and changed the name to Cos, the same as that of the island. Now the city is not large, but it is the most beautifully settled of all, and is most pleasing to behold as one sails from the high sea to its shore. The size of the island is about five hundred and fifty stadia. It is everywhere well supplied with fruits, but like Chios and Lesbos it is best in respect to its wine. Towards the south it has a promontory, Laceter, whence the distance to Nisyros is sixty stadia (but near Laceter there is a place called Halisarna), and on the west it has Drecanum and a village called Stomalimne. Now Drecanum is about two hundred stadia distant from the city, but Laceter adds thirty-five stadia to the length of the voyage.
In the suburb is the Asclepieium, a temple exceedingly famous and full of numerous votive offerings, among which is the Antigonus of Apelles. And Aphrodite Anadyomene used to be there, but it is now dedicated to the deified Caesar in Rome, Augustus thus having dedicated to his father the female founder of his family. It is said that the Coans got a remission of one hundred talents of the appointed tribute in return for the painting. And it is said that the dietetics practised by Hippocrates were derived mostly from the cures recorded on the votive tablets there. He, then, is one of the famous men from Cos; and so is Simus the physician; as also Philetas, at the same time poet and critic; and, in my time, Nicias, who also reigned as tyrant over the Coans; and Ariston, the pupil and heir of the Peripatetic; and Theomnestus, a renowned harper, who was a political opponent of Nicias, was a native of the island.
This extract is from: The Geography of Strabo (ed. H. L. Jones, 1924), Cambridge. Harvard University Press. Cited Febr 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
I find it a great marvel that a woman went on the expedition against Hellas: after her husband died, she took over his tyranny, though she had a young son, and followed the army from youthful spirits and manliness, under no compulsion. Artemisia was her name, and she was the daughter of Lygdamis; on her fathers' side she was of Halicarnassian lineage, and on her mothers' Cretan. She was the leader of the men of Halicarnassus and Cos and Nisyrus and Calydnos, and provided five ships. Her ships were reputed to be the best in the whole fleet after the ships of Sidon, and she gave the king the best advice of all his allies. The cities that I said she was the leader of are all of Dorian stock, as I can show, since the Halicarnassians are from Troezen, and the rest are from Epidaurus.
This extract is from: Herodotus. The Histories (ed. A. D. Godley, 1920), Cambridge. Harvard University Press. Cited Apr 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Commentary
Herodotus will not allow any impurity or miscegenation in the population
of the Dorian Hexapolis; it all goes back to the Dorians of the Argolid, the Halikarnassians
to Dorian Troizen, the rest (i.e. Kos, Nisyros, Kalymnos, or Kalymna, or Kalymnai)
to Dorian Epidauros. The doctrine of the purely Dorian character of these settlements--as
indeed of the remaining Dorians both within and without the Hexapolis is anything
but indisputable.
(1) That the Dorian invaders of the Peloponnesos could have spared sufficient
drafts to colonize SW. Asia Minor is on the face of it improbable.
(2) Nor is the purely Dorian character of the Peloponnesian Dorians itself to
be admitted: apart from the question of intermarriage, many passed for Dorians,
as others for Achaeans, who had little right to the name.
(3) The Homeric catalogue makes Kos (Il. 2. 677) Hellenic before the Trojan War,
as also Lindos (656), Karpathos (676), Syme (671), etc.
Rawlinson regards all that as anachronism, so likewise the prae-Dorian
date assigned by some authorities to the colonisation of Halikarnassos; but we
must now be prepared to recognize that 'Peloponnesians' and others passed freely
across the Aegean long before the days of the Return of the Herakleids. There
are two possibilities to be reckoned with:
(a) The 'Dorians' were a much earlier and more primitive element in the Aegean
population than the legend of the 'Return' recognizes; or
(b), as is more probable, the 'Dorian' colonization in Asia was merely an Epoikism,
the Dorian element small and nominal, confined at first perhaps to the leaders,
or new oikists;
That it was, however, a real presence is proved by the appearance
of the Dorian tribes in Halikarnassos, Kalymna, Kos (though late?); How factitious,
'pragmatic', or tendenzios such legends may be is illustrated by the stories of
Thera and Kyrene;
Commentary
A bond of connexion between Epidaurus and Cos may be found in their
devotion to the worship of Asclepius, under the charge of the Asclepiads, among
them Hippocrates (Plato, Phaedr. 270 C, Prot. 311 B). Apparently before the Dorian
immigration Cos had already been colonized from Thessaly (Il. ii. 676 f.; Tac.
Ann. xii. 61). Calymna and Nisyros were later occupied from Cos (Diod. v. 54).
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