Lycastus, city of the island of Crete, participated in the Trojan War and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.647).
Lycastus (Lukastos), a son of Minos and Itone, was king of Crete and husband of Ida, the daughter of Corybas (Diod. iv. 60). The town of Lycastus in Crete derived its name from him or an autochthon of the same name (Steph. Byz. s. v.). A story about another Lycastus, likewise a Cretan, is related by Parthenius (Erot. 35).
The cities Miletus and Lycastus, which are catalogued along with Lyctus, no longer exist; and as for their territory, the Lyctians took one portion of it and the Cnossians the other, after they had razed the city to the ground.
Lycastus. Lukastos: Eth. Lukastios. A town of Crete, mentioned in the Homeric catalogue. Strabo says that it had entirely disappeared, having been conquered and destroyed by the Cnossians. According to Polybius (xxiii. 15) the Lycastian district was afterwards wrested from Cnossus by the Gortynians, who gave it to the neighbouring town of Rhaucus. In Mr. Pashley's map the site is fixed at Kaenuria.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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