Listed 5 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "KASSOS Municipality DODEKANISSOS" .
Casus (Kasos: Eth. Kasios), an island between Carpathus and Crete,
is, according to Strabo, 70 stadia from Carpathus, 250 from Cape Sammonium in
Crete, and is itself 80 stadia in circumference. (Strab. x. p. 489.) Pliny (iv.
12. s. 23) makes it 7 M. P. from Carpathus, and 30 M. P. from Sammonium. It is
mentioned by Homer (Il. ii. 676). It is said to have been formerly called Amphe
(Achne) and Astrabe; and it was supposed in antiquity that the name of Mt. Casium
in Syria was derived from this island. (Steph. B. s. vv. Kasos, Kasion Plin. v.
31. s. 36.)
Casus has been visited by Ross, who describes it as consisting of
a single ridge of mountains of considerable height. On the N. and W. sides there
are several rocks and small islands, which Strabo calls at Kasion nesoi. Ross
found the remains of the ancient town, which was also called Casus, in the interior
of the island, at the village of Polin (a diminutive instead of Polion or Polidion).
The ancient port-town was at Emporeion, where Ross also discovered some ancient
remains: among others, ruins of sepulchral chambers, partly built in the earth.
He found no autonomous coins, since the island was probably always dependent either
upon Cos or Rhodes. In the southern part of the island there is a small and fertile
plain surrounded by mountains, called Argos, a name which it has retained from
the most ancient times. We find also an Argos in Calymna and Nisyrus. Before the
Greek revolution, Casus contained a population of 7500 souls; and though during
the war with the Turks it was at one time almost deserted, its population now
amounts to 5000. Its inhabitants possessed, in 1843, as many as 75 large merchant
vessels, and a great part of the commerce of the Christian subjects in Turkey
was in their hands. (Ross, Reisen in den Griech. Inseln, vol. iii. p. 32, seq.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
An island in the S Aegean near Karpathos, cited in the Iliad (2.676) among the participants in the Trojan War. In historic times a Doric dialect was spoken there; and Kassos appeared in the tribute lists of the Delio-Attic League. During the 3d c. it came under the domination of Rhodes. Several villages now occupy the site of the ancient city of Kassos (Strab. 10.5.18); near one of them, Poli, are remnants of walls and of necropoleis with burials indicated by inscribed lenticular discs, mainly from the 4th and 3d c. B.C. Near Haghia Marina the mouth of a grotto, Ellinokamara, is closed by a wall of isodomic blocks with two gates. The grotto has yielded ceramics of various periods, including the Mycenaean.
M. G. Picozzi, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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