Listed 8 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "IASSOS Ancient city TURKEY" .
Iassus or Iasus (Iasos: or Iasos: Eth. Iasseus), a town of Caria, situated on a small island close to the north coast of the Iasian bay, which derives its name from Iassus. The town is said to have been founded at an unknown period by Argive colonists; but as they had sustained severe losses in a war with the native Carians, they invited the son of Neleus, who had previously founded Miletus, to come to their assistance. The town appears on that occasion to have received additional settlers. (Polyb. xvi. 12.) The town, which appears to have occupied the whole of the little island, had only ten stadia in circumference; but it nevertheless acquired great wealth (Thucyd. viii. 28), from its fisheries and trade in fish (Strab. xiv. p. 658). After the Sicilian expedition of the Athenians, during the Peloponnesian war, Iassus was attacked by the Lacedaemonians and their allies; it was governed at the time by Amorges, a Persian chief, who had revolted from Darius. It was taken by the Lacedaemonians, who captured Amorges, and delivered him up to Tissaphernes. The town itself was destroyed on that occasion; but must have been rebuilt, for we afterwards find it besieged by the last Philip of Macedonia, who, however, was compelled by the Romans to restore it to Ptolemy of Egypt. (Polyb. xvii. 2; Liv. xxxii. 33; comp. Ptol. v. 2. § 9; Plin. v. 29; Stad. Mar. Magn. § § 274, 275; Hierocl. p. 689.) The mountains in the neighbourhood of Iassus furnished a beautiful kind of marble, of a blood-red and livid white colour, which was used by the ancients for ornamental purposes. (Paul. Silent. Ecphr. S. Soph. ii. 213.) Near the town was a sanctuary of Hestias, with a statue of the goddess, which, though standing in the open air, was believed never to be touched by the rain. (Polyb. xvi. 12.) The same story is related, by Strabo, of a temple of Artemis in the same neighbourhood. Iassus, as a celebrated fishing place, is alluded to by Athenaeus (iii. p. 105, xiii. p. 606). The place is still existing, under the name of Askem or Asyn Kalessi. Chandler (Travels in As. Min. p. 226) relates that the island on which the town was built is now united to the mainland by a small isthmus. Part of the city walls still exist, and are of a regular, solid, and handsome structure. In the side of the rock a theatre with many rows of seats still remains, and several inscriptions and coins have been found there. (Comp. Spon and Wheler, Voyages, vol. i. p. 361.) A second town of the name of Iassus existed in Cappadocia or Armenia Minor (Ptol. v. 7. § 6), on the north-east of Zoropassus.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
(Iassos and Iasos). A city of Asia Minor, situated on a small island near the coast of Caria, and giving to the adjacent bay the name of Sinus Iassicus. It was a rich and flourishing city, and the inhabitants were chiefly occupied with fisheries along the adjacent coasts.
A titular see of Caria, and suffragan of Aphrodisias. The city was founded by colonists from Argos at an unknown date, and was re-established after a war with the natives of Caria by the people of Miletus. It is situated at the inner end of a gulf, on an islet now connected with the continent by a narrow strip of land; according to Polybius its walls were ten stadia in circumference. Its fisheries (Strabo, XIX, ii, 21) are yet famous. During the Peloponnesian War Jassus was taken by the Lacedaemonians, and later it was captured by Philip of Macedon, who was compelled by the Romans to return it to King Ptolemy of Egypt. Numerous Greek inscriptions found among its ruins aid in the reconstruction of its domestic history. Four of its bishops are known: Themistius in 421, Flacillus in 451, David in 787, and Gregory in 878 (Lequien, "Oriens Christianus", I, 913). The see is mentioned in the "Nova Tactica", tenth century (Gelzer, "Georgii Cyprii descriptio orbis romani", nos. 340, 1464), and more recently in the "Notitiae Espiscopatuum". It is now called Asin-Kaleh, and is a small town in the sanjak of Menteche and the Turkish province of Smyrna. In 1835 Texier visited it and found it completely ruined and deserted, its walls of white marble, also theatres, several burial sites, and mausolea still standing; since then the Turks have carried away most of the material for building purposes.
S. Vailhe, ed.
This text is cited July 2004 from The Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent online edition URL below.
City in Caria on the gulf of Mendelia opposite the port of Gulluk.
In modern times it has been called Asin Kale and later Asia Kurin. It occupies
a small peninsula joined by an isthmus to the mainland, where the necropolis lies.
Strabo (14.658) calls it an island, and remarks on its harbor and commercially
important fishing. According to tradition it was a colony of Argos (Polyb. 16.12),
but excavations indicate that it was inhabited, probably by tribes from Caria,
from the Early Bronze Age on, and that in the Middle Bronze Age a Cretan colony
was established there as at nearby Miletos. During the first part of the Late
Bronze Age it apparently came under Achaean influence; to that period may probably
be dated its contacts with Argos and the report of Peloponnesian, probably Mycenaean,
origin. After the Mycenaean period the Carian element seems again to have become
dominant.
Discoveries attest that Iasos was a fairly important center, tied
to Rhodes and the Dodecanese. It was probably an ally of Ionia against Darius
(Hdt. 1.174-75) in the battles in which Heraklides from nearby Mylasa distinguished
himself (Hdt. 5.121). In the 5th c. Iasos appears on the tribute lists of the
Delian League, first as contributing one talent, then three or four. In 412 it
was captured and sacked by the Peloponnesian fleet (Thuc. 8.26-28), then destroyed
by Lysander (Diod. 13.104.7). The city was rebuilt, probably with the help of
Knidos, as coins of 394 B.C. attest. After the peace of Antalkidas it must have
belonged to the satrapy of Caria under Hekatomnos, father of Mausolos, and then
to the kingdom of Caria under Mausolos. It was liberated by Alexander the Great,
in whose army two citizens from Iasos reached high rank (CIG 2672). Iasos was
still independent after 168 B.C., but in 125 it was incorporated into the province
of Asia along with all of Caria. Inscriptions and monuments indicate prosperity
under Hadrian and throughout the entire 2d c. Later it was probably destroyed
by the Heruli, but was rebuilt; basilicas were built in the first centuries of
the Christian era, and one of its bishops took part in the Council of Chalkedon
in A.D. 451. The city was inhabited throughout the Byzantine period, and in the
Middle Ages it was the seat of a fortress of the Cavalieri.
Iasos has two circuit walls. One of the Classical period, of bossed
ashlar with towers and gates of various types, surrounds the city on the peninsula
and appears to have been used again against the barbarian invasions. The other,
which is larger, in trapezoidal isodomic work with a large gate on the land side,
numerous postern gates, and semicircular elongated towers, surrounds the landward
end of the peninsula where the modern town lies. Excavations have revealed that
the wall is actually one continuous circuit, and that within it there were several
buildings. Probably it was a defensive wall for a garrison guarding the gulf of
Iasos.
Few buildings were identified before excavation. The 4th c. B.C. theater,
set on the slope of the hill toward the NE, is preserved to the top of the embankment
wall, with an inscription which records its restoration. The marble seats, however,
were carried off in the last century for use in Istanbul. The summa cavea was
reached on the level from the W, but on the E side there was a staircase. The
orchestra is well preserved and the stage shows successive Hellenistic remodelings.
The Roman proscenium was decorated with niches and engaged columns.
Beside and below the theater the hill is less steep. The inhabited
areas here preserved approximately the same orientation from archaic times to
the late Imperial period. On the S side, towards the open sea, there is an imposing
terraced complex, beside a central covered stairway. In the plain to the NW, near
the main harbor, which is presumed to have been in the cove between the peninsula
and mainland, is the agora; on the S side is the bouleuterion, still preserved
up to the top of the cavea, and also a second public building with three rooms
on the E side. A large gate with a propylon, near the SW corner, gave access to
the agora from the shore, and a second gate with three vaults on the E side communicated
with the rest of the city. In the NE corner was a nympheum. Beneath the agora
of Imperial date excavations have revealed the arrangements of the Classical and
Hellenistic periods. On the W side, a necropolis of large cist tombs from the
Protogeometric period appears to indicate that the settlement was then perhaps
farther inland. In the Bronze Age, however, the inhabited area spread below the
agora and into the plain, to W and E and over the hill.
Of the sanctuaries mentioned in inscriptions, that of Zeus Megistos
has been located in the plain to the NE as the result of the discovery of an oros
on the E gate of the circuit wall. The sanctuary of Artemis Astiades, with its
exedras and the stoas restored under Commodus, is behind the Bouleuterion to the
W. The necropolis, on the mainland contains Early Bronze Age tombs built of rock
slabs of the Carian type, chambered tombs with both flat roofs and barrel vaults,
and funeral monuments and sarcophagi of the Imperial period. The large building
known as the Fish Market has been shown to be a mausoleum, with a small tetrastyle
temple above the burial chamber surrounded by a courtyard and a portico. The so-called
Clock Tower is the only remaining example of a group of Roman tombs with two stories
and a cupola supported on arches. The necropolis, on the edge of which an agricultural-industrial
complex was established in the Roman period, is crossed by an aqueduct which probably
continued as far as the peninsula.
There are several basilicas and other Christian buildings, particularly
in the E section of the peninsula, and two basilicas have been found at the summit
of the hill, near the fort of the Cavalieri.
Finds are in the Smyrna museum, but an antiquarium is being built
on the site, in the N portico of the Roman mausoleum.
C. Laviosa, 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.
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
