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Caunus (he KauWos: Eth. KauWios and KauWaios), a city of Caria, in
the Peraea. Strabo places Caunus west of Calynda. Caunus had dockyards and a closed
harbour, that is, a harbour that could be closed. Above the city, on a height,
was the fort Imbrus. Diodorus (xx. 27) mentions two forts, Persicum and Heracleium.
The country was fertile, but unhealthy in summer and autumn, owing to the air
and the abundance of fruit, of which we must suppose the people ate too much,
as the fruit alone could not cause unhealthiness. Strabo's description of the
position is not clear. After mentioning Calynda, he says, then Caunus, and a river
near it, Calbis, deep, and having a navigable entrance, and between, Pisilis;
which means that Pisilis is between the Calbis and Caunus. It is clear, then,
that Caunus, according to Strabo, is not on the Calbis, as it is represented in
some maps. If the Calbis, which is the Indus, or the large river Dalamon Tchy,
is east of Pisilis, it is of course still further east of Caunus. Caunus is placed
in some maps a little distance south of a lake on a stream which flows from it,
and four or five miles from the sea; but the river is usually incorrectly marked
the Calbis. The site of Caunus is said to be now Kaiguez, or some similar name.
But the ancient descriptions of the site of Caunus vary. Mela (i. 16) places Caunus
on the Calbis. Ptolemy (v. 2) places it east of the Calbis, and his description
of the coast of Caria is exact. But as he mentions no other river except the Calbis
till we come to the Xanthus, he has omitted the Dalamon Tchy, unless this is his
Calbis. Pliny (v. 28), who proceeds from east to west in his description of this
part of the coast, mentions the great river Indus, supposed to be the Calbis,
and then Oppidum Caunus liberum. This confusion in the ancient authorities cannot
be satisfactorily cleared by the aid of any modern authorities. This part of the
coast seems to have been very imperfectly examined. Kiepert places Caunus on the
west side of the entrance of Portus Panormus.
Herodotus (i. 172) says that the habits of the Caunii were very different
from those of the Carians and other people. It was their fashion for men, women,
and children to mingle in their entertainments. They had once some foreign deities
among them, but they expelled them in singular fashion. The Caunii made a desperate
resistance to the Persian general Harpagus, like their neighbours the Lycians.
(Herod.i. 176.) The Caunii also joined the Ionians in their revolt against the
Persians after the burning of Sardis, B.C. 499. (Herod. v. 103.) When Thucydides
(i. 116) speaks of the expedition of Pericles to the parts about Caunus after
the seafight at the island of Tragia (B.C. 440), he says, he went towards Caria
and Caunus, as if he did not consider Caunus to be included in Caria Proper. The
place is mentioned several times in the eighth book of Thucydides, and in one
passage (viii. 39) as a secure harbour against attack. As Caunus was in the Rhodian
Peraea, it belonged to the Rhodians, but the islanders were not always able to
hold it. There is a story recorded in Polybius (xxxi. 7) of the Rhodians having
bought Caunus from the generals of Ptolemaeus for 200 talents; and they alleged
that they had received, as a grant from Antiochus the son of Seleucus, Stratoniceia
in Caria. Caunus was taken by Ptolemy in B.C. 309 (Diod. xx. 27), and the Rhodians
may have bought it of him. A decree of the Roman senate ordered the Rhodians to
take away their garrisons from Stratoniceia and Caunus. (Polyb. xxx. 19.) This
was in B.C. 167. (Liv. xlv. 25.) The Romans appear to have given Caunus, with
other places in Caria, to the Rhodians, after the defeat of Antiochus in Asia.
(Liv. xxxvii. 56.) For Appian says that in the massacre of the Romans in Asia,
which was planned by Mithridates Eupator, the Caunii, who had been made tributary
to the Rhodians after the war with Antiochus (B.C. 190), and had been set free
by the Romans not long before (B.C. 167), dragged out the Italians who had fled
for refuge to the Boulaea Hestia, or the hearth of Vesta, in the senate house,
and after murdering the children before the eyes of their mothers, they killed
the mothers and the husbands on the dead bodies. (Appian, Mithrid. c. 23.) This
dreadful massacre happened in B.C. 88; and Sulla, after defeating Mithridates,
repaid the Caunii by putting them again under their old masters the Rhodians.
Strabo says that the Caunii once revolted from the Rhodians, and the case being
heard by the Romans, they were brought back under the Rhodians; and there is an
extant oration of Molo against the Rhodians. Apollonius Molo was in Rome, B.C.
81, as an ambassador from the Rhodians, and this seems to be the occasion to which
Strabo refers (Cic. Brut. 90), and which is by some critics referred to the wrong
time. Cicero (ad Q. Fr. i. 1. § 11) speaks of the Caunii as being still subject
to the Rhodians in B.C. 59; but they had lately applied to the Romans to be released
from the Rhodian dominion, and requested that they might pay their taxes to the
Romans rather than to the Rhodians. Their prayer had not been listened to, as
it seems, for they were still under the Rhodians. Though Cicero says lately (nuper)
he may be speaking of the same event that Strabo mentions. When Pliny wrote, they
had been released from the tyranny of the islanders, for he calls Caunus a free
town.
Caunus was the birthplace of one great man, Protogenes the painter,
who was a contemporary of Apelles, and therefore of the period of Alexander the
Great; but he lived chiefly at Rhodes. Pliny (xxxv. 10) speaks of his birthplace
as a city subject to the Rhodians; and though we cannot use this as historical
evidence, Caunus may have been subject to the Rhodians at that time. Caunus was
a place of considerable trade, and noted for its dried figs (Plin. xv. 19), a
fruit that would not contribute to the unhealthiness of the place, even if the
people eat them freely. They seem to have been carried even to Italy, as we may
infer from a story in Cicero (de Divin. ii. 40).
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
One of the chief cities of Caria, on its southern coast, in a very fertile but unhealthy situation. It was founded by the Cretans. Its dried figs (Cauneae ficus) were highly celebrated. The painter Protogenes was born here.
Total results on 8/6/2001: 38 for Caunus.
The ancient city of Caunos is located near Dalyan.
City in Caria by the lake of Koycegiz. Kaunos was purely Carian in
origin; its earliest appearance in history is in the 6th c. B.C., when the city
was captured by the Persian general Harpagos after a defiant resistance. In the
Athenian tribute lists Kaunos paid the surprisingly low tribute of half a talent;
in the assessment of 425 B.C. this was suddenly and probably unrealistically raised
to ten talents. In the Peloponnesian war both sides used Kaunos as a port. In
the 4th c. the city was still called Carian by Pseudo-Skylax, but from the time
of Mausolos on it began rapidly to acquire a Greek character, and by the 3d c.
was fully Hellenized.
During the wars of the Diadochi, Kaunos changed hands a number of
times, passing in turn to Antigonos, Ptolemy, Antigonos, Demetrios, Lysimachos,
and Ptolemy. Early in the 2d c. it was purchased by Rhodes from the generals of
Ptolemy for 200 talents, and remained unwillingly Rhodian until 167 B.C., when
the Senate declared it free. Included in the province of Asia in 129, Kaunos supported
Mithridates VI in 88 and took part in the slaughter of the Roman residents; for
this she was given back to Rhodes, but by the end of the 1st c. B.C. was again
free, though it seems from Dio Chrysostom (31.125) that the Rhodians later regained
some sort of control. In Byzantine times, when Kaunos was attached to Lycia, her
bishop ranked 15th under the metropolitan of Myra. Known coins begin in the 4th
c. and continue through the Hellenistic era, with the exception of the period
of Rhodian domination from 189 to 167; no Imperial coinage seems to be known.
Herodotos distinguishes the Kaunians from the Carians and from the
Lycians, and believes them to be indigenous, though they themselves claimed to
have come from Crete. Their language, he says, is similar to, but not identical
with, the Carian; and in fact a Carian inscription found at Kaunos includes characters
which do not occur in those from other parts of Caria. The earliest Greek inscriptions
found at Kaunos are those on the bases of statues of Hekatomnos and Mausolos.
The later inscriptions reveal a thoroughly Hellenic city, not one of whose citizens
bears a Carian name.
Throughout her history Kaunos suffered from two permanent troubles.
It was notoriously unhealthful owing to the prevalence of malaria from the mosquito-infested
marshes surrounding the city. These marshes, caused by the deposits of the river
which leads from the Kaunian lake (now the lake of Koycegiz) to the sea, produced
the second trouble, the silting-up of the harbor, which is now 3 km from the coast.
A donation of 60,000 denarii by private citizens in the 1st c. A.D. for the remission
of harbor dues reflects the increasing seriousness of the problem. Kaunian exports
included fruit (especially figs), salt, fish, resin, and slaves.
According to Strabo (651) Kaunos had a closed harbor and dockyards,
with the river Kalbis flowing nearby; above, on a height, was the fort Imbros.
The harbor is now a small round lake below the acropolis hill; the Kalbis must
be the present Dalyan Cayi connecting the lake with the sea, though its course
has probably changed since antiquity; Imbros is a large fort on the summit of
Olemez Dag just N of the city; the position of the dockyards remains uncertain.
The acropolis hill is in two parts, a higher and a lower, corresponding respectively
to the Heraklion and Persikon mentioned in Diodoros' account (20.27) of the capture
by Ptolemy in 309 B.C. A ruined fort still exists on the higher summit, but nothing
remains of the Persikon.
The city wall is in two unequal parts. The shorter connects the two
acropolis hills S of the harbor; the other, some 3 km long, runs from the other
side of the harbor over the hills to N and E, ending at a precipice above the
river. Of this vast area only a small part by the harbor and acropolis was inhabited.
The masonry of the wall shows great variety; the earliest part is the most remote
from the city and dates apparently from the time of Mausolos; the lower parts
near the city are Hellenistic and presumably represent one or more rebuildings.
The theater stands on the lower slope of the main acropolis hill,
facing W across the slope, and has recently been cleared. The cavea is more than
a semicircle and has 34 rows of seats and one diazoma; it is entered on the N
side by two arched entrances. There is no entrance on the S where the theater
is cut out of the hillside. The foundations of the stage building exist, but have
not yet been excavated. On the ridge N of the theater three buildings stand in
a row, a church, baths, and a building of uncertain character; all are fairly
well preserved and are being excavated.
The main area of occupation was close to the harbor. A building near
the water's edge carrying the long customs inscription mentioned above has proved
to be not a customs-house as previously supposed, but a nymphaeum. It has been
completely restored with its own blocks, with the inscription on the outer face
of the S wall. The building measures ca. 8 by 5 m, and was approached on the W
by three steps. A dedication to Vespasian was found in front of it.
Not far from the nymphaeum is a stoa of rather poor quality, and a
circular building of unusual form and uncertain purpose. This has a sunken floor
surrounded by a double row of columns, with a platform on one side raised on steps
and in the middle a curious round flat stone. A reservoir or bathing pool has
been suggested. Elsewhere the existence of at least four temples has been determined;
these are not yet excavated.
Tombs at Kaunos are in general either rock-cut or built of masonry;
there is one group of Carian type, sunk in the rock with separate lids, but sarcophagi
are rare if not unknown. Most conspicuous is the splendid series of tombs cut
in the face of the cliff between the site and Dalyan village: no less than 150,
of which some 20 are temple tombs with columns and pediments; most of these have
two Ionic columns, but one unfinished tomb has four. Pottery found in these temple
tombs dates them to the 4th c. B.C. They have a passage cut all round them in
the rock, and were usually closed by a door slab imitating a studded wooden door
working on a hinge. The pediments have akroteria, but except in one case no decoration
in the tympanon. The interior normally has a flat roof, and benches on three sides
hollowed out in sarcophagus form. The smaller tombs are plain rock-cut chambers;
most of them had originally elegant doorframes and door-slabs. Epitaphs are remarkably
scarce; three of the temple tombs are inscribed, but the inscription in every
case relates to a reuse of the tomb at a much later date.
G. E. Bean, 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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