Casmenae

CA´SMENAE (Κασμένη, Herod. Steph. B., Κασμέναι, Thuc.: Eth. Κασμεναῖος,, Steph.), a city of Sicily founded by a colony from Syracuse, 90 years after the establishment of the parent city, or B.C. 643. (Thuc. 6.5.) It is afterwards mentioned by Herodotus as affording shelter to the oligarchical party called the Gamori, when they were expelled from Syracuse; and it was from thence that they applied for assistance to Gelon, then ruler of Gela. (Her. 7.155.) But from this period Casmenae disappears from history. Thucydides appears to allude to it as a place still existing in his time, but we find no subsequent trace of its name. It was probably destroyed by some of the tyrants of Syracuse, according to their favourite policy of removing the inhabitants from the smaller towns to the larger ones. Its site is wholly uncertain: Cluverius was disposed to fix it at Scicli, but Sir R. Hoare mentions the ruins of an ancient city as existing about 2 miles E. of Sta Croce (a small town 9 miles W. of Scicli), which may very possibly be those of Casmenae. They are described by him as indicating a place of considerable magnitude and importance; but do not appear to have ever been carefully examined. (Cluver. Sicil. p. 358 ; Hoare's Class. Tour, vol. 2. p. 266.)