Kasmenai
 Shown within Italy
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| Alternate name | Kasmenai, Casmene |
|---|---|
| Location | Buscemi, Italy |
| Coordinates | 37°4′40″N 14°49′53″E / 37.07778°N 14.83139°ECoordinates: 37°4′40″N 14°49′53″E / 37.07778°N 14.83139°E |
| Type | Settlement |
| History | |
| Founded | 644 BC |
| Abandoned | Approximately 4th century BC |
| Periods | Archaic Greek |
| Cultures | Ancient Greece |
Casmenae or Kasmenai (Casmene in Italian) was an ancient Greek colony located on the Hyblaean Mountains, founded in 644 BC by the Syracusans at a strategic position for the control of central Sicily. It was also intended as a military forward-position on the Via Selinuntina road that connected Syracuse to Akragas (modern-day Agrigento) - also on that road were Gela and Akrillai to Casmene's west and Akrai to its east. Destroyed by the Romans in 212 BC, Casmene was abandoned during the 3rd century BC and never inhabited again.
The site was discovered by the Sicilian archeologist Paolo Orsi during the first half of the 20th century, after he had identified the most probably site at Monte Casale in Buscemi at 830m above sea level, on an extinct volcano near Monte Lauro, 7 km from Giarratana and 12 km from Palazzolo Acreide. Remains of the defensive walls, long 3.400m, are still visible with the base of one of the temples and some dwellings.
It was founded in 643 BC from Syracuse, 90 years after Syracuse's own foundation in 734 or 733 BC. There are several references to it in the historical sources, though few links to the main figures of the time and with several false accounts added. The most reliable source for it is Thucydides and his History of the Peloponnesian War. He writes:
Acrae and Casmenae were founded by the Syracusans; Acrae seventy years after Syracuse, Casmenae nearly twenty after Acrae. Camarina was first founded by the Syracusans, close upon a hundred and thirty-five years after the building of Syracuse; its founders being Daxon and Menecolus. But the Camarinaeans being expelled by arms by the Syracusans for having revolted, Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, some time later receiving their land in ransom for some Syracusan prisoners, resettled Camarina, himself acting as its founder. Lastly, it was again depopulated by Gelo, and settled once more for the third time by the Geloans.
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