Ancient Kassope

Kassope was the main city of the Kassopaians, an ancient tribe of Epirus. It was founded in the 4th century BC on a terrace about 550 m up the western slopes of Mount Zalongo, near the village of Kamarina. From there it looks out over the Ambracian Gulf, the Ionian Sea and Lefkada. At its height in the late 3rd century BC it had about 8,000–10,000 inhabitants. In 31 BC they were moved to the newly founded Nikopolis, and the city was abandoned.

Kassope is one of the clearest examples of a planned Greek city. Its streets form a regular grid of blocks, and you can still walk along a paved street into the residential quarter. In the middle lies the agora. Around it stand the Odeion–Bouleuterion (a small theatre-shaped hall for the council and for music), the prytaneion (the seat of the city's magistrates) and the katagogion. The katagogion was a large building of rooms around a courtyard, which most scholars see as an inn for visitors. The large theatre, for up to about 6,000 spectators, sits at the foot of the hill and was restored and used again in 2023. Sections of the massive city walls survive.

Sotiris Dakaris excavated the site in 1952 and 1955. Between 1977 and 1983 the University of Ioannina and the German Archaeological Institute dug here together, and their study of Kassope's houses became a classic of Greek urban planning. In 2026 the site is being upgraded with an accessible route and electric vehicles that stop at the agora, bouleuterion, prytaneion, katagogion and theatre.