Kassope was founded in the first half of the fourth century BCE on a high plateau beneath Mount Zalongo in Epirus. It brought together surrounding villages of the Kassopaeans, a Greek-speaking Epirote people whose territory extended toward the Ambracian Gulf and Ionian coast. The elevated site controlled inland routes and commanded views toward the sea, while defensible cliffs protected several sides. Its establishment reflects a wider movement toward organized urban centers in Epirus during a period of political consolidation and expanding contact with southern Greek cities.

Surveyors laid out Kassope on a regular grid adapted to the plateau. Parallel streets crossed at right angles, dividing blocks of courtyard houses whose standardized plots reveal deliberate civic planning. A main agora contained stoas, administrative buildings, and sacred spaces, while a civic building often identified as a prytaneion supported communal government. The larger theater used the natural slope for seating and faced the distant landscape; a smaller performance or assembly structure stood nearby. Walls, gates, cisterns, workshops, and cemeteries completed the planned city.

The houses are particularly important for understanding Hellenistic daily life. Rooms gathered around courtyards that admitted light, organized work, and separated household functions. Masonry foundations supported upper walls of more perishable material, and drains carried rainwater along streets. Residents farmed the surrounding territory, raised animals, produced crafts, worshipped local and pan-Hellenic deities, and traded through coastal outlets. Public buildings expressed collective identity, while the repeating house blocks show how political ideals, family property, topography, and practical needs interacted in an Epirote community.

Kassope participated in the alliances and conflicts of the Epirote world, including the kingdom associated with Pyrrhus and later federal institutions. Roman forces devastated many settlements in Epirus after defeating Macedon in 168 BCE, and Kassope suffered within that upheaval, though occupation continued. The decisive change followed Octavian’s victory at Actium in 31 BCE. He founded Nicopolis near the coast to commemorate the battle and compelled or encouraged regional populations to move there. Kassope was gradually abandoned, leaving its Hellenistic plan largely free of later rebuilding.

Modern excavation and conservation have exposed the grid, houses, agora, theaters, walls, and public buildings within a dramatic mountain landscape. The site’s relative isolation protects its overall form but creates challenges of vegetation, erosion, drainage, and access. Kassope is often praised as a clear example of rectilinear Greek planning, yet its importance is broader than geometry. It preserves the relationship between an Epirote people and their territory, the organization of household and civic life, the violence of Roman expansion, and the creation of Nicopolis that redirected an entire region.