TAMASSUS
TAMASSUS (
Ταμασσός,
Ptol. 5.14.6; called also Tamaseus by Pliny,
5.31. s. 35,
Ταμάσος by Constantine Porphyr.
de Them. i. p. 39, and Tamesa by Statius,
Achill. 1.413; cf. coins in Eckhel, 1.3. p. 88), a town in the interior of the island of Cyprus, 29 miles SW. of Soloe, and on the road from that place to Tremithus.
It lay in a fruitful neighbourhood (Ovid,
M. 10.644), and in the vicinity of some extensive copper mines, which yielded a kind of rust used in medicine (
Strab. xiv. p.864).
It is very probably the
Τεμέση of Homer (
Hom. Od. 1.184; Nitzch,
ad loc; cf. Mannert, 6.1. p. 452), in which case it would appear to have been the principal market for the copper trade of the island in those early times. Hence some derive its name from the Phoenician word
themaes, signifying
smelting. [
T.H.D]
