According to the ancient reports, the Argive colonists had sustained severe losses in a war with the native Carians, so they invited the son of Neleus, who had previously founded Miletus, to come to their assistance.

[2] The town, which appears to have occupied the whole of the little island, had only ten stadia in circumference; but it nevertheless acquired great wealth,[3] from its fisheries and trade in fish.

After the Sicilian expedition of the Athenians, Iasos was attacked by the Spartans and their allies; it was governed at the time by Amorges, a Persian chief, who had revolted from Darius II.

[5] The mountains in the neighbourhood of Iasus furnished a beautiful kind of marble, of a blood-red and livid white colour, which was used by the ancients for ornamental purposes.

A number of ancient Greek inscriptions were removed from the site which were later donated to the British Museum by the Duke of St Albans.

[9] Since then, Iasos and the necropolis have been under regular scientific excavations on behalf of the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens by Doro Levi (1960–1972), Clelia Laviosa (1972–1984) and Fede Berti (1984–2011).

Below this again two 'Minoan' levels are reported, the earlier containing local imitations of MM II-LM I ware, the later imported pieces of the Second Palace Period (AJA [1973], 177-8).

The see is mentioned in the Nova Tactica, 10th century (Heinrich Gelzer, Georgii Cyprii descriptio orbis romani, nos.