Lake
Lacus Asson
İznik Gölü
Listen to the story
Lacus Asson is Lake İznik in north-western Turkey, which the Greeks called the Askanian lake. The name is hard to make out: it shows best on a photograph taken in 1888, with an L at the far left of the water and ON close to the river flowing out on the right. On its eastern shore lay Nicaea, today İznik, where Constantine gathered the first great council of the Church.