According to the ancient geographer Strabo, "the distance by sea around the peninsula from the city Acanthus as far as Stageirus, the city of Aristotle, is four hundred stadia. On this coast is a harbour, Caprus by name, and also an isle with the same name as the harbour." Strabo, Geography, Book 7, fragments, 34

He also wrote: "... there is a cape which with Athos forms the Strymonic Gulf, I mean the cape which has had on it a city called Apollonia. The first city on this gulf after the harbour of the Acanthians is Stageira, the native city of Aristotle, now deserted; this too belongs to the Chalcidians and so do its harbour, Caprus, and an isle bearing the same name as the harbour." Strabo, Geography, Book 7, fragments, 36 [1]

Strabo's "400 stadia" between Akanthos and Stageira is quite an overestimate. The length of a stadion was not uniform around the Greek world and varied between 157 metres (itineraries) and 185 metres (Attic/Italic). 400 stadia would therefore be somewhere between 62.8 and 74 km. The distance between the two cities by land is about 25 km, and even if a ship gave the Marmari penisular (the tip of which is today called Cape Eletfherou) a wide berth, the distance by sea could not have been more than 35 km.

In modern times scholars were uncertain of the location of Ancient Stageira and Kapros. The island was tentatively identified by cartographers in the 17th century (see the historical maps in History of Stageira part 8), although since it is the only island in the area, this could not have been too difficult. However, since the remains of Stageira remained buried among trees and vegetation, debate continued about the location of city until the end of the 20th century when the Greek archaeologist Dr. Kostas Sismanidis began excavating here.