"The other half—the bourgeoisie set—are hewn of a more complex material and thus quite difficult to classify as a social whole. The siren call of big business lures Greeks of all stripes to Hermoupolis. Although unlike in provenance and social standing, they are united by a common goal-profit."

"Sly, petty Chiotes; earnest, hardworking Andriotes; crooked, slippery Moraites; simple, honest Kassiotes: all somehow clinging to their local factions while merging into a mutable and amorphous community founded on the principle of wealth"

M. Karagatsis, "the Great Chimera" Page 86.

Important political and manufacturer owners of Hermoupolis of 19th century.

Their social life is founded on the conspicuous display of wealth, the thin veneer of culture. Exclusive clubs, well-to-do homes, affable mannerisms, prim speech, and a completely ritualized hospitality. Yet under this veneer, the passions endangered by the lack of deeper forms of cultivation run riot. Other consequences of this intellectual poverty are an extreme modernism and an uniscerning cosmopolitanism, which, rooted in inhospitable soil, bloom into stunned, grotesque figures. The Kassiotes, however, provide a note of comforting discord to this picture... While the older generation , used into humble wooden schooners of yore, looks askance at the younger's new shipping riches... Like the fathers before them, they are hard, conscientious workers, dedicated to their Vessels and businesses in Syros, Piraeus, and london. Patiently they await their time, certain that one day it will come.

pages 86-87.