Greek Texts & Translations

to Pylus, the island Sphagia, called also Sphacteria. It was here that the Lacedaemonians lost three hundred men, ^note who were besieged by the Athenians and taken prisoners.

Two islands, called Strophades, ^note belonging to the Cy- parissii, lie off at sea in front of this coast, at the distance of about 400 stadia from the continent, in the Libyan and southern sea. According to Thucydides this Pylus was the naval station of the Messenians. It is distant from Sparta 400 stadia. 3

Next is Methone. ^note This city, called by the poet Pedasus, was one of the seven, it is said, which Agamemnon promised to Achilles. There Agrippa killed, in the Actian war, Bogus, the king of the Maurusii, a partisan of Antony's, having got possession of the place by an attack by sea 4

Continuous with Methone is Acritas, ^note where the Messenian Gulf begins, which they call also Asinaeus from Asine, a small city, the first we meet with on the gulf, and having the same name as the Hermionic Asine.

This is the commencement of the gulf towards the west. Towards the east are the Thyrides, ^note as they are called, bordering upon the present Laconia near Caenepolis, ^note and Taenarum.

In the intervening distance, if we begin from the Thyrides, we meet with Oetylus, ^note by some called Beitylus; then Leuctrum, a colony of the Leuctri in Boeotia; next, situated upon a steep rock, Cardamyle; ^note then Pherae, bordering upon Thu- ria, and Gerenia, from which place they say Nestor had the epithet Gerenian, because he escaped thither, as we have mentioned before. They show in the Gerenian territory a temple of Aesculapius Triccaeus, copied from that at the Thessalian Tricca. Pelops is said to have founded Leuctrum, and Charadra, and Thalami, now called the Boeotian Thalami, having brought with him, when he married his sister Niob to Amphion, some colonists from Boeotia.