Greek Texts & Translations

6. As to the nature of the places in Laconia and Messenia, we may take the description of Euripides; ^note Laconia has much land capable of tillage, but difficult to be worked, for it is hollow, surrounded by mountains, rugged, and difficult of access to an enemy. Messenia he describes in this manner: It bears excellent fruit; is watered by innumerable streams; it affords the finest pasture to herds and flocks; it is not subject to the blasts of winter, nor too much heated by the coursers of the sun; and a little farther on, speaking of the division of the country by the Heracleidae according to lot, the first was lord of the Lacaenian land, a bad soil,
the second was Messene, whose excellence no language could express;
and Tyrtaeus speaks of it in the same manner.

But we cannot admit that Laconia and Messenia are bounded, as Euripides says, by the Pamisus, ^note which empties itself into the sea;
this river flows through the middle of Messenia, and does not touch any part of the present Laconia. Nor is he right, when he says that Mess nia is inaccessible to sailors, whereas it borders upon the sea, in the same manner as Laconia.

Nor does he give the right boundaries of Elis; after passing the liver is Elis, the neighbour of Jove;
and he adduces a proof unnecessarily. For if he means the present Eleian territory, which is on the confines of Messenia, this the Pamisus does not touch, any more than it touches Laconia, for, as has been said before, it flows through the middle of Messenia: or, if he meant the ancient Eleia, called the Hollow, this is a still greater deviation from the truth. For after crossing the Pamisus, there is a large tract of the Messenian country, then the whole district of [the Lepreatae], and of the [Macistii], which is called Triphylia; then the Pisatis, and Olympia; then at the distance of 300 stadia is Elis. 7

As some persons write the epithet applied by Homer to Lacedaemon, κητώεσσαν, and others καιετάεσσαν, how are we to understand κητώεσσα, whether it is derived from Cetos, ^note or