Col. William Leake, Travels in the Morea (v.1-3)

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§ 1.318 Antony Gligoraki, the present Bey, succeeded Komunduro; he has done his utmost to assist the Turkish government in destroying the trattas and pirate boats of the Maniates, and in reducing them to submission: all the best part of Mani, however, viz. Zarnata, Andruvista, Milea, and Kastania, are against him, and more inclined to his enemy Tzanet, and his son Peter, the Bey-Zaade, who is their hero. Khristea, the captain of Zygos, is a neutral, having married a Mavromikhali, being personally a friend of Hassan Bey, and being carefully cultivated by Kyr Petruni, the chief support of the Andon interest on the western coast; Khristea, therefore, adds no strength to the party of Tzanet, though obliged to live on good terms with that party on account of his position in the midst of them. On the eastern coast, between Skutari and Porto Kaio, Andon has many enemies; in fact his power, as a Turkish lieutenant, is disagreeable to the Maniates in general, though they are too weak at sea to dispute it: their family quarrels are a great assistance to the Turks. These are often changing, and they have a proverb relating to their politics, Μανιάτικα μηνιάτικα [monthly]. Each person of power and every head of a family of any influence has a pyrgo, which is
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§ 1.319 used almost solely as a tower of defence: the ordinary habitation stands at the foot of it. The Bey's relations and a few of the Kapitani maintain some soldiers in their towers, but in general these buildings are uninhabited, except in time of alarm. To overturn the pyrgo of the enemy and to slaughter as many of his relations as possible, are the objects of every war. The tower has loopholes in the different stories and battlements at top, and he that can get a rusty swivel to plant upon them is not easily subdued. Most of the ordinary dwellings are built with loopholes in the walls; nor are the villages, in which there is no inhabitant of sufficient opulence to build a pyrgo, the more peaceable on that account, but quarrel either among themselves or with their neighbours, and endeavour to overturn one another's houses just like their betters. Every pyrgo has a cistern, which has an arched covering of stone, with a little wooden door kept constantly locked. The villages, also, in general, have cisterns in or near them. The cactus is very commonly grown round the villages for the sake of the fruit, and these with a few figs, and grapes, and some of the commonest esculent vegetables, are the only horticultural productions of Mani.
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§ 1.320 April 16. — This morning I sail from Port Vitylo in a little kaik belonging to Kyr Petruni, a brisk Levanter blowing from the opening between Vitylo and Kelefa. But no sooner have we turned the cape on the northern side of the harbour than the breeze is succeeded by a dead calm with a great sea from the southward, the certain prognostic of a strong wind from that quarter. After rowing for seven miles under steep cliffs we are abreast of Ai Dhimitri, a pyrgo and village on the sea-side, opposite to which is a little island, three times as large as our boat, so the sailors describe it. Above it is situated the town of Platza, the chief place in Zygos, between which and the ridge separating Zygos from Vitylo, on the road to the latter, are Langadha and Poliana. Three miles beyond St. Demetrius is Leftro, a pyrgo and village, the residence of Captain Khristea; between the two places the slope of the mountain is covered with olives, and at the head of it, just under the mountain, in a green looking glen, stands Izina, a village belonging to the district of Milea. Not far above Leftro is the town of Pyrgo. I had intended to stop at Leftro, the only place in this part of Mani which the state of parties and family alliances admitted of my visiting; but a fresh sirocco coming on with a heavy sea, we are obliged to steer direct for Cape Kurtissa.
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§ 1.321 Beyond St. Demetrius, the high cliffs terminate which characterize this shore from Kavo Grosso northwards, and they are succeeded by a regular, fertile slope extending from the steeps of Taygetum to the sea-side. The peak of St. Elias, or Makryno, appears nearest to the coast, at about half-way between Leftro and Skardhamula, which latter is four or five miles from Leftro; and has an island opposite to it upon which there is a monastery. Behind Skardhamula a deep ravine descends in a direct line from the Makryno to that place; between Leftro and Skardhamula there are some fine olive plantations. From the latter place to Cape Kurtissa, which is five miles distant, the coast is a steep rock, but not very high. Our little boat ships some seas, and being heavily laden and lowmasted, we are in some danger from the effect of the high waves, which follow us and take the wind out of our sails: but the Maniates are good boatmen, and with cautious steering we arrive safely under the lee of Cape Kurtissa. Kitries lies at the bottom of a bight, a mile and a half east of the cape: we arrive at 12.30, and find the frigate of Seremet Bey and a corvette anchored in the road. By land the distance from Kitries to Vitylo is reckoned ten
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§ 1.322 hours — three hours and a half to Skardhamula, from thence to Leftro one hour and a half, and five more to Vitylo. The distance by the road is not more than thirty miles, but so rugged in some parts that it cannot easily be done in less than twelve hours, except by a Maniate on foot. Having landed, I call upon the Cavaliere Dhimitrio Gligoraki, who offers me his apartments in the house of the Bey; but I prefer lodging in one of the magazines by the sea side. The pyrgo of the Bey and adjoining buildings are large, and agreeably situated on a height above the sea. The hills around are covered with terraces of wheat, which is now in ear and already beginning to look yellow at the bottom of the stalk; it will be spoiled, they say, if there is no rain. Corn in Mani is all sown in the first rains of autumn, i.e. September and October. In the highest villages of Taygetum, where the snow covers the ground all the winter, it is reaped in August, and sown again in September: the produce is there three or four to one. In the most fertile parts of Mani ten to one. In the best lands of Messenia, where it is sown in November and December, ten to one is common; sometimes the return is as much as twenty to one, and with artificial irrigation still more.
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§ 1.323 At the head of a little valley behind the beach of Kitries, immediately under a rocky gorge in the mountain, I find a very large cavern answering to that described by Pausanias at Gerenia, except that the entrance is not narrow, as he says; it may, perhaps, have been widened in order to be made more convenient as a μάνδρα, or sheepfold, for which it now serves. There are two or three sepulchral niches in the side of the cliffs about the valley, enough, I think, with the other data of Pausanias, to leave little doubt of Kitries being the site of Gerenia. Besides the Bey's pyrgo and its dependencies, the only buildings at Kitries are five or six magazines near the sea. In one of these I found a singular personage, a Turk keeping a shop in a country of Greeks. The Cavaliere is a sensible, quick, conversable character; he tells me that he was strongly invited to go to England in 1795, when at Petropoli, by an English ambassador who understood Greek, and that the empress hearing of it shut him up. Such is his story. The pyrgo was built by Tzanet Kutufari, and was the residence of the Bey of Mani, until Tzanet Gligoraki having built his castle at Mavrovuni, made that place his residence; the present Bey intends to reside at Marathonisi. The district of Zarnata lies between Kitries and Skardhamula, and extends inland to the highest ridges of Taygetum; in the midst of it, at the distance of an hour and a half from the sea, are the ruins of the fortress of Zarnata, which Coronelli describes to have been taken by the Venetians in the year 1685, when it had a garrison of 600 Turks and fifty-one pieces of cannon. Between the years 1771 and 1780, Kitries was the chief resort of European vessels in the south of the Morea, where they loaded the vallonea, vermilion, oil, figs, &c., of Messenia and Laconia. It possesses a great advantage for this object in the security of the harbour, and its position westward of Cape Matapan.
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§ 1.326 April 17. — At 7.05 I leave Kitries for Kalamata, and proceed along the summit of the cliffs which overhang the sea beach, but which are interrupted, at 7.43, by the ravine of a wide torrent descending from Taygetum; at 8.10 arrive at Palea Mandinia: here is nothing but a church with some remains of Hellenic buildings on the side of a hill, in which there is an opening leading through the cliffs to the shore. The two villages of Mikri and Megali Mandinia stand on the side of the mountain a mile eastward of Old Mandinia, and contain together 100 houses. How the Hellenic name of Mantineia came to be attached
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§ 1.325 to these ruins, it is difficult to conjecture; for the site is certainly that of Abiae. Here are some fine fields of wheat, which women are now clearing of weeds. As we pass, one of our party asks them what they are doing, βοτανίζομεν is their Laconic answer. At 8.25, leaving the church, we soon afterwards descend upon a sea beach formed of large pebbles; and then pass under a perpendicular cliff clothed with myrtles and ivy. At 8.55 arrive at a mill turned by a stream strongly impregnated with salt, which issues very copiously out of a cavern at the back of the mill, and below it runs in a large body into the sea. The place is called Armyro, from this salt river, and the same name is attached to the anchorage opposite to it, which serves as the port of Kalamata in winter, when ships cannot safely remain in the roadsted off that town. After a five minutes halt, we move forward along the stony beach, and soon after passing a naked projection of the mountain, which terminates in a cliff, arrive at 10 on a sandy beach, the southeastern angle of the great Messenian Plain. At 10.15 enter olive plantations. The village of Selitza, in the Maniate district of Zarnata, is situated to the right, near the cliffs of the mountain, but is not in sight. These cliffs sometimes break off in large masses, an occurrence
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§ 1.326 which, among the Zarnatiotes, is considered prophetic of the fall of some great Maniate captain. I observe that all the olive trees are young, the old trees having been destroyed by the Maniates, or their opponents the Turks, in the course of their wars. The destruction of olive trees is one of the greatest calamities to which the inhabitant of Greece is exposed in war: there is scarcely any thing analogous to it in more northern countries. A most fruitful production of very slow growth, which has afforded food and profit for centuries, and which in the course of nature might last as much longer, is destroyed in a moment. At 10.26 we cross a brook; at 10.35 on the left is a pyrgo belonging to the Kavaleraki, as they call the son of Dhimitrio Gligoraki. The ground is covered with great quantities of wild lavender in blossom, here called λαρδάσταχα. We now enter the olive and garden grounds which surround Kalamata; they are fenced with the cactus, or prickly pear, but the fences are imperfect and the gardens ruinous — an effect of the frontier situation. Arrive at Kalamata at 10.45. The first object that strikes the traveller on entering Kalamata, is the ruined mansion of Benakhi, which, like that of Krevata at Mistra, was destroyed by the Turks after the insurrection of 1770, in which the heads of those two Greek families took a part. The son of Benakhi
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§ 1.327 is now Russian Consul at Corfu, and still enjoys the rents of a considerable estate here, which are collected by a married sister, living in a pyrgo in the town. I proceed to the house of Kyr Elias Tzani, whose brother, Dhimitrio, is Hodja-bashi of the place, but now absent at an assembly of all the Hodja-bashis at Tripolitza, where the Pasha has summoned them to consider of the means of supporting the reinforcements destined for the Morea. I shall now trace the progress of Pausanias from Messa, along the western side of the Taygetic promontory, as far as Pharae, for the purpose of justifying the ancient names which I have assigned to some of the places in passing, and of shewing, in conclusion, that Kalamata stands on the site of Pharae. “The distance from the harbour of Messa to Oitylus was 150 stades. The things worthy of remark in Oitylus were, a temple of Sarapis, and in the agora a wooden statue of Apollo Carneius. From Oitylus to Thalamae the length of the road was about eighty stades; in the way there was a temple of Ino, and an oracle by means of the interpretation of dreams. In the open court of the temple stood brazen images of Paphia and of the Sun, and there was another statue in the temple said also to have been of brass, but it was difficult to be seen, on account
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§ 1.328 of the garlands with which it was covered; there was a source of sweet water at the temple, called the fountain of the Moon.” Pephnus was twenty stades distant from Thalamae, and situated on the sea side. Before it there was an island not larger than a great rock, also called Pephnus, in which stood, in the open air, brazen statues of the Dioscuri a foot high. The Messenians affirmed, that formerly this place belonged to them. Leuctra was distant twenty stades from Pephnus. The acropolis contained a temple and statue of Minerva. In the town were a temple and statue of Cassandra, daughter of Priam, here called Alexandra, a marble statue of Aesculapius, and another of Ino — wooden figures of Apollo Carneius, who was honoured here in the same manner as at Sparta, and a temple and grove of Love, through which water flowed in seasons of rain. [This torrent, according to Strabo, was called the little Pamisus; the Messenians pretended that it was the Pamisus which separated Messenia from Laconia, but they could never realize their claim.] In a wood near the sea there was found, in the time of Pausanias, after a great storm which destroyed most of the trees, a statue of Jupiter Ithomatas, which the Messenii alleged to be a proof that Leuctra formerly belonged to them.
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§ 1.329 Cardamyle, mentioned by Homer among the places offered by Agamemnon (to Achilles), was in subjection to Sparta, the emperor Augustus having separated it from Messenia. It was distant from the sea eight stades, and from Leuctra sixty: not far from the sea there was a sacred inclosure of the daughters of Nereus, and in the town sanctuaries of Minerva and of Apollo Carneius. “The city called Enope by Homer, though inhabited by Messenians, belonged to the community of the Eleuthero-Lacones, and was named Gerenia. Some affirmed that Nestor was a native of this city, others that he fled hither when Pylus was taken by Hercules. It contained a sanctuary, a sepulchral monument, and an upright brazen statue of Machaon, son of Aesculapius: the place was called Rhodus. On the head of the statue there was a crown, which, in the provincial dialect of Messenia, was called κίφος. In the district of Gerenia, on a mountain called Calathium, there was a temple of Claea, and close to it a cavern; the entrance was narrow, but within there were things worthy of being seen. Thirty stades above Gerenia, towards the interior, was Alagonia, a city numbered among the Eleuthero-Lacones, and which contained temples of Bacchus and of Diana.” Here end the Laconica of Pausanias. In the thirtieth
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§ 1.330 chapter of the Messenica he resumes the same route at the valley Choerius, which was the boundary of Laconia and Messenia: its distance from Gerenia he has omitted to mention. “Twenty stades”, he says, “from the ravine Choerius, stood Abia, a city on the sea-side, anciently called Ire, and one of the seven which Homer represents to have been offered by Agamemnon to Achilles. Here were a celebrated temple of Hercules and an Asclepieium. Pharae was seventy stades distant from Abia; in the way thither was a salt stream.” The modern name of Oitylus is Βοίτυλος, pronounced Vitylo, and this is probably the ancient dialectic form without any change, except perhaps in the sound of the B. The initial B was often in the Aeolic a substitute for the digamma or aspirate. Thus the Eleians, who spoke a kindred dialect, used Βαθύ, Βοινώα, for ηδυ, Οινόη. In an intermediate age we find the name written by Ptolemy Βίτυλα; but the geographer was probably misinformed as to the orthography; for it cannot be supposed to have been less correct then than it is now. The small island, compared by Pausanias to a great rock, and which my Maniate sailors described as not being larger than a boat,
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§ 1.331 marks the position of Pephnus, as the name of Leftro fixes the site of Leuctra, and that of Skardhamula Cardamyle. Another little island, which has not been noticed by Pausanias, forms the harbour of Skardhamula. That town is situated, as the Greek traveller has observed of Cardamyle, a little above the coast, and, as Strabo adds, on a strong rocky height. It is possible that the modern name Σκαρδαμούλα represents exactly the ancient local pronunciation, for the final A instead of H is Doric or Aeolic; the V or upsilon in the most ancient times certainly represented the sound which was afterwards expressed by ΟΥ in Greek, but which in Latin always preserved its original representative — and the initial K and ΣΚ were often convertible. Of the points in the road from Gerenia to Pharae, there is one so marked by the hand of nature as to leave no doubt of the identity; this is the stream of salt water which gives to the place itself, as well as to the opposite anchorage, the name Armyro, the very word by which Pausanias has described the water. As Palea Mandinia and Kalamata both bear evidence of having been the sites of Hellenic cities, as the Armyro occurs in the road from the one to the other, and as the interval of seventy stades between them, given by Pausanias, agrees exactly with the two hours and a
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§ 1.332 quarter of time distance, at the usual rate of thirty stades to the hour, the evidence would be sufficient to determine both the positions, even were not the presumption as to Pharae confirmed by other testimony, as will be seen in the sequel. Although the twenty stades of Pausanias between Choerius and Abia exceed my time distance between the torrent which interrupts the rocky coast northward of Kitries, and the Hellenic remains at old Mandinia, there can be little doubt that the ravine of that torrent is the νάπη intended by the Greek traveller, there being no other on this coast, and such a torrent being well suited to a boundary. ADDITIONAL NOTE TO CHAPTER VIII. I have alluded more than once in the preceding pages to a poetical description of Mani. I found the manuscript in the possession of one of the ecclesiastics of the bishop's family at Mistra, of whom I was making inquiries concerning Mani, and he allowed me to take a copy of it. It appears to have been written by a διδάσκαλος residing in some part of the north of Mani, perhaps at the court of Tzanet Bey, and apparently not long after a celebrated defeat which Kumunduro sustained from the latter chieftain, when supported by a Turkish squadron from Kitries, Kumunduro advanced from Zarnata
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§ 1.333 to Andruvista, but was defeated and fled, while the Turkish Seraskier with difficulty and great loss re-embarked at Skardhamula. I shall subjoin some extracts from this piece, certainly not for the sake of its literary merit, in which it is on a par with the other poetical effusions of modern Greece, but as a specimen of the southern dialect of this country, and as a native description of the topography and manners of Mani. The poem is in 314 lines, more than a third of which is a poetical catalogue of the 117 villages, interspersed with a few descriptive verses. After a short description of “the mountain Taygeton, by the moderns called Makrynon, in which those unfortunate Spartans, now called Maniates, took refuge in order to save their life and liberty”, the poet proceeds to enumerate in verse the names of all the 117 villages arranged under their three divisions and subordinate districts. Tzanet Bey is the hero: he is qualified as “the firm column of his country, the father of orphans, who deserves to govern all Laconia as well as Mani, being hospitable and a great patriot. He has done in Mani”, says the poet, “what no one else ever did before him; and this I have seen with my own eyes: — A bell marks the hour of supper at his palace. Then all those who hear the bell boldly enter, eat at the bey's table, and depart satisfied. He loves the poor and the stranger, defends his province, persecutes the wicked and pounds them like salt. Thus old and young desire him, all Mani, and all the captains, except the Bey Kumunduraki of Kitries alone, who lives like a hawk, oppressing the poor and robbing them of their property, thinking only of feasting with his lady, while all the country groans. He hoped to possess himself of Milea and tyrannize over it, and even to take Marathonisi. Assisted by the Turk, he pretended to frighten Mani and subject all its government to himself. He brought an army by land, and a squadron by sea, and from Andruvista began to proceed in order. But the valorous young men, the dreadful captains opposed him. At Skardhamula the meeting took
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§ 1.334 place — they sprang upon the enemy like lions, one driving a hundred before him — a hundred a thousand — they scatter them to the winds and reduce them to despair. The terrified (Kumunduro) fled with his land forces, and abandoned the unfortunate Seraskier on the sea-shore. Then if Tzanet Bey had moved a little, and had not neglected the opportunity, Kumunduro could not have arrested his flight at Kitries, nor at Zarnata — no, nor at Kalamata.” [Greek text of poem]
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§ 1.335 The author then makes some reflections on the ill effects of “the disunion of the Maniates, and the want of obedience to their chiefs, whence arise civil wars, the destruction of houses and churches, and piracy and robbery”; all which he ascribes to “ignorance and want of education” “Hence disorder and civil wars, and robbery and murder, and ruin and convulsion. But, nevertheless, for their country and their liberty (when it is attacked from without) these men quickly unite and act in concert with fury.” He then recommends them to establish two or three schools. “That your priests may be instructed and enlightened, and may teach and direct the people; that your chiefs may learn to govern, and the inferiors to obey their leaders; that your nation may be esteemed, that the towns and villages may be in peace, and that evil may cease” After this good advice, the poet proceeds to treat of the country southward of Vitylo, where it seems as if he had himself been a sufferer from Kakavuliote hospitality: but his picture, though a broad caricature, is not without some foundation in truth. After stating that there are twenty-six villages in Mesa Mani, he thus enumerates them: —
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§ 1.336 “The first is Tzimova, a handsome town and large, governed by a captain named Mavromikhali: beyond this place, at the foot of the mountain, is a village called Kuskuni, then Krelianika, Kifianika, Pyrgos, Kharia, Dhryalo, Paliokhora, Krimnos, Babaka, Bryki, Kakiona, Karinia, Kulumi, Mina, Kita the many towered, and Paromia, a village of the same description, Stavri, Kikhrianika, Kunos, Upper and Lower Bolari, Dhry, Kypula, Vathia, Alika. These are the villages of Inner Mani in their order. Its principal produce is quails and Frank figs. There is not a spring of water in all Inner Mani; its only harvest is beans and lean wheat, this the women sow and reap. The women collect the sheaves at the thrashing floor, winnow it with their hands, and thrash it with their feet, and thus their hands and feet are covered with a dry cracked skin, as thick as the shell of a tortoise. Not a tree, or stick, or bough, is to be found to cover the unfortunates with its shade, or to refresh their sight. At night they turn the handmill, and weep, singing lamentations for the dead while they grind their wheat. In the morning they go forth with baskets into the hollows to collect dung to be dried for fuel; they collect it in the houses, and divide it among the orphans and widows. All the men meantime roam about in the pursuit of piracy and robbery, or endeavouring to betray each other. One defends his tower against another, or pursues his neighbour. One has a claim upon another for a [murdered] brother, another for a son, another for a father, another for a nephew. Neighbour hates neighbour, compare compare, and brother brother. Whenever it happens that a ship, for its sins, is wrecked upon their coast, whether French, Spanish, English, Turkish, or Muscovite, great or small, it matters not, each man immediately claims his share, and they even divide the planks among them. When a stranger happens to go into their country, they
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§ 1.337 declare him a compare, and invite him to eat with them. When he wishes to depart they detain him, undertake to conduct and accompany him, and then say,'Compare, reflect upon what we tell you, for it is for your good, take off your robe and your waistcoat, and your belt and your trowsers, lest some enemy should take them away from you; for if our enemies should strip you, it would bring great disgrace and shame upon us; and this too, my dear Comparuli, let us beg of you, leave your skull cap and shirt and take off your shoes too, they can be of no use to you. Now you are safe, you need not fear any one.' When a man dies [a natural death] they lament him as unslain, unbled, unjustified. These are the men who give a bad name to Mani, and render it hateful wherever they go. Let no one salute them, but fly from them as from a serpent. The Tzimovites only are worthy men, their manners and good customs shew it — in appearance merchants, but secretly pirates. May the blast and the drought take them all.”
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§ 1.338 [Greek text omitted]
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§ 1.339 These are a part only of the maledictions of the poet against Kakavulia. Nor has he entirely confined his injurious testimony to this district. That of Milea falls also under his lash, particularly its chief place, Kastania, which having mentioned, he desires to fly from immediately.” Arakhova he calls the renowned, and describes as hidden in a bewitched valley — and then adds: “From hence let us proceed, by the wolf-path, to the robbers of kids and goats, the walkers at night, and record the name of the town of the kid-eating rogues, the mulestealers, the goat-slayers, the thrice-apostate Milea,” from which Garbelea is one quarter of an hour distant.
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§ 1.340 CHAPTER IX MESSENIA: April 18. — This being the morning of Holy Thursday, by the Greek calendar, a young subdeacon, two hours before day, knocks at all the doors, calling out, “Christians, come to church.” Today, oil is permitted, but tomorrow, Good Friday, it is forbidden even to set a table for dinner. In the evening at 7.30 a service begins, which lasts till eleven; twelve masses are said, and as many portions of the Gospels read, descriptive of the different sufferings of Christ, previous to the Crucifixion, which they suppose to have taken place at midnight. Just as the service was beginning, there was a slight earthquake — certainly the most appropriate of all accompaniments. It is the first I have felt in Laconia, notwithstanding the observation of Strabo, εύσειστος η Λακωνική. I inquired at Mistra in consequence of this remark of the geographer, and was told that earthquakes were not frequent there. Corn, at Kalamata, is measured by the pinaki, which contains sixty okes of good wheat. A pinaki of kalambokki is now sold for thirteen piastres, the same price for which the Constantinople kilo of twenty-two okes of wheat is sold in the south of the Morea in general.
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§ 1.341 April 19 — Mahmud Aga makes his entrance into the town; he is a friend of the Pasha, and comes hither on a visit of observation, connected with some efforts about to be made by the Pasha for the suppression of the robbers: he was lately in the household of Bekir Effendi, of Tripolitza, brother of Nuri Bey, of Corinth. I saw an old woman this evening searching for a strayed mule among the olive-trees, and making the sign of the cross down to the ground, every two or three steps, by way of assisting her in the search, but which, of course, retarded her not a little.
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§ 1.342 April 20. — The ceremony of the Entombment occurs this morning, at two hours before day; the people come out of their houses in the dark, and scramble to light their candles at the priest's candle. There is then a procession, consisting chiefly of women, through the streets to the church. Kalamata is the only town in the Morea, inhabited by Turks, where the Greeks can perform this ceremony; which generally takes place within the walls of the church or monastery. In the retired villages of the mountains, of course, it may be done openly. Kalamata, including its kalyvia, contains 400 families, of which only six are Turkish. The government is in the hands of the chief Greeks, and the voivoda is readily removed upon any complaint of theirs. The mukata of the Kazasi is generally bestowed upon some favourite at Constantinople for twelve or eighteen months, who undersells it to some other Turk for four or six months. The resident voivoda is the agent of the latter person, and a mere collector of the revenue. The kadi is, in like manner, the deputy of a principal at Constantinople, who has purchased the kadilik. An Albanian Boluk-bashi and forty men are maintained by the town, to keep the country free from robbers; Eke every other part of the police, they are under the direction of the archons. The town is situated at about a mile from the sea, on the
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§ 1.343 left bank of a torrent, which emerges from a rocky gorge in Mount Taygetum, at the distance of a mile to the north-eastward of a hill rising from the back of the town. This height is crowned with a ruined castle of the middle ages, and is naturally strengthened by a perpendicular cliff towards the torrent, which in winter often fills a bed 100 yards wide, but is now divided into three channels. There is a small kalyvia, or suburb, on the right bank of the river, the mills and gardens of which are sup-plied by an artificial diversion from the river. The advantageous situation of the castle-hill on the bank of a river, at a small distance from the mountains and near the head of this great gulf, is such as could not have been overlooked by the ancient Greeks; upon this foundation alone, we might presume it to be the site of Phere, or Pherae, or Pharae, one of the maritime cities of the Messeniac gulf in the time of the Trojan war, and of such antiquity, as to have had the reputation of having been founded by a son of Hermes, whose descendants are noted in the earliest records of Greece. Not long after the war of Troy, it was the residence of Ortilochus, when Telemachus, in search of his father, rested here at night on his way to Sparta from Pylus,
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§ 1.344 and again on his return. It would seem from the poet, that Phere was about midway between Pylus and Sparta; and that Telemachus travelled about equal distances on the two days, which accords exactly with the position of Kalamata relatively to Navarin and Sparta. Strabo describes Pharae as situated at five stades from the sea, and Pausanias at six, which is less than the actual distance. This may either be explained by the town having been larger in those times than it is now, or by the earth deposited at the mouth of the wide and rapid torrent having, as we so often see exemplified in Greece, encroached upon the sea; in which manner the space may have been widened from five stades to six, between the time of Strabo and that of Pausanias, and may have been farther augmented to eight, between the age of the Antonines and the present time. Pausanias omits to notice the river, but Strabo informs us that it was called Nedon, and his description of the port of Pharae, as being an anchorage fit only for the summer, is exactly conformable to present practice. In the time of Pausanias there were at Pharae temples of Aesculapius, of Fortune, and of the deified natives Nicomachus and Gorgasus, who received
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§ 1.345 offerings for the cure of diseases, like their father Machaon, and their grandfather Aesculapius. Not far from the city there was a grove of Apollo Carneius, and a temple with a fountain in it. Strabo speaks of a temple of Minerva Nedusia, which, not being noticed by Pausanias, was perhaps no longer in existence. He also mentions Charadra, Nedon, Poeeessa, Echeiae, and Tragium, as places in this part of the country. Nedon we may suppose to have been towards the sources of the river Neda; and some of the other places named by the geographer may also have been in the mountains which separate the plain of Kalamata from that of Mistra. In the same direction there was a place called Thalamae, on the ordinary route from Sparta into Messenia, and different, therefore, from the Thalamae, which was in Exo Mani. It is not surprising to find more than one place of this name, the word having been synonymous with the temple of the Dioscuri; which deities, having been peculiar favourites with the Lacedaemonians, had, undoubtedly, temples in every part of the Laconic territory.
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§ 1.346 I could not succeed in finding any vestiges of Hellenic antiquity at Kalamata. There seems to have been but little left in the time of Pausanias, and the circumstance of the site having always been occupied and well inhabited, will account for that little having disappeared. Kalamata is not only the port of external commerce for the districts of Andrussa, Londari, and even Mistra, when the roads are safe, but it is also the chief place for the interchange of commodities between the interior of the Morea and the southern coast. A fair is held every Sunday, at which maize, wheat, barley, cheese, butter, skins, &c. are brought for sale from the districts of Karitena, Londari, Arkadhia, Andrussa, Tripolitza, and Mistra; or are exchanged for the manufactured commodities of other parts of Turkey or of Europe. Kalamata is a great market also for cattle and live stock of all kinds, as well as for the productions of the plains of Messenia and of the western parts of Mani, such as oil, figs, raw cotton, tanned leather, &c. The vilayeti contains twenty-one villages, one of which, Ianitza lies between Kalamata and the frontier of Mani; all the others are in the plain of the Pamisus, or on the side of the mountain which extends northward from Kalamata until it unites with the Makryplaghi. The
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§ 1.347 productions of the district are oil, silk, figs, wheat, maize, cotton, kidney-beans, wine, honey, and, in the mountains, some sheep. The manufactures of Kalamata are — 1. Handkerchiefs of silk, much esteemed in every part of the Levant. 2. A kind of silk gauze, chiefly used for musquito curtains at Constantinople, in Greece, and in the western part of Asia Minor. The gauze sells here at thirteen paras the yard: 1500 okes of raw silk are consumed yearly in the two articles, the value of which is increased sixty times by the manufacture. 3. Tanned leather for boots and slippers. The hides are tanned with vallonea, and coloured black, red, and yellow: five months soaking in the vallonea is a sufficient tanning, after some preparatory operations. Leaves of skhinos are mixed with the vallonea in about equal quantities. The colouring is a secret. The principal exports from the Kazasi are, 1. Raw silk; of which the average is 7000 okes, valued at 180,000 piastres. There are three qualities selling at present, twenty-five, twentyeight, and thirty piastres the oke. It is chiefly carried to Turin, Smyrna, Khio, Constantinople, Skodra, and Joannina; at the two latter places it is made into lace for Albanian dresses. 2, Figs; which are grown chiefly in the districts of
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§ 1.348 Andrussa and Nisi: of these nearly two millions of tzapeles are annually exported. The tzapela is a little wicker pocket, containing two litres. Half the produce is sent to Trieste, the remainder to Greece and Albania, with the exception of a ship load to Malta; the figs are inferior only to those of Smyrna. 3. Oil: this is produced only in the immediate vicinity of Kalamata. In a good year the quantity exported is 6000 barrels, and the prime cost from thirty to thirty-eight piastres the barrel; this year it is forty to forty-eight. It is chiefly consumed in Greece: at Joannina the price of a barrel of oil, to a consumer, is about eighty-four piastres. Before the French revolution, Kalamata was chiefly frequented by ships of that nation, which carried the grain, morocco leather, silk, and cotton of Messenia to Marseilles. At present the port is visited by Sclavonians, Albanians, and islanders of Greece. The road of Kalamata is fit only for the summer months. After September, ships retire for safety to Armyro, but Kitries is the best harbour in the gulf, as Cape Kurtissa is a protection from the southerly gales, and leaves no danger but from the north and north-west. A large fleet might anchor at Kitries, and Messenia would supply an army better than any part of the peninsula.
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§ 1.349 Almost every house in Kalamata is provided with a chamber for rearing silk-worms. The eggs are sold from two to five piastres the measure of eight drams, the price varying according to the crop of the preceding year: this year the price was five piastres. The eggs are wrapped in a cloth, and the worms hatched at the end of April or beginning of May; young mulberry leaves are then placed upon them; the mamudhia or worms, mount upon the leaves, and are placed in round shallow baskets. In this state the mamudhie is called miga; small leaves are given to it once a day, or once in two days: the leaves increasing in size as the worm increases. At the end of fifteen days it sleeps two days, sheds its skin and then becomes a protokuli; in which state it eats twelve days, having fresh leaves in the morning of each day. After sleeping again two days, and changing its skin, the worm is called dhefteraki. It has now fresh leaves twice a-day, and is removed out of the basket into the kalamoti: this is nothing more than a frame of reeds tied together, and is usually ten, twelve, or fourteen feet long, and five or six broad. The kalamotes are placed one above the other at intervals of
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§ 1.350 eight or ten inches, forming as many stories as the height of the room will permit. In Asia Minor the worms are commonly kept in huts built for the purpose in the mulberry grounds; here they are in the private houses. The dhefteraki eats for ten days, sleeps two, sheds his skin again, and then becomes a tritaki: he has now fresh leaves morning, noon, and evening, and, after eating for eight days, sleeps three, and once more sheds his skin. In the last and largest state the worms are called megales, or great; they have leaves three times a-day, cease eating at the end of eight days, and then begin to climb upwards. The kladhia, or branches upon which they are to spin, are then placed upon the kalamotes, and the worms form the kukulia; sometimes two, three, or four spin together, and make a large kukuli: at the end of fifteen days the kukulia are placed in the sun, which is now at the solstice, and the chrysalis is killed by the heat; soon afterwards the nefteres, or moths, eat their way out of those kukulia that have been reserved to furnish eggs. The growth of the animal, the quantity he eats, and consequently the frequency of the change of leaves, depend on the weather; he advances more rapidly if it is hot, and less so if it is cold and rainy. The worms are so delicate that thunder, or even the report of a pistol, will sometimes kill them. The baskets and kalamotes are cleaned by merely throwing in fresh leaves, which, as soon as the worms have mounted upon them, are removed to a fresh basket, or kalamoti. This operation is repeated after every change of skin. The moths live three days. The kladhia are usually made of lentisk.
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§ 1.351 April 21, Easter Sunday, by the Greeks called Lambri. It is a general custom, when two acquaintances meet for the first time today for one to say, “Christ hath risen!,” to which the other replies, “truly He hath risen!” The morning is occupied in visiting and drinking coffee. At about 11 dinner takes place, after which it is not unusual to sing the words of salutation just mentioned, or something equally applicable to the day.
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§ 1.352 April 22. — At 2 P.M. I leave Kalamata for Andrussa. Nearly half an hour is lost in unloading and reloading, in the course of the way through the olive grounds, which lie along the heights, and broken ground at the foot of the mountain. At 3.05, on the descent into the plain, the village of Asprokhoma is on the left, and farther, in the same direction, Kalami. The plain and the lower parts of the mountain are covered with plantations of the vine, fig, and mulberry, and present as rich a cultivation as can well be imagined. This is a part of the region which, from its great fertility, was anciently called Macaria, and which the dramatic poet describes as abounding in fruits and flocks, refreshed with innumerable streams, and neither incommoded with heat in summer, nor with cold in winter. Although in some parts towards the sea a want of drainage may render the air less healthy now than it was anciently, and though a native of the north of Europe would probably differ in opinion from an Athenian as to the summer heat, it cannot be doubted that, generally speaking, the climate is salubrious as well as delightful; and it is certain that the Messenian valley is one of the most favoured districts, if not the most fertile, in the Peloponnesus. But to the ancient inhabitants this fertility was a fatal gift of nature, for by exciting the cupidity of the natives of the poorer soil of
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§ 1.353 Laconia, it tempted them to make gradual encroachments on the Messenian plain, until, by the effect of their larger territory and greater numbers, they were at length enabled to subject the Messenians, after a gallant resistance of eighty years, to a most cruel servitude, which lasted for three centuries. The district of Nisi, which occupies the lowest part of the plain, is not less rich and well cultivated than that of Kalamata; but the opposite side and adjacent hills belonging to Andrussa, are in a very different state; there the proprietors of the land are Turks, almost the whole district is in tjiftliks, and the Greek labourers are subject to vexations of every kind. The country exhibits, therefore, the usual aspect of Turkish desolation. Below Asprokhoma, the plain extends to the sea-shore and along the coast, nearly as far as Kalamata. Entering the lower level, at 3.25, we proceed along the foot of the hill, leaving to the left, the direct road to Andrussa, which leads through Kutzukumani, the largest village in the Kazasi of Kalamata. Sending forward my baggage by that route, I ride with my janissary, formerly a robber, and therefore well acquainted with the country, to
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§ 1.354 see some Hellenic ruins which have been described to me as existing at a village called Paleokastro. The road leads through a well cultivated tract; we pass the villages of Ais Aga and Kurt Tjaus on the left, at 8.38. These and thirty-four others, four of which are in the district of Kalamata, the rest in Andrussa, Londari, Nisi, and Koroni, but all in the great Messenian plain, are an appanage of the Sultan's sister, and are called the Imlak villages. At 3.55 we pass between Kamari and Fridjala, which are separated only by the bed of a torrent; at 4 traverse Delimemi, and, ascending the mountain, arrive at the ruins at 4.35. Here are several remains of walls of the 4th order, extending for half a mile along the summit of a hill, divided from the range of Makryplai by a deep ravine and torrent, and which commands, in the opposite direction, a fine view of the plain and gulf. On the latter slope stand the villages of Farmisi and Veis Aga, overlooking the plain; at the northern extremity of the ancient site is the hamlet called Paleokastro. Nearly in the centre of the ruins I find a quadrangular cistern, ten or twelve feet deep, cut out of the rock at one end, and on the other sides constructed with the same
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§ 1.355 regular kind of masonry as the other ruins. The cistern was divided into three parts by two cross walls, of which there are considerable remains. Its whole length is twenty-nine paces; the breadth half as much. To the north of this ruin, on the highest part of the ridge, which is here very narrow, I find the portico of a temple, of which the lower part of the columns and the door are in their original places. The columns are Doric, two feet two inches in diameter. They are formed, as well as the rest of the ruins, of a hard brown calcareous stone, in which are cockle and muscle shells extremely perfect. At right angles to the portico there are several pieces of columns in their places, with the remains of door-ways and pilasters. There are many other foundations and fragments of columns on the summit of the hill, but I could not trace their original plan or distribution; though, undoubtedly, a little excavation and removal of the fragments would enable an architect to make some interesting discoveries. Of the other remains, the most remarkable are some walls on the slope towards the plain, which appear to have supported terraces of public edifices. There is also a very fine piece of wall on the side of the hill, below the portico, and another close to the village. I searched in vain for a theatre. The
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§ 1.356 ruins cover an extent of a third of a mile along the summit of the ridge, and half as much on the slope towards the plain. I inquired of the elder of the village for inscriptions and coins, but without success. This man enjoys the reputation at Kalamata and in the surrounding country, of being able to cure the bite of a mad dog, by means of a powder and a certain diet known only to himself. He presents me with a very acceptable glass of good wine and water, but eludes all inquiries as to his secret. At 5.45, descending from Paleokastro, through Veis Aga, the middle of the three villages which stand on the side of the hill; we arrive at 6, at Palea Lutra, the ruin of a large Roman building, of the annexed plan, standing in the middle of the fig and mulberry grounds. [sketch] It is in an uncommon state of preservation, part even of the roof still remaining. The
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§ 1.357 walls are seventeen feet high, formed of equal courses of Roman tiles and mortar; the roof is of rubble mixed with cement. The plan does not seem to be that of a bath only, as the name would imply, though there are many appearances of the building having contained baths: it seems rather to have been the palace of some Roman governor. As there are no sources of water here, it is to be supposed that the building was supplied by an aqueduct from the neighbouring river of Pidhima. Leaving the Palea Lutra at 6.18, I cross the Pidhima at 6.30; the river issues from some copious sources, at a small village also called Pidhima, half an hour on the right of our road at the foot of the mountain. It flows slowly, is remarkably bright, and so deep as to come up to the horse's shoulder. There are some other fountains at Aio Floro, two or three miles nearer Skala, not less copious than those of Pidhima, and which are augmented by other springs in a marshy tract, occupying a large part of the plain below them; from thence the river, after having been joined in the middle of the plain by the Mavrozumeno, which is composed of several branches from Mount Lycaeum, and the hills eastward of the town of Arkadhia, flows
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§ 1.358 by Nisi to the head of the Messeniac gulf. The Pidhima pursues an independent course, without receiving any tributary; it joins the Mavrozumeno below Nisi, where the united river assumes the name of Dhipotamo, and is navigable by small boats. We now cross the rich Messenian plain, which for the most part is well cultivated; and at 6.45 arrive at Aslan Aga, a large Greek village, where I find all the men and women, in their best clothes collected in an open spot, and dancing the circular dance: the village is surrounded with mulberry grounds. In the direction of Kutzukumani I hear frequent discharges of fire arms, another favourite mode among the Greeks of celebrating Easter, when they dare indulge in it. At Farmisi, Veis-Aga, and the other villages I passed through, I found the people collected on some pleasant brow, singing and feasting, in complete oblivion for the moment of all their cares. But, in fact, Kalamata and Nisi are favoured districts, on account of the greater part of them being crown lands. Aslan Aga stands on a low height which branches from the mountain near Skala, and forms a separation in the plain, leaving little more between its western extremity and the foot of Mount Ithome than a passage for the Mavrozumeno.
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§ 1.359 Beyond Aslan-Aga I leave, on my right and left, one or two small villages, of which the names are Turkish, though they are inhabited entirely by Greeks; at 7 cross the river Mavrozumeno. This name, I am informed, is properly that of a bridge over the river under Mount Ithome, in the road from Arkadhia to Kalamata, where several branches unite, of which the principal is called Vasiliko. Not far above the point at which I ford the river, it is joined by the stream formed from the sources of Aio Floro, and the springs in the. marshes below that place. The Mavrozumeno is twice as wide as the Pidhima, but not half so deep. Beyond the river, the plain becomes a marshy pasture land without cultivation, and it is easy to perceive that we are in the district of Andrussa. In a quarter of an hour begin to ascend the hills connected with Mount Evan, and passing through the village of Anaziri, standing on the summit of the range of heights which immediately border the plain, cross a small valley, and then ascend a second range, upon which stands the town of Andrussa; I arrive at 7.55, and am lodged in the hut of the secretary of the voivoda.
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§ 1.360 There can be no doubt that the ruins at Paleokastro are those of Thuria, of which place, Pausanias tells us, that it was eighty stades from Pharae towards the interior of Messenia; that according to the Thuriatae, it was the same place named Antheia in the poems of Homer; and that Augustus gave it to the Lacedaemonians of Sparta, because it had supported Antonius out of a spirit of opposition to the Lacedaemonians, who took the part of Augustus. “The Thuriatae”, adds Pausanias, “have descended from the lofty position of the ancient city to inhabit the plain, but without having altogether abandoned the upper city, where the ruins of the town walls subsist, and a temple sacred to the goddess called the Syrian. The river Aris flows by the city in the plain.” He then immediately adds, “There is an inland town named Calamae, and a place called Limnae, where stands the temple of Diana Limnatis, at which Teleclus, King of Sparta, was slain. Proceeding from Thuria towards Arcadia occur the fountains of the Pamisus, to the left of which, at the distance of forty stades, is the city of the Messenians, under Mount Ithome.” Hence it appears that the lofty situation of the remains at Paleokastro is no less in agreement with the site of the ancient Thuria, than the position of the
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§ 1.361 ruin in the plain with the situation of the town in the time of Pausanias, the Roman construction of that ruin shewing, moreover, that it was a building of the same age; and hence, also, the river of Pidhima, the left bank of which is not far from the Lutra, seems clearly to be the Aris. Strabo confirms the site of Pharae as well as of Thuria by his observations, that Pharae confined on Thuria and Gerenia, and that Pharae and Thuria were in the country lying to the left of the course of the Pamisus. The eighty stades, indeed, which Pausanias places between Pharae and Thuria, is rather more than my time distance from Kalamata to Paleokastro, according to the usual rate; yet, as something may be allowed for good roads and the absence of baggage, the agreement is sufficient, when taken together with the coincidence of the fountains of the Pamisus on the road from Palea Lutra towards Arcadia, to leave no doubt whatever as to the position both of Pharae and Thuria; and this decision is important, inasmuch as the similarity of the names Pharae and Pharis, the silence of Homer as to the former, in his Catalogue, and the subjection of the same place to Laconia, during a great part of its history, furnish, at first sight, no less than the resemblance of the modern name Kalamata to the ancient Calamae, very reasonable grounds for a different opinion. The situation
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§ 1.362 of Pharis, however, is perfectly ascertained, from Strabo and Pausanias, to have been in the basin of the Eurotas, and it was well distinguished from Pharae by the gentile Φαρείται, found both in Pausanias and in Stephanus; whereas the inhabitants of Pharae were called Φαραιοι. As to the similarity of the words Kalamata and Καλαμαι there is, as I have already remarked, a modern village, Kalami in the plain to the north-west of Kalamata, the name of which more nearly resembles the ancient Καλάμαί than Kalamata does, and at the same time more correctly answers in situation to the “inland” position, which Pausanias assigns to Calamae, Calamae is mentioned also by Polybius. In the last year of the Social War, Pyrrhias the Aetolian, and Lycurgus the tyrant of Sparta, undertook a combined invasion of Messenia, from the opposite quarters of Elis and Laconia: Lycurgus had taken Calamae, and was hastening forward to meet Pyrrhias, when he learned that the Aetolians, upon entering Messenia, had been defeated by the Cyparissii, and obliged to retreat into the Eleia; finding himself unequal to the enterprise, without assistance, he made an attempt upon Endeia, ( Andania?) but did not persevere, and returned to Sparta.
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§ 1.363 Limnae, which we may presume, as well from the name itself as from the words of Pausanias, to have been in the central and lowest part of the plain, was a place of some celebrity; and Grecian history has preserved traces of its sanctity and fame during a period of eight centuries. Situated on the frontier of Laconia and Messenia, it was a place of worship common to the two people. A quarrel which occurred there, and which caused the death of Teleclus, King of Sparta, furnished, some time afterwards, to the stronger party, a convenient pretext for entering into the first Messenian war, the real cause of which, as Pausanias hints, was the tempting richness of the Messenian land. The reestablishment of Messenian independence 300 years after its conquest, was followed by disputes between the two states concerning their boundaries, in which the right to Limnae was a constant subject of contention. On six different occasions it was adjudged by arbitration to the Messenii. On two others, Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius gave it to the Laconians, from political motives of the same kind as those which afterwards induced Augustus to make Pharae and Thuria subject to the government of Sparta. When the same cause was heard by Tiberius on the latest of the occasions mentioned by the Latin
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§ 1.364 historian, ancient poems and records were brought forward on either side; the Lacedaemonians attempting to prove by these documents that Limnae was, strictly speaking, within the Laconic boundary — the Messenians, that Limnae was in the Dentheliatis, which was a part of one of the five divisions of Messenia, according to the original distribution of the country by the Heracleidae. It may be inferred, I think, from the Lacedaemonian argument, that Limnae was to the left of the Pamisus; for though it may easily be conceived that on an equitable partition of the two provinces among the Dorian conquerors, all the country westward of the range of Taygetum was apportioned to Cresphontes, it seems evident, from the events which brought on the first Messenian war,
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§ 1.365 that the Lacedaemonians had made some encroachments in the interval between the Doric partition and the first Messenian war, and that before the latter event, the Pamisus was all but acknowledged to be the common boundary. On the other hand, it is not credible that as long as the ancient Messenia had any independence, the Lacedaemonians possessed any part of the country beyond that river. Limnae, therefore, taking its name from the marshes towards the mouth of the Aris and Pamisus, seems to have been situated on the left bank of the latter river, not far from the site of the modern town of Nisi, which derives that appellation from the similar circumstances of its position. Strabo, not adverting to the different boundary of his own time, finds fault with Eurypides for saying that the Pamisus separated the two provinces, “whereas”, says Strabo, “it flows through the middle of Messenia without touching Laconia.” Andhrussa, Andrussa, or Andrutza, is a poor town, inhabited by 250 or 300 Turkish families, and three or four Greek. Its neglected gardens, ruined aqueduct, and falling minarets, shew that it was once a place of greater importance. It is advantageously situated, overlooking the rich Messenian plain, on the edge of a beautiful undulated country extending westward to the mountains called Lykodhemo and Kondovuni. The Kazasi extends in that direction to within a few miles of Navarin, and to the northward comprises the site of Messene and the greater part of the upper Messenian plain, as far as the foot of the Arcadian mountains: its principal dependent village in that direction being Konstantinus. The district contains seventy-three villages.
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§ 1.366 April 23. — To the ruins of Messene: departing at 6.48, I proceed along the heights on which Andrussa is situated, and exactly in the direction of Mount Evan: — at 7.35 pass to the right of a large church in a hollow, which is a Metokhi of the monastery of Vurkano. At 8.25, under Mount Evan, I arrive at some Hellenic remains, which appear to have been those of a temple situated on the outside of the gate of Messene, leading to Pharae and Corone, for the road immediately afterwards passes through an opening in a ridge of rock, which to the right is continued upward toward the summit of Mount Evan, thus affording a
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§ 1.367 natural and advantageous foundation for this part of the ancient inclosure, which is traceable, at no great distance to the left, on a continuation of the same line. The opening itself has every appearance of being artificial: just within it, is the little hamlet of Σημηζά, vulgarly pronounced Shimiza. From hence to the village of Mavromati, where I arrive at 8.55, the road is at every step bordered or crossed by ancient foundations, mixed with pieces of columns and the remains of buildings. All these foundations are of the most regular kind of masonry, and are formed of large stones fitted together with great accuracy. Mavromati contains about twenty houses, or rather huts, situated on either side of a fine spring, from which the village derives its name, meaning Black Spring, or literally Black Eye. A copious stream, issuing from it, descends through the centre of the ancient site in a south-westerly direction. The village stands exactly at the foot of the steep hill of Ithome, and nearly in the centre of the inclosure of the city of Messene. The fountain is undoubtedly the ancient Clepsydra, or Water of Secrecy, and a keen etymologist might, perhaps, be disposed to consider the modern name a proof of it, from the analogy between darkness and secrecy.
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§ 1.368 Being confined all the morning by the rain to the tower of the Spahi who commands the village, I pass the time in reading the description of Messene by Pausanias which, divested of the less interesting matter, may be comprised in the following extract. “In the way from Thuria towards Arcadia, a turning to the left at the sources of the Pamisus conducts, at the end of forty stades, to the city of the Messenii under Mount Ithome; it comprehends not only Ithome, but the parts also under Mount Evan towards the Pamisus. Of the latter mountain the name is said to be derived from the Bacchic exclamation Evoh here first uttered by Bacchus himself and the women who accompany him. The wall which surrounds Messene is built entirely of stone, as well as the towers and bulwarks which fortify it. I have never seen the walls of the Babylonians, nor the Memnonian walls of the Persian Susa, nor have I heard them described by eye-witnesses, but the places which appear to me to be fortified better than others, namely, Ambrysus of Phocis, Byzantium, and Rhodus, are not to be compared in this respect to Messene. In the agora of the Messenii there is a statue of Jupiter Soter and the fountain Arsinoe, which is supplied under ground from the sourced called Clepsydra. There are
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§ 1.369 likewise temples of Neptune and Venus, and a statue of the Mother of the Gods, of Parian marble, the work of Damophon, the same artist who, when the ivory of the statue of Jupiter at Olympia was disjoined, restored it in the most exact manner, for which he received honours from the Eleians. The same Damophon made also the statue of Laphria, whose worship the Messenii adopted from the Calydonii, when they received Naupactus, near Calydon, from the Athenians. The Messenii have also a temple and marble statue of Lucina [Ειληθυια], a sacred building of the Curetes, and a holy temple of Ceres, in which are statues of the Dioscuri bearing away the daughters of Leucippus. But the greatest number of statues, and those most worthy of notice, are in the temple of Aesculapius, for, besides those of the god and his children, there are marble statues of Apollo, the Muses, Hercules, the city Thebes, Fortune, and Diana Φωσφορος; all these are the works of Damophon, the only Messenian sculptor worthy of mention, in my knowledge. In the same place there is a statue of Epaminondas, made of iron, by another artist. The temple of Messene, daughter of Triopas, contains her statue in gold and Parian marble, and in the back part
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§ 1.370 of the temple, pictures of Aphareus and his children, of Cresphontes, of Nestor and his sons Thrasymedes and Antilochus, of Leucippus, the brother of Aphareus, of Hilaeira, Phoebe, and Arsinoe, the daughters of Leucippus, of Aesculapius, who is said by the Messenii to have been the son of Arsinoe, of Machaon and Podaleirius. All these pictures were painted by Omphalion, pupil of Nicias, son of Nicomedes. In the building called Hierothysium are images of all those who are held to be gods by the Greeks, together with a brazen statue of Epaminondas, and some ancient tripods. In the Gymnasium are statues of Hermes, Hercules, and Theseus, the deities whom all the Greeks and many of the barbarians consider to preside over gymnasia and palaestrae. The figures are the works of Egyptian artists. In the same place I observed a pillar bearing a figure of Aethidas in relief. He was a man of my time, but older than me, and who, becoming powerful by his wealth, received heroic honours from the Messenii. Some of them, however, assert that this is not his figure, but that of an ancestor of the same name, who was leader of the Messenii when Demetrius, son of Philip, entered the city in the night. The gymnasium contains also the monument of
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§ 1.371 Aristomenes, whose bones, they say, were brought hither from Rhodus. In the Stadium there is a brazen statue of Aristomenes. Near the theatre stands the temple of Sarapis and Isis. The source of water called Clepsydra occurs in ascending to the summit of Ithome, which is the acropolis of the Messenii. They relate that the spring received the name Clepsydra, because the nymphs Neda and Ithome, having stolen the infant Jupiter from the Curetes, here secretly washed him. The statue of Jupiter (Ithomatas) was made by Ageladas, for the Messenii residing at Naupactus. A priest, who is elected annually, keeps the statue in his house, and there is an annual festival in honour of Jupiter Ithomatas, called Ithomaea. In proceeding to Megalopolis of Arcadia, there is in the gates a Hermes in the Attic style; for the Athenians first made Hermae of a square form, and of them other people learnt to do the same.” At 2, I set out on a tour of the ruins, and in eighteen minutes arrive at the northern gate of the city, the same described by Pausanias in the preceding passage as that conducting to Megalopolis: there still remain about thirty yards of the ancient paved street, terminating at the gate which is situated just at the foot of Mount Ithome; beyond it, is a part of the woody and hilly region which surrounds Ithome
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§ 1.372 on the north, west, and south. The modern road from Andrussa to Fanari passes through the gate and descends to the bridge of Mavrozumeno, near which a branch to the right crosses the Upper Messenian plain to the Derveni of Makriplai and Londari, and another on the left leads to the Derveni of Kokhla, and thence to Arkadhia or to Pyrgo. The first of these routes was the ancient road to Phigaleia, the second to Megalopolis, the third to Cyparissia or to Elis. The annexed plan will shew the form of the gate, which is one of the finest specimens of Greek military architecture in existence.
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§ 1.373 It is a double gate with an intermediate circular court of sixty-two feet in diameter, in the wall of which, near the outer gate there is a niche on each side for a statue, with an inscription over it. One only of these inscriptions is legible. It is in handsome characters in one line, indicating that the niche and its contents, perhaps the Hermes mentioned by Pausanias, had been provided by Quintus Plotius Euphemion. The form of the verb επεισκευασεν is curious. The interior masonry of the circular court is the most exact and beautiful I ever saw. The lower course is a row of stones, each about five feet and a half in length, and half as much high; upon this is placed another course of stones of equal length and of half the height, the joints of which are precisely over the centre of each stone in the lower course. The other courses are not quite so regular, but the accuracy of the joining and finishing of the stones is the same. The upper part of the walls has fallen: nine courses are the most that remain. The soffit stone of the inner door has fallen so as to rest against the side of the door way, with one end on the ground; it measures eighteen feet eight inches in length; in the other two dimensions, two feet ten inches and four feet two inches. The shrubs which grow on the summit of this ruin, and the trees and underwood which form a grove around it, give a most picturesque effect.
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§ 1.374 But the Megalopolitan gate is only one of the fine specimens of Hellenic architecture among the ruins of Messene. In particular the two towers, next adjacent to the gate on the slope of Mount Ithome, present, rising above the woods, as beautiful a picture to the eye, as upon a minuter examination they are interesting with a view to the history of the art of war among the Greeks, and to their military architecture at a period when it was at the highest point; for it is not one of the least interesting circumstances of these ruins, that we know them to have been built under the orders of Epaminondas. The two towers just mentioned, which, with the interjacent curtain, and the curtain between the lower tower and the gate of Megalopolis, are in a better state of preservation than the remaining walls, shew this part of the fortifications to have resembled a chain of strong redoubts, each tower constituting a fortress of itself. A flight of steps behind the curtain led to a door in the flank of the tower at half its height. The upper apartment, which was entered by the door, had a range of loop-holes, or embrasures, on a line with the door, looking along the parapet of the curtain, and was lighted by two windows above. The embrasures, of which there are some in each face of the towers, have an opening of seven inches within, and of
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§ 1.375 three feet nine inches without, so that, with a small opening, their scope is very great. The windows appear to be too high for any purpose but to give light. Both the curtains and towers in this part of the walls are constructed entirely of large squared blocks, without rubble or cement. The curtains are nine feet thick. The inner face of the towers has neither door nor window. The tower next to the gate of Megalopolis has had all the stones disjointed, like those of the Propylaea at Athens, probably by an earthquake. The walls which stood on the steepest part of the ascent of the hill of Ithome, above the two towers, and between them and the N.W. angle of the citadel, are quite ruined; but above, at the two angles on the summit, are the remains of two other towers, each of which formed twothirds of a circle, and this I afterwards found to be the shape of the towers at all the salient angles of the inclosure of the city. On the side of one of the circular towers, on the summit of the ridge, there is a small gate of this form. [sketch] Having descended again to the gate of Megalopolis, I continue from thence to follow a
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§ 1.376 ridge which formed the natural boundary of the site on the western side, as the rocky ridge above Simiza, which branches from Mount Evan, does on the opposite side of the city. At the point where the former ridge terminates in the valley, a rill which rises within the city, not far from the Megalopolitan gate, passes through the wall, and a little below the ancient inclosure joins the brook from Mavromati, which, enlarged by another from Mount Evan, also passed through the walls. Hereabouts the ancient inclosure, though traceable in many places through the woods and shrubs as far as the summit of a cliff below the Stadium, and from thence round to Simiza, is not in such good preservation as in the other parts of the site. The towers may be described as in general about twenty-five feet square, projecting about fourteen feet from a curtain varying in length according to the nature of the ground, and eight or ten feet in thickness. The masonry was not in general such as I have described it at the great towers near the gate of Megalopolis, but, as in the generality of Greek works of defence, consisted of an exterior and interior facing of that kind of masonry filled between with rubble. These facings are, in general, formed of equal and parallel courses, but not always of rectangular stones. In short, it is precisely of the same kind
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§ 1.377 as that seen in the synchronous construction of Mantineia. The remark is important, as it indicates that the second order, or the polygonal masonry, was not practised in the fourth century BC, though some slight traces of it were left$ for had it been thought useful by the able architects of these walls, it would probably have been found in some part of the ruins. It is but natural that, as the art of building advanced, a method should become obsolete, which offered no advantage proportioned to the greater skill and labour required in the formation of the polyhedral masses, and in their exact adaptation to one another. The remains of the Long Walls of Athens argue, that a century before the building of Messene tetragonal masonry was preferred for works of defence. On referring to Italy, we find reason to think that the polygonal species was not much in use after the seventh century before the Christian aera, for the cities of that country, which furnish the finest examples of that masonry, flourished at a period anterior to the extension of the power of Rome. Undoubtedly there may have been particular instances both in Greece and Italy, in which the polygonal masonry was employed at a much later period, especially in periboli and terrace-walls; but I am inclined to think that, in general, whenever it occurs of that unmixed kind,
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§ 1.378 exhibiting no appearance of courses, the work may be attributed to the seventh or eighth centuries before the Christian aera, or to a still earlier period. Between the cliff which I have mentioned and the Stadium, which is not far from it, my guides, of whom I have no less than five from the village, all uninvited, conduct me to an inscribed marble. The inscription is a mere fragment, but it is curious as being in the Doric dialect; for Pausanias remarks, that “the Messenians not only preserved their Doric customs and dialect during the 300 years of their absence from Peloponnesus, but still retained them in his time more accurately than any other people of the Peloponnesus.” The inscription related to that fertile subject of discussion between the states of Greece, the settlement of boundaries. The contracting parties were the Messenians (Μεσσανιοι) and the Phigalenses, here called Φιαλεις, a form of the name of that people which we meet with in Polybius, but which was changed to the original Φίγαλεις before the time of Pausanias. There are the remains of three different decrees, in which nearly the
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§ 1.379 same expressions occur, namely τους ορους, ορων των, “the boundaries”; απο του κολώνου του “from the hill of”; επ ευθειας εισ ταν κράναν, “in a direct line to the fountain.” In the first decree there is mention also of υδωρ κοινον, the common water. A little nearer to the Stadium I find a marble, bearing a sculpture in relief. It represents the hunting of a lion: the middle figure is the lion treading with one paw on a dog, and looking behind him at a horseman at full gallop, who holds the reins in the left hand, while the right is employed in supporting his chlamys which flies loose behind him; his leg is almost horizontal, the knee over the horse's shoulder. Before the lion is a man on foot with a double hatchet in his right hand, which is turned round over the same shoulder in such a manner as to be behind the head which hides the arm. The position is accurately expressive of the intention of striking the lion while it turns its head towards the horseman. The chlamys of the man on foot is entirely separate from his body, and is held in the left hand, flying in the wind: at his feet is a dog about to seize the lion. The horseman has a loose tunic reaching to his knees and girt round the waist. The heads of both men and animals have been purposely destroyed. The marble is a circular segment, of which the arc
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§ 1.380 is three feet eight inches, and the chord three feet six inches and a half. It seems to have been part of a small circular monument, and the sculptures probably belonged to the frize. Another piece of the same monument lies half buried near the former; on the end which is above ground is the figure of a man stepping forward as if stabbing his antagonist with a sword. A little way beyond this is the Stadium, on one side of which I find the fragment of an inscribed stone, with names which have evidently been engraved at different periods, and are probably those of victors in the Stadium. This stone, I am informed by my guides, was entire two years ago, when an English traveller having offered to pay for its conveyance to Nisi, some Klefles, who came here shortly afterwards, broke the stone in pieces, in the persuasion that it contained something valuable. It was a plain quadrangular stele of white Laconian marble, inscribed on all the four sides, and is now so ruined, that I did not attempt to copy the inscription, especially as I could find no appearance of anything but names. Of the Stadium there are remains of the upper or circular end, and more than half of one of the sides. At the lower end are the ruins of a small Doric temple: columns, plain metopes, architraves, and pieces of the cell, are lying together in a heap. The
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§ 1.381 diameter of the upper end of the columns is one foot, nine inches; the flutings, twenty; the breadth of the metope, one foot, one inch and a half; the breadth of the triglyph, one foot. The temple stood on an artificial terrace, of which the supporting wall remains; from behind this wall issues a spring of fine water. The Stadium was surrounded by a colonnade, which was double at the upper end: here the lower parts of the columns are in their original places; there were about twenty in each row, one foot, ten inches in diameter, with Doric flutings. Part of the colonnade, on the right side of the Stadium, is likewise in its place, and on the left side is the foundation of a public edifice, where are many pieces of columns of the same description as the colonnade round the Stadium. Perhaps this was the Hierothysium. The stone seats of the Stadium did not extend its whole length, but about two-thirds only; at the circular end, they are most perfect. The rivulet of Mavromati runs obliquely through the length of the Stadium. About midway between the Stadium and Mavromati, are the remains of a small theatre, about sixty feet in diameter, below which are foundations, which are possibly those of the Gymnasium. There are also the remains of two temples between the theatre and Mavromati; in this space,
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§ 1.382 the ground rising rapidly, the slope is divided into terraces, of which the supporting walls still remain; one of these was wrought in a manner, of which I have not met with any other example, the exterior of each course being finished in a curve thus: [sketch] At the southern extremity of the city, near the place where the rivulet of Mavromati passes through the walls, there are some remains of another temple. Nothing can be more agreeable and retired, more singular and striking, than the whole scene of these interesting remains. By the high mountains Ithome and Evan which rise from the northern and eastern sides of the site, the city was entirely concealed from the Messenian plain, with the exception only of the summit of Ithome. It was equally hidden from all distant view in the opposite directions, by the parallel ridge called Kondovuni; it was open only laterally to the north-west and south-east. In the latter direction the site commands a view of a part of the gulf; and it is well ventilated by the wind, which draws through the opening, whether it happens to be a maestrale, or an imbat from the gulf. The space inclosed within the city walls consists of corn-fields and pasture, amidst woods of
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§ 1.383 wild olive, caroub, and oak, mixed with a great variety of shrubs. There is a fine turf, and the cattle which are fed here supply, in the present season, excellent fresh butter and new cheese. This evening we have a strong gale from the eastward. The peculiar situation of the place, creating a salubrious ventilation in the summer, exposes it to the extreme fury of the winter storms. The spahi's pyrgo, not being quite so firmly constructed as the towers, compared by Pausanias to the bulwarks of Babylon and Rhodes, trembles to its foundations before the blast, which rushes through the opening of Andrussa, or which descends at intervals with redoubled force between Ithome and Evan. In the village of Mavromati I find an inscription in which occurs the name of Aethidas, who must I think be the same person Pausanias speaks of, for the monument was a dedication to Lucius Verus, and was consequently erected not long before the time when Pausanias travelled; it accords, therefore, with his remark, that Aethidas was a man nearly of his own agea. As the inscription refers moreover to an expense incurred by Aethidas, it accords in this particular also with the observation of Pausanias, as to the wealth for which Aethidas was distinguished. The inscribed stone is a plain quadrangular pedestal of white marble, which probably supported a statue of Lucius Verus. The inscription is in the following terms, “The Hellenes grateful to the gods, and praying for blessings on the Imperial House, (have erected) Lucius Aelius Verus Caesar, Tiberius Claudius Aethidas Caelianus, High-priest and Helladarch of the community of the Achaeans for life, having recommended it, and defrayed the expense.” There is no appearance of the Doric dialect in this inscription, which may be accounted for by its being a dedication of the Greeks in general, and not of the Messenians, though erected in their city, at the expense of its citizen Aethidas.
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§ 1.384 April 24. — Mount Ithome is connected with Mount Evan by a sharp ridge about half a mile in length, which unites them at about the middle of their height. The slope of this ridge towards the plain is blended with that of the two mountains: but on the opposite side, or towards the city, there is a vale or hollow between them. The southern walls of Messene extended from the termination of the ridge of Evan which is above Simiza, along the hollow to the connecting ridge just described. Upon the crest of the latter there are some remains of a small inclosed work which defended the pass, and was well placed for a look-out upon an enemy approaching from the plain, or along the flanks of either mountain. Below this point, on the northeastern slope of Evan, stands the monastery of Vurkano, a large building having a church with several other structures attached to it, and a garden of fruit-trees mixed with cypresses: the situation is very agreeable, and commands a noble view of the gulf and plain; but the late proceedings of Capt. George and his men, who often came to Vurkano, followed by the persecution of the Turkish authorities, who suspected, or pretended to suspect the monks of favouring the robbers, have driven them away, as well from the convent itself, as from its metokhia, one of which stands on the summit of Ithome, the other at the foot of Evan. The latter is that which I passed on the road from Andrussa. Between the ancient redoubt on the connecting ridge and the adjacent extremity of Ithome, I remark the foundations of one of the city gates placed exactly in the pass. A little below it, at the foot of the cliffs of Ithome, under a fragment of the wall, there is a fine source of water on the side of a road which leads down the north-eastern slope of Ithome to the bridge of Mavrozumeno.
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§ 1.386 As Pausanias describes the Clepsydra on the ascent to Ithome it might be suspected that this was the fountain anciently so called; but it is without the walls, nor can it be conceived that this position could ever have been on the ordinary route from the centre of the city to the acropolis. From the fountain I ascend, on foot, the steep acclivity of Ithome, and arrive on the summit at its south-eastern extremity: at the opposite end stand a church and the metokhi already mentioned. The wall of the citadel is in most parts of the same kind of masonry as that of the town; but there are some others which seem sufficiently ancient to have belonged to the elder Ithome. Probably Epaminondas found the old fortress quite dilapidated, and renewed it. Indeed it is consonant with the character of the Spartans, who despised fortifications, to suppose that they never maintained a permanent garrison in Ithome, and that they dis-mantled the fortress. On the northern and eastern sides, the wall runs along the edge of the perpendicular cliffs, from which the inclosed space slopes rapidly, in the opposite direction, towards the city, so that the wall of the southern and western side is built on the declivity of the mountain.
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§ 1.387 When I arrive on the summit of the mountain the whole country is involved in mist and rain, and clouds are floating around and below me; but the atmosphere soon clears, and affords one of the finest prospects in Greece. To the north-west, the sea-coast between the rivers Cyparisseeis and Neda is seen through the opening between the mountain of Arkadhia and the extremity of the range of Lycaeum. Along the northern boundary of the horizon extends the Lycaean range, of which the highest summit in view is now called Tetrazi. The Lycaeum unites to the east with the mountain now named Makryplai, and the latter with the range of Taygetum, which closes the prospect as far as the Messenian Gulf. The new objects of topography, which the elevation enables me to distinguish within the horizontal circuit, are a plain at the foot of the Lycaean range, which is separated by hills of no great height from the Pass of Kokhla. Towards the head of this plain are situated the villages of Sulima and Klisura; and it is separated by some other hills, among which is the village of Buga, from the upper part of the great Messenian plain; it gives rise to the principal branch of the Mavrozumeno, called Vasiliko. At the north-eastern angle of the upper Messenian plain rises a height, separated from the range of Makryplai by the gorge of a river, which
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§ 1.388 enters the plain at a ruined mosque below the small village of Fyla or Filia, which I passed March 4, at 4.30 P.M. On the summit of this advanced height there are some remains of Hellenic walls, now called Ellinikokastro, undoubtedly the ancient Andania, which, though a ruin in the time of Pausanias, was still a small city in the year 191 B.C., when it is well described by Livy as lying between Megalopolis and Messene. From hence begins the Makryplai, the continuation of which extends to Kalamata, and ends in a point two or three miles on this side of it; I perceive the castle of Kalamata just clear of the point. That town appears to stand in a kind of bay, between the projection just mentioned and the hill of Selitza: at the foot of the Makryplai, southward of Andania, are seen, in succession, the south-eastern part of the upper Messenian plain; the village Skala, on a ridge separating that plain from the lower, which extends to the sea; the fountain of Aio Floro with its derveni and plane tree; the sources and hamlet of Pidhima, Paleokastro, or Thuria and the villages at the foot of the mountain
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§ 1.389 which I passed in coming from Kalamata; Nisi, and the part of the plain around that town, is hidden by Mount Evan. To the right of that mountain is seen the mouth of the river Dhipotamo, or Pamisus, then the western coast of the gulf as far as Koroni, then Mount Lykodhemo, the peaked hill called Pilafi or Tavolaki, on the northern side of which passes the road from Andrussa to Navarin, then another hill clothed with oaks, standing in an elevated plain between the former and Gargaliano, and, lastly, the range of Kondovuni, over the right hand end of which is the mountain of Arkadhia and the sea, as already described. This comprehensive view of Messenia enables me to ascertain all the principal features of its ancient geography; at least of its eastern and most interesting part. Of the rivers, the most celebrated was the Pamisus, which Strabo describes as the largest stream in the Peloponnesus, but as being only 100 stades in lengtha. It might be supposed that this description would be sufficient to identify the Pamisus, on the most cursory view of the places; but this is not exactly the case. I have already remarked, that in the line in which Pausanias describes the fountains of the Pamisus to have been situated,
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§ 1.390 namely, in the road from Thuria towards Arcadia, there are two places, at which a copious stream issues from the foot of the mountain, and flows through the lower Messenian plain, and that these two rivers do not unite until within a small distance from the sea. I find, however, upon inquiry, that besides the sources at Aio Floro, there are others at the foot of the ridge of Skala, and that from all these the water collected is much greater than from the springs at Pidhima. Add to which, that the course of the Pidhima is too short, and the distance of its sources from Messene too great, for the 100 stades of Strabo, and the forty stades of Pausanias respectively; whereas both these distances are correct when applied to the course of the river which rises to the southward of Skala. The latter, therefore, is the Pamisus, and the Pidhima, as I have already shewn reason to believe, the Aris. The rivers and the places in the north-eastern part of Messenia are thus noticed by Pausanias. “After having descended thirty stades from the Megalopolitan gate of Messene, occurs the river Balyra, so called because Thamyris threw his lyre into it when he was deprived of sight. The Leucasia and
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§ 1.391 Amphitus unite their waters and join the Balyra. Beyond these is the Stenycleric plain, so named, it is said, from the hero Stenyclerus. On the opposite side of the plain, is the place anciently called Oichalia, but which is now a grove consisting chiefly of cypresses, and named Carnasium. It contains statues of Apollo Carneius, of Hermes carrying a ram, and of the Pure Virgin, a denomination of the daughter of Ceres; there is a spring of water near this statue. As to the sacred rites here performed, and which I consider inferior in holiness only to those of Eleusis, they must be kept secret by me, like every thing else relating to the great goddesses — but that a brazen vase was found here by the Argive commander, and that the bones of Eurytus, son of Melaneus, are here preserved, my dream has not forbidden me to divulge. The river Charadrus flows by Carnasium. On proceeding eight stades to the left of Carnasium, are the ruins of Andania. On the road from thence to Cyparissiae is the place called Polichne, and (then) the rivers Electra and Coeus. Beyond the Electra occur the fountain Achaea and the ruins of Dorium, where,
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§ 1.392 according to Homer, Thamyris was stricken with blindness for boasting that he could surpass the Muses themselves in singing.” The accompanying map of Messenia will be the best commentary upon this passage of Pausanias, and leaves me scarcely any observation to add to what my itinerary contains in illustration of it Pausanias very naturally ends his description of the road from Andania to Cyparissiae at the Coeus, (supposing it to have been the river of the Derveni of Kokhla, which I followed March 4th) as from the extremity of its vale the waters begin to flow towards the gulf of Cyparissiae: there consequently were in all probability the boundaries of the two districts. It takes me twenty-three minutes to descend from Ithome to Mavromati. Considerably above the level of that village, are seen two walls forming a right angle, apparently the terrace of some building. In the way from thence to Mavromati, five minutes short of the village, I observe also the remains of a wall, which appears to have crossed the slope of the mountain from one side to the other, forming an outer rampart of the acropolis towards the city, a mode of fortifying which was not uncommon in the cities of Greece. The inclosure between this wall
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§ 1.395 and the acropolis appears to have been the situation occupied by Demetrius the brother of Perseus, and his Macedonians, in their attempt to take Messene. Demetrius had been sent to the Peloponnesus by his father Philip with a few ships, to raise some money by plunder. Having landed on the coast of the Argeia, he made a rapid march by the shortest road into Messenia, and approached Ithome in the night. Being well acquainted with the locality, he scaled the wall in the part which lay between Ithome and the city. The Messenii advanced upon him from the city, while the garrison of the acropolis assailed him from above. The contest was for some time obstinate, but the Demetrians had been fatigued by their previous marches, and so vigorous was the attack of the Messenians, under the elder Aethidas, and even that of the women, who threw down stones and tiles upon them, that they were compelled at length to a disorderly flight. Many precipitated themselves over the walls from the steepest part of Ithome; some escaped by throwing away their armour. There is one passage, and one only, in the description of Messene by Pausanias, which I
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§ 1.394 cannot reconcile with actual appearances. He says, if I have rightly understood his words, that the circuit of the city comprehended a part of Mount Evan towards the Pamisus, whereas the existing walls strongly testify that no part of Evan was included in the city, nor even any part of Ithome towards the Pamisus. May it have been, that before the time of Pausanias the Messenians had partly abandoned the old inclosure, and built houses on the slope of Mount Evan? Or, is there not rather some corruption in the author's text?
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§ 1.395 CHAPTER X: MESSENIA. APRIL 24, continued. — At 2.25 I depart from Mavromati, and quit with regret its fine ruins, which are equally interesting as specimens of Grecian art at a time when it was in the most perfect state, and as a historical monument of the humiliation of the pride of Sparta, from which she never recovered. At 2.32 pass to the left of Simiza; — halt eight minutes at the metokhi of Vurkano. — At 3.10 leave Andrussa three quarters of a mile on the left, and pass over the undulated country at the back of it. At 4.10 cross a river, flowing from Mount Kondovuni, from near the monastery and village of Andromonastero. At 4.35 pass over another stream from near Klima, another village on Kondovuni: it winds, where we cross it, through a little vale shaded with plane trees and shrubs, among which nightingales are singing in great numbers. The road continues to traverse the same kind of undulated country, intersected with low woody eminences of an excellent soil, but little cultivated. These heights are the roots of Mount Kondovuni, and are separated from each other by narrow valleys watered by small streams. At 5.35 we cross a third river by a bridge, which is in the road from Andrussa to Petalidhi. Both the bridge and the river are now usually known by the name of Djidjori, which is that of the principal village on its banks. In ten minutes from thence arrive at the little village of Loghi, and lodge in the pyrgo of the Turk, who farms the dhekatia under the voivoda of Andrussa, and who is now at that town. Seeing our party approach, the villagers locked up the pyrgo and fled, and it was some time before they could be persuaded to return and let us in.
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§ 1.396 April 25. — At 6.30 I leave Loghi, and at 7 enter a narrow vale, in which runs the river Velika, coming from Kondovuni, and flowing into the sea a little to the northward of Petalidhi. The Velika inundated the valley a year or two ago, and carried away flocks and trees. In the bed of the river was afterwards found a great serpent, which was supposed to have been the cause of the inundation. At the bridge of the Velika I turn to the left, after having crossed the river, and pass through the woods to the remains of a castle of the middle ages, on a peninsula formed by the windings of the river and surrounded with cliffs. Return to the bridge, having lost half an hour, and proceed over a hilly, woody, and ill-cultivated tract: at 8.10 Zaimoglu is half a mile on the right and Kurtaga three miles distant on the side of Kondovuni. At 8.20 cross a stream, flowing to the left, and soon after enter a forest of oaks which extends over all the adjacent part of the mountain on the right, and covers a great part of the range of Kondovuni, as far as the forest of Kokhla on the road from Arkadhia to Messene. On the right is a hill which forms the southwestern extremity of Kondovuni, sloping into the elevated plain which extends from Paleo Avarino to Arkadhia. This height, which I mentioned as having seen from Ithome to the right of Mount Tavolaki, is entirely covered with oaks, except near the village of Kondozoni, which stands upon it. The oaks which we pass, like those of the forest of Kokhla, are short and crooked: I see no velanidhies among them. We have now crossed the highest of the ridges of the
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§ 1.398 undulated country which connects Kondovuni with Lykodhemo, and which separates the course of the waters flowing to the Messenian Gulf, from those tending towards the western coast. We descend, at 9.18, into an elevated vale at the foot of Lykodhemo, on its northern side. Tjaban is a quarter of a mile on the left, and two miles in the same direction, on the side of the mountain, Kambasi; the country on the right is covered with oaks. At 9.48 we pass Sulinari, situated to the left in a retired hollow at the foot of Mount Lykodhemo. The three last-mentioned villages belong to the district of Mothoni. The valley terminates at the peaked hill, called Tavolaki, which we leave on the left: on the right is the hill of Kondozoni. The harbour and island of Navarin, the ruined castle of Paleo Avarino, and a corner of the fortress of Neokastro, now become visible, and the road enters the elevated level which extends to Gargaliano, and from thence along the foot of a lofty mountain parallel to the shore, to Filiatra and Arkadhia. At 10.15 we enter upon this plain, which is well cultivated with corn; to the left are barren hills, which, branching from Lykodhemo, extend to Mothoni. At 10.30 arrive at the head of the aqueduct of Neokastro. The sources issue at a sandy spot inclosed and covered by a circular building, in which originates a stone pipe. Soon afterwards the road crosses an uncultivated tract, and, at 11.30, descends into a valley terminating in the centre of the port of Navarin, and watered by a stream called Pesili. At 11.20 I arrive, by a bad paved causeway, at the skala of Neokastro, and lodge in the house of Kyr Ghiorghio Ikonomopulo, who has all the trade of Neokastro in his hands, and is agent for some of the European nations. His house and magazines, which stand on the water side three or four hundred yards below the fort, very naturally excite the cupidity of the poor Turks of the town, who are starving by the effects of their pride and idleness. He tells me that their demands upon him are so frequent, that he finds himself under the necessity of abandoning Navarin to settle in some place, where, not being the only Greek of property, he may be less exposed to extortion.
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§ 1.399 April 26. — Edris Bey the commandant, whom I visit today in the fortress, is a young Stambuli, or Constantinopolitan, who, having spent the greater part of the property left him by his father, one of the chief kapidjis of the Sultan, was glad to sacrifice the remainder in obtaining this government, though, with all his efforts, its profits are so small, that he is often under the necessity of having recourse to Kyr Ghiorghio. There are about 300 Turkish families in the fortress, most of them in a wretched state of poverty. The castle stands on a cape, projecting towards the southern end of Sphacteria, off which there is a rock, called, from the tomb of a Turkish saint upon it, Delikli-baba. Between this rock and the fortress is the entrance into the bay of Navarin, a noble basin, with a depth of water from twelve to twenty passi. It is said that there is occasionally some danger from the south and south-west, notwithstanding the narrowness of the entrance, which is not more than three fourths of a mile. Ships generally anchor at about a third of a mile from the skala, where they are sheltered by the point of the castle; or behind the island of Marathonisi, which lies a little northward of the centre of the harbour. The fortress consists of a low wall without any ditch, flanked by small bastions. On the side towards the sea, where it ought to be strongest, it has received only a miserable patching since it was battered by the Russians from the island, in the year 1770. The district of Neokastro contains only twenty villages, none of which are large, except Vervitza, -and this is not situated in the περιχωρα or vicinity, but in Arcadia, not far from the temple of Phigaleia. The agricultural productions are of the usual kind, the only exports are six or seven hundred barrels of oil in good years, some vermilion, tobacco, and goat-skins.
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§ 1.401 April 27. I employed the whole of this day in examining the island of Navarin, anciently called Sphacteria, or Sphagia, making a tour of it in a boat, and then walking over it on foot; I afterwards visited the peninsula of Paleo Avarino; and made a plan of the whole scene, with a view to illustrate the description by Thucydides of the celebrated contest between the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, which occurred on this spot in the seventh year of the Peloponnesian war. An extract from the narrative of the historian will be the best accompaniment to the plan. It was in the early part of the summer, when the Lacedaemonians were making their yearly invasion of Attica by land, and the Athenian fleet was at Pylus on its route to Sicily, that the further operations of both the belligerents were for some time interrupted by an enterprise of Demosthenes, one of the commanders of the Athenian fleet, who, foreseeing that the advantages which had been derived from placing Athenians in the garrison of Naupactus, would result, in a much greater degree, from a similar operation at Pylus, once an important city, but then only a desert promontory, had the good fortune, while the Athenian ships were wind-bound in the harbour, to effect his purpose of fortifying the peninsula of Pylus, although the measure was contrary to the opinion of his colleagues in command, and to the wishes of his followers in general. Its beneficial effects however were soon felt. The Lacedaemonian forces retreated from Attica, and the Spartan government was under the necessity of collecting another army from different parts of the Peloponnesus, which marched to Pylus by land, while their fleet was withdrawn from Corcyra, and hastened to the same place. Upon their arrival, the Lacedaemonians found Demosthenes in the harbour, with only five triremes, and two Messenian vessels, the Athenian fleet having sailed to Zacynthus on its way to Sicily. By means of their army, and sixty ships, the Lacedaemonians obtained immediate possession of all the neighbourhood, except Pylus. This place Demosthenes was determined upon defending, until he could receive succour from the Athenian fleet, which he had immediately advertised of his danger.
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§ 1.403 The Lacedaemonians, after having occupied Sphacteria with 420 hoplitae, and their attendant Helots, probably about 1000 in all, proceeded to attack Pylus both by sea and land. Demosthenes, hauling up his galleys on shore, placed them so as to serve as an outwork to the adjacent part of his fortification, and having left for the defence of the walls on the land side all his troops except sixty hoplitae and a few bowmen, he led these in person to the sea-side, at the spot where he expected that the enemy would be tempted to debark, in consequence of the weakness of that part of the wall, and the lowness of the coast. The place nevertheless was rugged, difficult of access, and open to the main sea, so that the Lacedaemonians, however numerous, could not attack in large bodies at the same moment; and hence the small force, headed by Demosthenes, was enabled to resist all the attacks of forty-three Laconian ships, while his garrison in the fortress successfully opposed the attempts of the enemy's land forces, until, having failed in all their endeavours during two days, the Lacedaemonians gave up the attack, and sent to Asine for timber to make engines, with a view to an assault on the fort, upon the side towards the harbour, where, though the wall was higher, the landing was easier. This
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§ 1.404 operation however was prevented, by the arrival from Zacynthus of forty ships of the Athenians, who the very next day attacked and defeated the Lacedaemonian fleet in the harbour, and captured five of their triremes. The aspect of affairs was now totally changed; — the Athenians were masters of the harbour, and threatened the entire destruction of the adverse fleet, while the enemy's garrison of Sphacteria was cut off from all probability of relief. In this alarming position, the Lacedaemonians agreed to a suspension of arms, for the purpose of sending ambassadors to Athens to treat for peace. The terms of the truce were, that all the Lacedaemonian fleet as well at Pylus as in the other parts of Laconia, should be placed in the hands of the Athenians during the truce, and that the troops in Sphacteria should be supplied with no more than a certain allowance of provisions at stated intervals. As soon as it was ascertained that the negotiations at Athens had failed of producing any agreement, and the suspension of arms being in consequence at an end, an attack upon the enemy's forces in Sphacteria was resolved upon by the Athenians, not less in consideration of the advantages under which such an attack would be made by them, than of their own situation, for at the same time that they were blockading the
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§ 1.405 enemy in Sphacteria, they were themselves besieged in Pylus, where they suffered much from want of water, while to the Lacedaemonians in Sphacteria their friends brought provisions to the back of the island in the night, or whenever a strong wind setting in from the sea, obliged the Athenian galleys to keep at a distance from the shore; nor could the Athenians forget how remote they were from Athens and their nearest resources, or avoid looking forward to the embarrassed situation in which they would find themselves, if the contest should be prolonged until the approach of winter. Thucydides describes Sphacteria as “desert, pathless, covered with wood fifteen stades in length, and separated from the main land by two straits, of which the southern would admit eight or nine triremes abreast, the northern only two.” At the moment when Demosthenes was meditating an attack, it happened that the Lace-daemonians, being much crowded, and making many fires for cooking their provisions, a conflagration accidentally took place, which, clearing the ground of the wood, afforded the Athenian commander a better knowledge of the enemy's position and numbers than he had before possessed, as well as a greater facility for the movement of his troops, when they should be landed.
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§ 1.406 Just at this time, Cleon, who was appointed the associate of Demosthenes in the command, arrived from Athens with a reinforcement. The first step taken was to send a proposal to the Lacedaemonians on the continent to treat for the surrender of their comrades on the island; this having been refused, on the following evening all the Athenian hoplitae embarked in a few triremes, crossed the harbour in the night, and having landed a little before day, as well from the open sea as from the harbour, to the number of 800 hoplitae, marched towards the advanced guard of the enemy. “For thus,” adds the historian, “the Lacedaemonians lay quartered. In the advance there were about thirty hoplitae; in the middle and most level part of the island, and around the water, lay Epitadas the commander, with the larger portion of his troops; the remainder, not many in number, occupied the extremity of the island towards Pylus, where it was precipitous towards the sea, and on the land side very difficult to attack. Here stood an old castle, built of rough stones which they thought might be useful to them, should they be obliged to retreat before superior numbers. Thus were they disposed.” “The advanced posts were taken by surprise,
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§ 1.407 and the men were captured or slain. In the morning all the forces were landed from the Athenian fleet, which now amounted to upwards of seventy sail. The Athenian hoplitae opposed the Spartans in front, but without coming to an engagement, while their light troops occupying the heights in every direction, incessantly annoyed the enemy's flanks and rear, and derived from their numbers a confidence which increased with success. The Spartans, tormented by adversaries whom they could not reach, and almost blinded by the dust of the woods lately burnt, were at length under the necessity of retreating to the old fort upon the hill towards Pylus. Here secured on their flanks and rear, and presenting a narrow front to the enemy, they resisted all the attacks of the very superior force of the enemy for the greater part of the day, and as both parties were almost equally distressed by fatigue, thirst, and the heat of the sun, they would probably have maintained their post still longer, had not the chief of the Messenians proposed to the Athenian commanders to lead a party of men under the cliffs where they should be unseen by the Lacedaemonians, and thus to come round upon their rear. With some difficulty this movement was successfully effected, upon which the Lacedaemonians being summoned to surrender, and having received a sort of consent
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§ 1.408 from their friends on the opposite side of the harbour, gave up their arms, and were conveyed prisoners on board the Athenian galleys to the number of 292, the rest of the 420 having been slain. The investment of Sphacteria had lasted seventy-two days, from the time of the naval action in the harbour. During the first twenty days, the Spartans received stated quantities of provisions, according to the terms of the truce; during the remainder of the time they were supplied by stealth. The humiliation of their arrogant and hitherto successful enemy, was by no means the only advantage which the Athenians derived from their success at Pylus; for the Lacedaemonians lost also the whole of their fleet, which by the terms of the truce had been placed as a pledge in the hands of the Athenians, and which they now kept on the pretence, that during the truce the Lacedaemonians had, contrary to an article of the convention, committed hostilities against Pylus.” An inspection of the island illustrates the description of Thucydides in the most satisfactory manner; the level and source of water in the middle where the Lacedaemonians encamped — the summit at the northern end to which they retired — the landing-places on the western side, to which the Helots brought provisions, are all perfectly recognizable. Of the fort, of loose
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§ 1.409 and rude construction on the summit, it is not to be expected that any remains should now exist; but there are some ruins of a signal tower of a later age, on the same site. The summit is a pile of rough rocks ending in a peak; it slopes gradually to the shore on every side, except to the harbour, where the cliffs are perpendicular, though here, just above the water, there is a small slope capable of admitting the passage of a body of men active in climbing among rocks and difficult places. By this pass it is probable the Messenians came upon the rear of the Lacedaemonians on the summit, for just at the southern termination of the pass there is a passage through the cliffs which border the greater part of the eastern shore of the island, so that by this opening and along the pass under the rocks to the northward of it, the Messenians had the means of passing unseen from the centre of the island to the rear of the Lacedaemonians on the summit. Though this hill, as I have observed, slopes gradually from its rocky peak to the shore, on every side except towards the harbour, it does not admit of a landing at its foot, except in the calmest weather, nor is it easily assailed on any side by land, on account of the ruggedness of the summit, except by the means to which the Messenians resorted, so that the words of
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§ 1.410 Thucydides respecting it are perfectly accurate. The southern extremity of the island is rocky, steep, and difficult of access, and forms a separate hill; in every other part the ground slopes from the cliffs on the side of the harbour to the western shore, which, though rocky, is low, so that when the weather is calm, it is more easy in face of an opponent to land, and to make way into the island on that side than on the eastern shore, where the cliffs admit of an easy access only in two places, one towards the northern end, of which I have already spoken, the other in the middle of the island, where an opening in the cliffs leads immediately into the most level part of it; exactly in the opening stands a small church of the Panaghia. There are also two small creeks adjacent to each other, near the southern end of the eastern side of the island, opposite to Neokastro: near these creeks there is a well. The principal source of water is towards the middle of the island, at an excavation in the rock twenty feet deep, which seems to be more natural than artificial; for below a shallow surface of soil, in which there is a circular peristomium of modern masonry, the excavation in the rock is irregular and slanting. The island furnishes a fine pasture in the present season, and horses at sixty paras a head are sent into it
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§ 1.411 for the spring fodder, to which in Turkey they are universally accustomed. They have nothing to drink all the time they are in the island. In one or two places there are groves of high bushes, and there are low shrubs in every part of it. It often happens, as it did in the seventh summer of the Peloponnesian war, that a fire, occurring accidentally or of intention, clears the face of the island during the droughts of that season: the northern hill exhibits at this moment recent marks of a similar conflagration. The promontory Coryphasium is crowned with the ruins of a fortress or castle of the middle ages, called Paleo-Avarino Avarino has been changed into Navarino by the habit of using the accusative case, and by attaching, in common pronunciation, the final N of the article to the substantive. Navarino, however, is a form of the name, more Italian than Greek. Below the ruined fortress on the northern side, at the bottom of the cliffs, there is a fine cavern called Vodhio, or Voidho-Kilia, “the ox's belly”, which gives name also to a small circular port immediately below it. The cavern is sixty feet long, forty wide, and forty high, having a roof like a Gothic arch. The entrance is triangular, thirty feet long and twelve high; at the top of the cavern
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§ 1.412 there is an opening in the surface of the hill above, which may have served for a secret communication between the castle of Avarino and the harbour. In the cavern just under the hole, I found a dead hare, which seems to have been killed by falling through it. The earth of the cavern is used for making nitre, by a process of simple boiling and crystallization. There is another cavern in the cliffs, on the northern side of the harbour, not so large as the Voidho-Kilia. The harbour has a narrow entrance between low abrupt cliffs; it is nevertheless bad, exposed to a continual surf, and capable only of admitting boats. It is separated, by a low semicircular ridge of sand, from a large shallow lagoon abounding in fish, the catching of which is a monopoly belonging to the government, and is generally farmed by the governor of Neokastro. The lagoon encompasses all the eastern side of the hill of Coryphasium, and is separated from the harbour of Navarin by another sandy stripe of land, in which there is a narrow opening which forms the communication between the harbour and the lagoon: there is a sandy level between the hill and the lagoon, both at the northern and at the southern extremity of the promontory. Pausanias thus describes Coryphasium:
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§ 1.413 “There is a road, of not more than a hundred stades in length, from Mothone to the promontory Coryphasium, upon which Pylus is situated; this city was founded by Pylus, son of Cleson, with a colony of Leleges from the Megaris, but who, having been soon driven out by some Pelasgi from Iolcus, who were led by Neleus, went to the neighbouring country of Eleia, and there founded another Pylus. Neleus raised Pylus to such dignity that Homer calls it Nηλήϊου αστυ. Here is a temple of Minerva Coryphasia, and a house named the House of Nestor, which contains a picture of him. Within the town there is a monument of Nestor, and a little without the town that which is called the tomb of Thrasymedes. In the city there is a cavern which is said to have been the stable of the oxen of Neleus and Nestor. It appears to me, that these oxen fed at a distance from the city, for all around it the country is sandy, and this Homer testifies, who always calls Nestor king of the sandy Pylus. The island Sphacteria lies before the harbour of Pylus, like Rheneia before the anchorage of Delos. In like manner as other obscure places, such as Caphareus and Psyttaleia, have been rendered celebrated by human fortunes, so also Sphacteria has been made known to all the world, by the
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§ 1.414 defeat of the Lacedaemonians; in memory of which event the Athenians erected a statue of Victory in the acropolis.” It is here seen, that Pausanias, like Thucydides, says not a word of the lagoon near Coryphasium, which now forms so remarkable a feature in the topography of Navarin: we may confidently conclude, therefore, that it is of recent formation. The mode in which such shallow maritime salt lakes (by the ancients called λιμνοθατάτται or στομαλίμναι) are formed in process of time on low sandy shores is well known: and the frequency of their occurrence on the coasts of the Mediterranean, renders the supposition of the ancient non-existence of the lagoon the more probable in the present instance. The peninsula of Pylus must, in that case, have been surrounded anciently with a sandy plain as Pausanias describes it, and thus the epithet of Homer becomes so much the more applicable to the Coryphasian Pylus. Coryphasium, like Sphacteria, is a precipice on the eastern side, or towards the lagoon. To the westward, or towards the open sea, it slopes gradually, particularly on the south-west, where Demosthenes succeeded in opposing the landing of Brasidas and the Lacedaemonians. Like the island also, the promontory is higher at the northern end, so that the cliffs on the eastern
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§ 1.415 side of the hill diminish in height from north to south: it was at the latter extremity, where the shore, though rocky, is sheltered from the open sea, that a debarkation was more practicable; and here it seems to have been that the Lacedaemonians, after having failed in the former attempt to land, projected an attack upon the wall of the Athenians; for here, though the wall was higher, the landing, as Thucydides observes, was easier than in other parts. In the clear and consistent narrative of the contemporary historian, there is but one assertion which can offer any difficulty on an actual inspection of the locality. He says that the northern entrance of the harbour of Pylus admitted of the passage of two ships, and the southern of eight or nine. Now the southern entrance is certainly more than 1200 yards wide, and the northern is about 150; the proportions of the numbers, therefore, do not agree, and even if we were to apply his remark to the northern entrance, as furnishing the lower scale of comparison, it would follow that the ancient triremes required a space of between two and three hundred feet for their movements, which it is impossible to believe. All that can be said in explanation is, that Thucydides was not
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§ 1.416 himself engaged in the affair at Pylus, being employed at that time in Thrace; so that he may never have seen or carefully examined the breadth of the harbour's mouth, and may have been misinformed respecting it. According to the truce entered into by the Lacedaemonians and Athenians in the ninth year of the Peloponnesian war, the Lacedaemonian garrison in Coryphasium was not to pass beyond the mountains Buphras and Tomeus. As the object of the article must have been to give that garrison the advantage of the plain to a certain extent to the eastward, it is probable that Buphras and Tomeus were the two hills now called Kondozoni and Tavolaki. I will not pretend to say which of them has the best claim by its form to have received its name from a supposed resemblance to the instrument for cutting leather called τομευς. The situation of the Πύλος Nηληϊος, or Pylus of Neleus and his successors, appears to have been a much disputed question in the time of the Roman Empire. Strabo quotes a proverbial verse, to shew that there were three Pyli near the western coast of the Peloponnesus,
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§ 1.417 all of which claimed the honour of being the Pylus of Nestor. One was in the Eleia to the eastward of Elis, the second in Tryphylia, about four miles from the coast, between Lepreum and Samicum, the third at Coryphasium. Concerning the second of these Pausanias is silent, and even Strabo speaks of it only as a site. Nevertheless he thinks it was the real Neleian Pylus, which Pausanias, on the contrary, does not hesitate, as we have just seen, in fixing at Coryphasium, although at the same time agreeing in opinion with the people of Elis that Homer, in describing the Alpheius as “flowing through the land of the Pylii,” had the Eleiac Pylus in view. It seems much more probable, however, that the poet, by the land of the Pylii, intended the whole Neleian kingdom, for he employs the single word Πυλος with the same meaning, describing both Thryoessa on the Alpheius and the cities of the Messeniac Gulf as the extreme or frontier places of Pylus. Strabo himself was sensible that such was the meaning of Homer, as well in these instances, as in that of Πυλιων δια γαιης. These words, therefore, may rather be taken as an indication that the Neleian kingdom extended
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§ 1.418 to the northward of the Alpheius, and that it included the Pisatis, having been bounded perhaps by the cape now called Katakolo, and the ridge which branches inland from thence. Strabo allows that the Messenian Pylii had a better claim than those of the Eleia to the honour in question, and admits that the greater part of the poets and later writers, supposed Nestor to have been of Messenia, as indeed, we find, upon a reference to Pindar, Thucydides, Diodorus, and others. But, he adds, the Ομηρικώτεροι, or those who followed the words of Homer, insisted that the Pylus of Nestor must have been that, through the lands of which the Alpheius flowed, and this argument, the only one which the Pylii of Eleia could adduce for their claim, he thinks applicable to Pylus of Triphylia. In favour of the Pylii of Triphylia, against those of Coryphasium, he brings forward the following passages of the poet. First, the description which Nestor gives in the Iliad of his juvenile exploits against the Epeii, in revenge for the hostilities of Hercules against Pylus, in which all the children of Neleus, except Nestor, had perished. Nestor having resolved upon a
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§ 1.419 predatory incursion into Elis, marched thither suddenly and carried off fifty herds of oxen, as many of sheep, as many of hogs, as many of goats, with fifty mares followed by numerous foals. All these, some of which, observes Strabo, were animals neither capable of moving fast nor far, Nestor lodged safely at night in the Neleian city. The third day, the Epeii having collected their forces at Thryoessa, on the Alpheius, with the intention of besieging it, the news was brought to Pylus in the night by Minerva, upon which Nestor led forth his cavalry, and after a day's march halted at the Minyeius, which joined the sea near Arene. Here he waited until the morning, when, moving forward, he arrived on the Alpheius at noon. Both these operations, says Strabo, were impracticable if the Neleian city had been at Coryphasium, but practicable if the situation was that of the Triphyliae Pylus. His arguments from the Odyssey are, that after Telemachus, coming from Ithaca, had disembarked at the temple of Neptune, and arrived
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§ 1.420 at Pylus, a courier was dispatched to the ship to invite his companions; and again, that on returning from Sparta and approaching Pylus, Telemachus desired Pisistratus to turn off to the sea-side: — both these incidents, says Strabo, shewing that the city of Nestor was not on the sea-side, like the Messeniac Pylus, but removed from it, like the Triphyliae, which was more than thirty stades distant from the shore. Again, that Telemachus, on his return from Pylus towards Ithaca, speaks only of his passing Cruni, Chalcis, Pheia, and Elis; whereas, says Strabo, had Nestor lived at Coryphasium, his route would have been marked by the great rivers Neda, Acidon, and Alpheius, instead of such obscure brooks or places as Cruni, Chalcis, and Pheia. The geographer then applies the same tests to the Eliac Pylus, and easily shews the absurdity of its claim, though he strangely errs in supposing that this Pylus was on the sea-side, since we have the testimony of Pausanias who visited its ruins, in agreement with that of other authors, to shew that it was situated some ten miles farther inland than the city of Elis.
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§ 1.421 In support of the opinion which places the Neleian Pylus at Coryphasium, now Old Navarin, it may first be replied to Strabo, that the march of Nestor to the Minyeius, supposing it to have been performed solely with cavalry, was not impracticable, for the information of Minerva having been received in the night, it was not difficult to make a forty miles march with cavalry before the ensuing evening. As to the driving of the cattle, that perhaps must be admitted as a poetical licence, like the numbers of each kind of cattle so curiously enumerated by the poet; indeed, if possibility is to be considered, Strabo's hypothesis will hardly stand that test, since it would scarcely have been possible to drive such a multitude of cattle from the Alpheius to the Triphyliae Pylus, on the evening of a day which had been employed in collecting them. In regard to the argument founded upon the mention by Homer of Cruni, Chalcis, and Pheia, and upon his not mentioning the Neda and Alpheius, it is to be observed that, in either case, whether Telemachus came from the Triphyliae or the Messenian Pylus, the Alpheius was to be passed. The omission of that great river, therefore, is to be accounted for in either case. But, in fact, the verse which names those places, though Strabo himself considered it as genuine,

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