36 STRABO. CASAUB. 359. to Pylus, the island Sphagia, called also Sphacteria. It was here that the Lacedaemonians lost three hundred men, 1 who were besieged by the Athenians and taken prisoners. Two islands, called Strophades, 2 belonging to the Cy- parissii, lie off at sea in front of this coast, at the distance of about 400 stadia from the continent, in the Libyan and south- ern sea. According to Thucydides this Pylus was the naval station of the Messenians. It is distant from Sparta 400 stadia. 3. Next is Methone. 3 This city, called by the poet Peda- sus, was one of the seven, it is said, which Agamemnon pro- mised to Achilles. There Agrippa killed, in the Actian war, Bogus, the king of the Maurusii, a partisan of Antony's, having got possession of the place by an attack by sea. 4. Continuous with Methone is Acritas, 4 where the Messe- nian Gulf begins, which they call also Asinaeus from Asine, a small city, the first we meet with on the gulf, and having the same name as the Hermionic Asine. This is the commencement of the gulf towards the west. Towards the east are the Thyrides, 5 as they are called, bor- dering upon the present Laconia near Casnepolis, 6 and Tae- narum. In the intervening distance, if we begin from the Thyrides, we meet with (Etylus, 7 by some called Beitylus ; then Leuc- trum, a colony of the Leuctri in Boeotia ; next, situated upon a steep rock, Cardamyle; 8 then Pherae, bordering upon Thu- ria, and Gerenia, from which place they say Nestor had the epithet Gerenian, because he escaped thither, as we have mentioned before. They show in the Gerenian territory a temple of ^Esculapius Triccceus, copied from that at the Thes- salian Tricca. Pelops is said to have founded Leuctrum, and Charadra, and Thalami, now called the Boeotian Thalami, having brought with him, when he married his sister Niob.3 to Amphion, some colonists from Boeotia. 1 Thucydides, b. iv. ch. 38. The number was 292. 2 Strivali. 3 According to Pausanias, Mothone, or Methone, was the Pedasus of Homer. It is the modern Modon. 4 Cape Gallo. The Gulf of Messenia is now the Gulf of Coron. 5 The name Thyrides, the little gates, is probably derived from the fable which placed the entrance of the infernal regions at Tsenarum, Cape Matapan. For Cinaethium I read Csenepolis, as suggested by Falconer, and ap- proved by Coray. 7 Vitulo. Scardamula.
